I’m waiting in line at Walmart with my young baby. It’s a holiday weekend, and the place is packed. I’ve been standing there about thirty minutes, and it’s almost my turn, when the man in front of me suddenly notices my baby and strikes up a conversation. He’s massively tall, middle-aged, with long, straggly gray hair, and has glasses with what looks like a wadded up napkin behind one of the lenses. Despite his odd appearance, we’re having a nice normal conversation. My baby starts to fuss, and I mention that I really need to get him home to feed him. At this, our conversation takes a disturbing turn. He casually mentions that he used to breastfeed when he was a cop in the Bronx. I think “There is no way he said what I think he said. I must have misheard him”. He then proceeds to go on and on about his life as a cop in the Bronx, and all the terrible child abuse he’s seen, and how he was a detective and they transferred him to this area. I smile and nod politely. He is clearly out of his mind. It’s almost my turn at the register, but I pretend I forgot something and politely excuse myself. Then I go stand in another line for half an hour.

Rachel – NH

I received a picture message from an unknown number today. I recognized the area code and thought maybe it was my sister or brother-in-law sending me a picture of their new baby. I wasn’t sure if I had their new number in my phone. This is the picture that I received.

It was some random guy trying to impress Sharry.  I sent him a picture of me making a weird face, and told him he had the wrong number. ) Always check the number before sending a shirtless cool picture of yourself, man. On second thought, don’t send pictures like this. It isn’t cool.

Micah the Admin

First of all, I am a pretty short person and I have a young face. My whole life people have thought I was younger than I actually am. So when I was about 15, my mom and I were shopping and I went to try on some clothes. In this store, they had a section for women, which split into two sections: one for adults and one for kids. After going through the quick process of getting into the dressing room, she directs me towards the right section that I’d never been to: the kids section. I was very confused. There isn’t a sign that differentiates the two sections, but I could tell it was the kids section by the much smaller stalls and bunches of five year olds with their agitated moms. I hesitated to go there. ‘The kids section? Come on! I’m 15!’ I thought. But she looked at me as if she was thinking ‘Go ahead kid! What are you waiting for?’ I went ahead to the kids section feeling very…awkward. Later I heard my mom calling for me, and I told her where I was. When she walked up, she herself was confused. ‘WHY are you over here?’ After that I was very tempted to make a shirt that said how old I was to wear everywhere I went. People were always acting as if I was kid!

Amelia – Somewhere

Years ago my husband’s grandmother died suddenly. We drove the eight hours from Texas to Florida where the funeral would be held with Micah’s brother and his wife. To save on money we all decided to spend the two nights with “Patricia,” a nice woman who was related to them somehow.  We arrived at the house late at night. It was very big and in a posh neighborhood. The first thing I noticed was the enormous Christmas tree, fully decorated, in the living room. It was the end of April. Patricia greeted us and seemed a little out of sorts. Not unusual, I thought, after somebody close had just passed away.

She took us on a tour of the home, showing us the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, all that. She showed us the “Martis Gras” room, a sort of party room with a full bar. All four walls were entirely made up of windows and no curtains, so even the wall connected to the Christmas-tree-living-room was “exposed.” There were party decorations from a month prior all over the floor. Empty cups, busted balloons, confetti, masks, etc.  She told us it was the room where the dogs usually slept. There was dog food spilled over on the floor next to a love seat. “That’s weird,” I thought to myself. “Her house is so grand, why is she showing us a messy room?” She showed us the library next.  Another enormous Christmas tree was there among the bookshelves, half-decorated. It was in the process of being taken down, but whoever started had given up long ago.  ”That is really weird,” I thought.  There was a sheetless twin sized blow up mattress on the floor.  Huh.  And then there was a pretty little couch chair off to the side WITH A HUGE CHANDELIER SITTING ON IT. “Am I in a horror film? This isn’t right.” 

And then she showed us upstairs where the bathroom was, the bedrooms, and then she said goodnight and went to her room.  Umm… What? We were confused. Where were we supposed to sleep? And then it dawned on us… “I think we’re supposed to sleep in the crazy rooms,” one of us said. There was a single-person blow up mattress. A chair with a chandelier on it. A love seat in the window-room. No blankets, no sheets, no pillows, goodnight! Completely weirded out and exhausted from the day’s drive we each picked a room and tried to make it work. My brother-in-law and his wife got the library. We got the Martis Gras room. Micah slept on the floor on little decorative pillows and I slept on the love seat. I had brought a blanket with us “just in case” and if I hadn’t I don’t know what we would have done. We woke up the next morning and Patricia never acted like anything was weird about the arrangement. All the other guests, however, were mortified when they heard about it. Oh, and it was my birthday. Very memorable.

Beth the Other Admin

In second grade I was chosen by my friends as the leader of a few areas. Those of you who know me know that I am horrible at anything athletic, but this was before I got my belly. I was the fastest runner and chosen as the best artist. One day my friends decided to have a gorilla drawing contest. I wasn’t to compete. I would be the judge. Sheri and Ryan were the only ones who got close. They brought the papers to me, and I picked the one that was by far the best. “Ryan wins.”
Sheri snapped back faster than lightning with a weepy voice, “You just picked his because I’m black!”
I had never even thought of such a thing. We were in second grade. I was instantly struck with fear, embarrassment and a sense of injustice.
So I replied with the best answer I could think of at the time. “No, I didn’t!” I think that was awkward for everyone in a five-feet radius.

Micah the Admin

Ok, auh this was a terrible night, my boyfriend had decided to go get me a ring so he could propose on Christmas Eve, so he knew I *hated* gold and I liked pearls, so that’s cool. He went to a little jewellery shop and ordered a ring in my size to arrive the week before Christmas Eve, it was platinum with a single pearl instead of a diamond. Lovely. Ok.
So on Christmas Eve he takes a little bag out and passes it to me, I have no idea that it’s a ring or that he’s proposing until I open it, actually even after I open it I’m still not sure because he hasn’t said anything…and in the ring box is, ok – this is quite hard to explain unless you saw it but, it was a bright gold hoop, not shaped like a ring and not flat like you would put on, but rounded all around, like an earring hoop with a pearl fixed into it and instead of being set into the box how you would set a ring in it was in a box sitting on the velvet….so I was like, oh there’s only one here, where’s the other? *Smile* obviously he’s really confused and he starts getting really nervous and is like ‘Other what…?’ So I’m like…..’Hang on, what is this?’ and he’s like ‘Uh…it’s a ring’ ……THEN it clicks but it just felt weird because, I started thinking…wow – why has my boyfriend got me a gold ring when he knows I hate gold, doesn’t he know me at all?? So I’m kind of dismayed. He sees my face and THEN says ‘No, no, no it’s ok! Don’t worry I got you a platinum one but it didn’t arrive on time so the woman in the shop gave me this to propose with and said I could come back afterwrds and change it to the platinum one. A WOMAN TOLD HIM THIS!
Ok. Moment pretty much ruined, that’s ok – no biggy, we’re engaged…yay!. Feeling really sorry for him because he’s totally down with how it all happened so it’s all good, I’m just annoyed that someone advised him even after they told him, no, no she won;t like it to do this! Argh, madness.. It turns out some woman in the jewellery shop told him that the ring would be in the week before Christmas Eve, he went in every day the whole week up until Christmas Eve and they put him off, again, again, again….until the day before when they said, oh it’s not going to be here until January the 10th but here, take this three sizes too big gold hoop and use it to propose with and you can change it when you come back!!!!!!
So we took it back and when we went in the woman in the shop is looking really pleased with herself….the first thing he says when we walk in is ‘Umm, she didn’t like it’ so she looks at me and is like ‘You didn’t like it?’ as if this is shocking to her…and I’m like in a nice but serious way ‘Well it’s not so much that I didn’t like it, but you kind of way can’t be giving a guy a ring that he knows his girlfriend won’t like to propose with as a surprise, it’s not like he can forewarn me…’hey you know I’m going to use a ring you won’t like here but bear with me, we’ll change it in January…now will you be my wife??’ She is totally affronted by this, she’d totally convinced him this was an ace idea….(LoLz)and walks out to the back of the shop and leaves the other woman to refund the ring…….aaargh….I totally came away feeling like the baddie! :O

Tanya – Belfast

The first Valentines my boyfriend and I had togther we were working in the same place. He was my manager. I had spent the whole day banging on about how comercialised it was etc. etc. so he didn’t get me anything until that afternoon when the other girls in work cajoled him into going to the chemist across the road and getting me some gifts. So he came back with a box of make up that I use but in the wrong colour. The next day I go to the chemist to change the makeup, it has a makeup section and there’s a queue of women behind me when I get to the till. I tell the woman at the counter I need to change the colour of the foundation and so on…..she takes the box and with a big smile says loudly, “Oh, yes lovely, I remember that man coming in yesterday….and didn’t he get you perfume as well?”
I gave a frozen smile and was like, “um no actually, he didn’t.” She went bright red and became really flustered and quickly changed the foundation while stammering about how she must have it wrong and how busy it was the day before. Embarrassed enough I try to leave when another woman working there shouts from the other counter “Oh Mandy, *chuckle, chuckle* are you getting people in trouble again?!” and has a good laugh with the women in the queue. By this point my anger has reached epic proportions, and I’m storming over to work to confront my poor boyfriend who had to spend a whole day convinceing me he didn’t buy perfume for anyone else with reciept proof and an offer to ring all the numbers in his phone….I felt awful – but it just goes to show how easily you can get someone in trouble with an innocent remark!

Tanya – Belfast

This is unbelievable. Notice the Admiral trying to keep a straight face.

When I worked at Wal-Mart I was the under-paid angry customer problem solver. We had a policy saying that one could only use a check if that person’s name was on the check. This was obvious to me. Don’t let people use stolen checks. Our customers should have appreciated it. One of my cashiers called me over because she had an angry lady in front of her. I would usually give in to whatever crazy thing a customer wanted to insure they would come back, but we couldn’t budge on issues of potential fraud. I nicely explained to the lady the reason we couldn’t take the check. She said, “It’s my husband’s checkbook!” I said, “I’m sorry, ma’am. We do this to protect you and the rest of our customers.” She left in a huff to go get another method of payment. I forgot about it
I went to go goof off at the customer service area. I was laughing a lot and chatting with a friend of mine, who happened to be black. The lady came in all angry and approached me. She pointed in my face and yelled, “You’re a racist b——-, and you can f— off!” Then I realized that she must have been a really light skinned black person or perhaps was part Hispanic or Native American. I don’t know. I would have called her white and maybe, if asked, wonder about her grandparents’ ethnicity. I think my skin was darker. Either way, I was embarrassed.

micah the admin