I’m a cashier in a grocery store. A man in my line is purchasing an R-rated DVD. I’m supposed to card anyone who looks under fifty.

Me: “Could I please see your ID?”

Customer: “I want to talk to your manager.”

He ended up ranting to my manager about how he was sixty (he looked thirty) and shouldn’t be carded for anything. She convinced him to give her his birthdate so I could get past the age restriction screen on my register.

I was at a store one day and they had a t-shirt. The graphic was a picture of a wolf with 9 other wolves hidden in the picture. If you could find all 10 (counting the obvious one), you got the t-shirt for half off. After spending too much time looking for them and finding them all, I decided after all that work I might as well buy the shirt.

I regretted it later. Whenever I wore the shirt, people would stare at me trying to find the wolves. And invariably, someone would say “There one is” and poke me – right in the breast!

One of my coworkers was ex military. He was trained in proper hand to hand combat, taller, more muscular, and generally more fit then I, your classic skinny geek that avoids physicals activity in favor of more computers, could hope to match.

One day I’m chatting and joking around with everyone when a different coworker throws this out jokingly.

Coworker: “I’d pay good money to see [me] and [buff coworker] in a boxing ring.”
Coworker 2: “I’d give one to a million odds for [me]”
Me: “I’d take those odds!”
Coworker 1: “You think you could take [buff coworker]?”
Me: “No, he’d probably kick my butt without even trying. But at one in a million odds It’s still worth betting a dollar. I mean there’s got to be at least a one in ten thousand chance he has a heart attack or a coconut falls on his head or some other freak accident has me winning. That’s something like an expected average profit of ten thousand percent relaying on freak accident alone.”
Coworker 1: “Hmmm, he kind of has a point there.”
Me (in a stage whisper): “Psst [buff coworker] I’ll pay you fifty thousand to take a dive”
Coworker 2: “Hey now that’s cheating!”
Me: “Only if you can prove it in a court of law!”

This accidentally started up a running gag where everyone would ask coworker 2 when he scheduled the boxing match and if he was ready to pay out ‘on account of coconut’. One person even brought in a small toy coconut to hang up at his desk one day and explained it was going to be the one that earned me my million dollars.

Moral of this story, be careful with your hyperbole, because us geeks may not be able to take you in a boxing match, but we definitely know how to be overly pedantic with your jokes!

(I’ve just parked at a small local grocery store that – for some reason – doesn’t have any cart racks out in the parking lot. You either walk it back up to the front of the store or – more commonly – just leave it to wander around free range. As I get out of my car, a woman a couple of spots down closes her trunk and starts pushing the cart back.)

Me: Oh, hey! If you’re done with that I can take it!

Woman: NO, BACK OFF! DON’T TOUCH ME, I DON’T NEED HELP JUST BECAUSE I’M A WOMAN!

(At this point I’ve backed up against my car and have my hands up and to the side.)

Me: WHOA! I just wanna get groceries and I need a cart, I don’t care what gender you are!

Woman: NO!!! I AM NOT HELPLESS, STOP PANDERING ME!

(Having absolutely no desire to deal with this level of crazy nor explain the correct use of “pandering” after a long day at work, I just wave her on and let her walk off. Of course, I still needed to go to the store; by the time I get up to the store and grab a cart, who do I see coming out of the doors almost-literally dragging a manager behind her?)

Woman: HIM!! SEE, HE IS HARASSING ME AND STALKING ME!!!

Me: *CLAPS in her face* LADY! I, am going, shopping! I don’t know you! I don’t care about you! I offered to take your cart, and you started screaming!

(Apparently my clapping trick startled her enough to let me get a couple sentences out. The manager only now has the chance to interject too.)

Manager: Ma’am, I’m sorry, but someone going to the same store as you isn’t stalking, and–

(This is when she rounds on and starts yelling at the manager; seeing an opportunity to take the coward’s way out I duck into the store, and thankfully once I’ve gotten my stuff she was gone.)

I was diagnosed with Asperger Syndrome as an adult. It explained a lot of childhood difficulties, and led to a lot of soul searching. My religious, traditional family wasn’t ready for the changes it would bring about.

I was more assertive, and some things were no longer OK. My pet hate was getting information second hand, eg if you held a family BBQ and I was welcome, I wanted you to contact me and not ask my parents to invite me.

My grandmother, known as Nana, lives alone. She has cleaners and has meals made, but otherwise she is independent… and very sharp and opinionated. She moved from Canada to Ireland in 1953, but her accent never changed. I hear her clear, Ontario accent when I write this.

On Sunday 22 March 2021, I received a whatsapp message whilst driving to her house. It is written by Uncle 1, to dad, which dad forwarded to me.

Uncle: Hey dad, because of the worsening health crisis we are no longer visiting nana. We will tell our kids, please pass on to your [grownup] kids. She understands that visits will stop. Please pass on to your kids [including me].
Dad: Please respect the above.

I wept, because I find it upsetting that [uncle] didn’t message me directly. He knows it is unacceptable. I ignore it and arrive at Nana’s house, unannounced.

Nana: Good evening [my name], I thought you would come tonight!

We talk about the things you expect, like her arthritis and the health crisis. She is sharp as a knife. I wear a mask throughout, I sit 5 metres away and stay ten minutes. Later that night, my phone rings.

Dad: I am absolutely appalled by you! How dare you visit Nana!
Me: Why do you say that?
Dad: She said you gave her flowers!
Me: Really? It’s Mother’s Day, and I gave my grandmother flowers… and you didn’t see that coming? Like I do every year?
Dad, not ready for that: I… you… you were told not to visit her!
Me: When you spoke to her, did she complain about my visit? Or is this your own complaint?
Dad: Irrelevant! You were told.
Me: I think it’s very relevant. Nana understands the health crisis. She kicked a few visitors out because they weren’t masked. She seemed very pleased to see me.
Dad: It’s too dangerous to visit elderly people!
Me: Dad… that’s for doctors to decide. The government has issued all sorts of advice, and it is fine for healthy people to visit elderly relatives. Why did you not ask [uncle 1] to call me direct?
Dad: That makes no difference!
Me: Really? Is it possible that I was already going to see her?
Dad: It’s dangerous! Do you want me to cut you out of the will?
(I am livid my father would even consider that threat.)
Me: Again… that isn’t how it works,. If I have done something illegal or if I ignored government advice let me know. All I see is two private citizens going about their business. You have Power of Attorney over your father, but not nana.
Dad: You ignored me! If she…
Me: Will I tell you how you and [uncle] should have handled this?
Dad: Speak?
Me: You should have asked him to call me, and just ask me politely not to visit her. I would have said “I’m already en route because it’s Mother’s Day, what should I do with the flowers I bought?” We could have agreed something. You two crazy men didn’t give me room to reply!
Dad: …
Me: Are you there? I need a dad, but if you carry on like this I might not see you as one. Please think this through. Look, I reserve the right to visit nana whether you like it or not. That is subject to her agreement, and the rest of the rules… no dad I don’t have anywhere else to be, I can argue about this for days…
(He argued for another 30 minutes. I didn’t budge. He gave up & hung up. I talked to Nana a few days later.)

Nana: I told [dad] you came to give me flowers because I thought . You do it every. Single. Year. [Dad] and [uncle] shouldn’t bully you like this, I can decide. Next time they ask, I will tell them “what happens between us is a secret, if you can’t respect my independence about visitors then don’t expect information about it.”

For over a year, I never talked about whether I had visited nana. I talked to dad regularly, like this all never happened. Uncle still talks to [dad] when he has something to tell me, and I still get upset about it. Nana recently chose to move to a home for elderly people. She still speaks Canadian, and doesn’t tell anyone if I visit.