My hair is about elbow-length. When it’s not tied up, I tend to flip it around to get it out of my way.

A man in his late forties asked me to help him with something on a lower shelf. I bent over, and my hair fell in my face. I swept it over the other shoulder to look and felt someone push my hair back over to the other side, blocking my view. I looked up and [Man] was staring intently at something on another shelf. I look around and see that there is no one else close enough to do this.

Man: “What?”

Me: “Someone moved my hair.”

Man: “Wasn’t me.”

Me: “Well, make sure it doesn’t happen again.”

Man: “Sure, sure. 

I move my hair again, bend over, and it happens again. I stand up straight.

Man: *Hiding a smile.* “What?”

Me: “Don’t touch me.”

Man: “I didn’t!”

Me: “No one else is here.”

Man: “It wasn’t me! Must be a ghost.”

Me: “Well, if it happens again, I’m breaking the ghost’s wrist.”

Man: “That’s violent!”

Me: “Won’t be a problem for you though, right? Since you aren’t the one doing it.”

Man: “Well, no, but—”

Me: “Good!”

I bent over a third time, though I didn’t tilt my head as far down. I saw the man’s shadow reaching out very slowly and stood up quickly. He recoiled and grabbed his own wrist.

Man: “What?”

Me: “Get someone else to help you.”

I start walking away.

Man: “But, I—you have to help me!”

Me: “No, I don’t!”

Man: “I’m telling your manager!”

Me: “We have cameras!” *Pointing to the nearest one.*

He reported me to corporate for threats of violence. I told them to check the cameras in the area and recounted exactly what was said in our conversation. My manager gave me a verbal warning and told me to carry a hair tie to prevent future instigation. 

I still see that man in the store, and I noticed he ONLY talks to young girls with long hair. I started carrying extra hair ties and interrupting their interactions by offering the girls a hair tie right in front of him, “in case a ghost flips your hair in your face,” and hanging around until they’re done. He always gets visibly angry but can’t do anything about it.

I recently moved into a fairly large apartment in a downtown area. My sister comes to visit with my two young nieces, who have spent their entire lives in suburbia, surrounded by large houses.

As I give them a tour, they have a lot of questions.

Niece #1: “Where are the stairs?”

Me: “There aren’t any.”

Niece #2: “How do you get upstairs?”

Me: “There is no upstairs.”

Niece #2: “Oh.”

A little later…

Niece #1: “Where’s your backyard?”

Me: “I don’t have one.”

Niece #1: “Where do you play outside?”

Me: “There’s a park a few blocks away.”

The girls exchange a confused look. A few minutes later, after inspecting every room in the apartment…

Niece #1: “Uncle… are you poor?”

Me: “No, sweetheart.”

Niece #1: “Then where’s the rest of your house?”

We adults all burst out laughing.

Sister: “One day I’ll be able to explain to them that the rent for this apartment is about twice the mortgage payment on our house.”

Me: “Hopefully one day someone will be able to explain it in a way that makes sense to me!”

My girlfriend and I are on a packed train from Paris to Avignon to take part in a very famous festival. Every seat is reserved; there are even people sitting in the aisles. This guy comes up to us with a ticket in his hand and speaks in English:

Guy: “Uh, you’re sitting in my seat.”

Me: *Checking ticket.* “Seats x and y, carriage z? Nope, we’re definitely in the seats we booked.”

The guy stared us down for a moment, realised we weren’t moving, and walked to the next seat.

Guy: “Uh, you’re sitting in my seat.”

He tried it on at every seat in the carriage, even though everyone caught on to what he was doing, and then moved on to the next carriage.

I’ve just brewed a fresh pot of coffee. At that moment, a customer walks in and points to it:

Customer: “How old is that coffee?”

Me: “This pot of coffee is literally seconds old.”

Customer: “Technically, everything is seconds old if you don’t place an upper cap on the number of seconds.”

Me: “…This pot of coffee is under sixty seconds old.”

Customer: “Okay, but how many seconds?”

Me: “…”

Customer: “…Ha, just f****** with ya. I’ll take a cup of the minute coffee, please!”

I teach kindergarten, and this happened about a year ago. One Monday, a student of mine, a very sweet girl, gifted me a picture she had painted during the weekend.

Girl: “I was going to make one for [Teacher Assistant], but Aunt [Name] said I couldn’t because we had to go get her drugs.”

Me: “You said she had to get drugs?”

Girl: “Yes. I didn’t want to go, but she said she ran out and needed to get more.”

Me: “Where did she take you?”

Girl: “It was a long way away outside, and it was hot. We met a strange man, but Aunt [Name] said he was nice, not scary.”

Me: “Then what happened?”

Girl: “Nothing, it was boring, and I got tired. But Aunt [Name] gave me ice cream after for being good and not calling mom to tell her.”

This was a declaration that required following up on. After a longer conversation with [Girl] and her parents, this is what I understood happened.

[Girl] had stayed with her aunt on Saturday so her parents could have a date night. During that time, [Aunt] realized she had run out of a medication and had taken [Girl] with her on a fifteen-minute walk to her local pharmacy to pick up her prescription for the night.

Along the way, they walked past a unkempt man who might have been homeless, and [Girl] had said he looked scary, so [Aunt] had responded that it wasn’t nice to assume a man was scary just because of his looks, and suggested the man was probably nice, though they didn’t stop to actually talk to him.

On the way back, [Girl] complained she was tired from the walk and had wanted to call her parents to tell them she was tired, but [Aunt] refused to interrupt their date night for such a trivial reason and so offered to give [Girl] a piggyback ride home instead. Once they got home, [Girl] got ice cream for being a good sport about the unplanned chore.

I also learned that [Aunt] regularly refers to her medications as drugs, which technically they are. I suggested to [Girl]’s parents that they may want to encourage [Aunt] to use the term medicine instead when talking with [Girl] in the future.