I’ve only heard a few people claim it, but it happens in media portrayals all the time - an angry person throwing something (a cup, a plate, a phone) hard enough to break it. Maybe I’m just lucky, but I’ve never witnessed anyone throw something in anger.
I frequently see people reading the Bible on public transportation, and I live in San Francisco, which is not exactly the Bible belt.
I always pay attentin when I’m in the 10 items or less line. There can be some weird and funny groupings of items.
You never met my father.
And what about gay men who lisp? I’ve known thousands of gay men, and can think of only one with a lisp.
Some years back, when food stamps were still stamps or coupons, a woman 2 people in front of me was buying steak, and paid for it that way. I only remember it because the next person in line told the cashier, within earshot of the customer who hadn’t left yet, “I hate it when people buy steaks with food stamps.” I piped up, “Maybe it’s somebody’s birthday, or they’re celebrating a new job and want to get them used up, or maybe it’s also none of your business. And steak is good, nutritious food.”
The one time I have taken a SNAP card to a grocery store was when I shopped for a friend and her housemates, who are all on disability, and they weren’t able to get to the store. I was more than happy to do it, and she gave me a list which included 20 pounds of pork ribs, and 8 half-gallons (or whatever they are now) of ice cream, for their deep freeze. She had it on her card, so why not?
The story I’m about to tell you would have happened over 40 years ago, but the same principles are true today. When I was a very young adult, I worked with a woman whose husband had lost his job a few years earlier, and she said that the food stamps were a matter of absolute need. They would do their shopping at a store in a part of town where they didn’t know anybody, and bought the cheapest brands. When he got a job, they had just received their package for the month, and that evening, they went out to the backyard at dusk and burned them. IIRC, it was about $200 in the late 1970s, but they just wanted to be rid of them. I told her that if there was anyone who should NOT have been embarrassed about it, it was her. IDR if they had their two children at the time; chances are, they did.
And while we’re on the topic of grocery stores, what about the women who claim that when they go grocery shopping, big crowds of people follow them around the store, and laugh at them, and they just know that everyone who sees them will spend the rest of the day talking about them and what they bought. Don’t know about the second part, but I worked at Target for 4 years, and a grocery store later on for 3 years, and NEVER witnessed anything like that. The only people who would even have the time to do that IMNSHO are teenagers.
She wasn’t wearing a bra. And she was fondling herself with both hands, no question. I would really appreciate it if you didn’t talk to me as if I were stupid.
Someone who works in a store gets in a confrontation with an unruly customer and says some witty comeback line causing everyone in earshot to begin clapping.
We did that once, because the family on the other side has rude brats, so we said it just loudly enough for the bad family to hear, and it did shush them… for about ten minutes.
As to food stamps I did raise my eyebrows a bit as the woman was buying like $200 of baby formula… and an energy drink.
Wasn’t there a actor that did that? He played a flamboyant gay?
Sexual harassment in the workplace.
I have no doubt it happens. Some people claim it happens “frequently.” In my 30+ years of working, I’ve never witnessed it.
Yeah, one of the coaches I was supervising when I was training coordinator was a really super flirty guy and one of his students said it made her uncomfortable, but she didn’t want to file a complaint. So I just had a talk with him, he stopped. Grey area, but it was teacher/student and she didn’t like it.
I have experienced it, and also been party to inappropriate conversations. However, those incidents were not harassment; it’s like pornography in that I know it when I see it. In my case, the harassment was not from a boss, I was not the only victim, and he was fired for this and plenty of other reasons too.
It’s one of those things where it either happens rarely or never at a particular employer, or everyone’s involved in it, one way or another.
I have in my accumulation of friends an Episcopalian priest, a Catholic priest, 3 assorted type Protestant ministers and a Rabbi [reformed] and my mom had a minor in comparative theology, and my great aunt started some sort of ministery that still operates today. I know that my mom and aunt read the bible every day, and I might make a reasonable assumption that my other religious friends read their choice of holy book at least most days [I personally own a King James, a compendium of 4 different translations that was my mom’s, a Workers New Testament, and after checking, a New American. No I don’t read one every day, I do use them for reference if I need to look something up. I also have a Koran. ]
I have, twice. I got pissed off at a roomie that I threw a battery alarm clock against the wall hard enough to break it because the other option would be to break her face. Second one, not sure if this counts or not, but I dragged a couch to the balcony and dropped it on a car belonging to a cheating lying asshole of an obviously now ex boyfriend.
When I was opening bridal shower gifts, one of the guests commented that much of her china from her first marriage ended up broken, because her husband threw it at her when she was leaving.
My dad has thrown things in anger, but typically plastic things that won’t get broken. I think the last time was when he threw the Tupperware pitcher of orange juice into the sink, approximately 40 years ago. He was sitting at the kitchen table, so it was about 10-12 feet away. Made a big mess, which he cleaned up.
Men hooting and hollering in a movie theater when a sexy woman shows up in a movie like it’s an episode of Married With Children.
I hear this as an example of “Misogyny in Normal Life” discourse but have never once actually heard this ever happen outside of said episodes of Married With Children.
Was she hot?
In my experience, harassers are going to do it privately - one-on-one. The first time it happened to me, I was 21 or so. It was blatant and gross. There were a few more times into my 30s, then I guess I was out of the target demographic, or maybe I gave off less of a victim vibe.
But it does happen frequently and away from witnesses.
Maybe I’m missing something, but that sounds like a terrific use of stamps: formula to keep the baby alive, plus an energy drink for staying awake to keep the baby alive…
People getting car insurance rates way, way below what I get.
In random chit-chat people will claim they pay $69 per year for three cars with four drivers, or some such wondrous bargain, and I must be some kind of sucker. Yet when I dig down with friends, or do comparison shopping, or buy insurance myself, rates are many times that.
I think it’s some kind of status symbol to get a really clever low rate when dummies like me are paying through the nose, and it’s not verifiable when somebody is boasting. But I’m never sure it isn’t me being stupid.
I have asked many (like dozens of) grocery store cashiers if they’ve observed this on a regular basis.
On a related note, I asked our Compliance Officer if he sees a lot of issues with people exchanging EBT card usage for cash at a discount. He says he sees a handful of reports a year. This is from thousands of stores with hundreds of millions of transactions a year.
But yet random upper middle class people shopping in grocery stores in claim to witness this on a regular basis!
Sure there is EBT fraud. It most often involves unscrupulous owners of corner stores or small family owned grocery stores. The idea that there are throngs of “welfare queens” importuning shoppers in the parking lot of Whole Foods and Wegman’s to use their EBT cards for 80 cents on the dollar seems pure fantasy.
Perhaps you’d have witnessed it if you were Crafter_Woman.
I’m a man, and have witnessed it many times.
So?
People who claim to feel an immense amount of social pressure to drink alcohol and large amounts of social judgement from being alcohol free in a social environment.
Personally, I’ve never seen the point in having 2 or 3 beers so I’m either having a 6 drink night or none and probably half the social engagements I go to, I’m a teetotaler (and the other half, I alternate between alcoholic and non alcoholic) and I’ve never really seen anyone really notice or care and when they ask why I’m not drinking, they’ve always been 100% non judgemental.
I have no reason to disbelieve the people who claim this but I’ve never personally experienced it and it’s a useful reminder to me just how different social circles can be.