At this point, I question if there is any industry that is not toxic. 

I shudder to think of that woman getting her hands on knives.

This reminds me of a family legend. When my parents were first married, they only had one car so they would do a lot of their errands together. One time they were driving to the grocery store and a car full of “yahoos” (as my dad would say) cut them off. My mom, sitting in the passenger seat, leaned over and laid on…

My parents owned a furniture storoe for over 30 years. Between college and grad school, I worked for them for a bit to make a little money and see if I had any interest in one day taking over the business (spoiler alert: no fucking way).

I’ll enter this into evidence.

I am so glad for this one. In high school (in Texas) I had a really really shitty long distance running coach. He was a total dick and often didn’t acknowledge when people had heat stroke or problems that were arising from the INSANE HEAT AN HUMIDITY found in TX. I had zero respect for him and pretty much only joined…

Awww, I’m glad my long ago camping adventures won!

13 or 14 year old me calmly looked the kid who’d just called me fat up and down and replied “have you look in a mirror lately?” turned on my heels and sashayed back to class.

Not mine, but Samantha Irby’s (a published author, but this is from her wonderful blog, so perhaps someone hasn’t seen it).

In the early 1990s, I worked with an insufferable woman none of us could stand. At one point during the time I endured her, she walked by while I was talking to another employee.

Seventh-grade boy: “You suck the big one!”

My dad, sister and a friend often reply to statements with “YOU’RE a *blank*” which is the less offensive “That’s what she said”, I guess. It’s hit or miss but once I complained about an app glitching and my sister mutters out of reflex, “YOU’RE a glitch....” and that one just hit me sideways.  It’s been years and I…

I work in software, a very male dominated industry. I was negotiating a deal with another company and the representative said “have you ever worked in software before? It seems like you don’t know what you’re doing.” To which I responded “I see on my LinkedIn notifications that you looked at my page the past 3 days in…

This guy in my 10th grade Spanish class loved to spend his time sitting behind different girls in the class and so he could mock them relentlessly. He had a little lackey who cackled at everything he said. The worst part was that he was excellent at pinpointing other people’s insecurities, so it was hard to ignore…

I was browsing through the sporting goods section of Target one afternoon, when I hear an someone yelling loudly. I turn around to see an irate woman gesticulating wildly and screaming “Hey, dumbass!” After a second, I realize she was trying to get MY attention.

We were playing baseball in gym class in about 6th grade and my dick teacher yelled at me, “You swing like a girl!”

In my early 20s I had a part-time job tending bar. There was a guy who would come in every night and ask me out every night. I would turn him down every night. He thought he was God’s Gift. Really smarmy, as if he’d trained under a pick-up artist. He really wanted to be Tom Cruise. One night, my ex boyfriend (with whom…

Not mine, but my mom’s, and it involves a hard-assed cop, so it’s timely.

Not the most original, but it was the only time I was ever sent to the principal’s office:

A woman asked my aunt in a judgmental tone: “Where are you from?”