Have had a great laugh at these stories and know the attitudes well. Re the fruit basket, in the old days there was no dilemma, the FE got the banana. Was once on a line check for the FO. After arriving back at company HQ, the check captain "invited" myself (FE) and captain to debrief. After 2 hours of pulling apart ever single thing the FO did, he started on the captain. After that he started on me for 30 minutes. As I was pretty junior I thought this was the end of my career. Thought I had better see the CFE next day. Seems this checker was famous for this and I was assured that all my proceedures were standard.
I was on a captain's check (GG) when the problem of the VS thumbwheel came up. When next operated it was using the elbow. Then there was the guy who checked the insides of crewmembers hats for the bamboo ring. I'll leave that for others.