[I frequent a restaurant near me because the food is good and reasonably priced. It also doesn’t hurt that one of the waitresses is a gorgeous older black woman who I have a crush on. Mind you, I’ve never actually done anything or said anything to indicate this crush, just wistfully watched her as I consume food and she works.]

[One day, a man who has clearly consumed too much alcohol is at the next table over. When my favorite waitress sets his food down, he reaches up with both hands and grabs her chest. She calmly reaches down and pries his hands off, then starts bending his wrists backwards.]

Drunk Jerk: “Owww!”

Waitress: “Honey, this ain’t nothing. Keep your hands to yourself.”

Drunk Jerk: “Or what?”

[The waitress bends his wrists just a bit more backwards.]

Waitress: “Or else I really start to defend myself.”

[She lets go of him.]

Me: “Holy smoke!”

[The waitress turns to me.]

Waitress: “You’re the guy with the crush. I’ve seen you watching me. That’s fine, just don’t touch.”

[I was definitely impressed. If she wasn’t already married, I’d have asked her out!]

Since graduating high school, I’ve bumped in to the same high school bully twice – let’s call him Joe. I don’t hold a grudge against Joe, since he was an opportunistic and equal-opportunity bully; it was nothing personal, he only targeted me a few times, and we were kids.

The first time was when my son, about 12 at the time, was in a recreational basketball league. Joe’s son was on the other team. He recognized me and complained about the “big kid” on our team:

Joe: There’s no way that kid’s only 12!
Me: I’m certain he’s only 12. That’s my son.

The second time was more recent – at our 40th class reunion. The band was aware that I’m a former professional drummer and invited me to play on a song, which I did and it was a blast. Later, Joe pulled me aside and literally gushed with praise and admiration for my performance. It was an interesting and cathartic conversation, ending with:

Me: Thanks, Joe! I really appreciate it!
Joe: I didn’t even know you played drums!

LOL. My graduating class was small (about 110 folks), and you’d have to have been sleepwalking through school to not know I was a drummer. I was in the band, and played at every football and basketball game (and so did he, on the sports teams). If there was ANYTHING notable or definitive about me in high school, it was that I was “the drummer.”

Was this Joe’s way of asking for forgiveness? Who knows? He seems like a nice guy now, and it was a very cool way to get closure.

I’m about 15 at the time of this story. My keyboard teacher phones me to ask some questions about our lesson later that day. She makes some offhand comment about the road.

Me: Wait, you’re driving?

[Teacher]: Yes, b-

Me: [Teacher]! You can’t be on the phone while driving!

[Teacher]: [me], I’m just-

Me: No! I can’t talk to you!

And then I hung up.

When my teacher arrived, she told me that she was using a hands free thing I’d never heard of before. But I was still stubbornly insisting that she shouldn’t be on the phone while driving.

My dad overheard. I got lectured because it was rude to hand up and because Jane’s an adult who can make her own decisions, so I shouldn’t lecture her even if I thought she was doing something wrong, because it’s her choice to do the potentially dangerous thing not mine.

Then today I find out there are studies showing that hands free is just as dangerous as a physical phone, so to both my teacher and my dad I have to be petty and say “I told you so.”

My mother and I live in the same village and we are very close. She decided – years ago – that she would move into a retirement home when she turned 80. Her birthday is in November so this will happen sometime next year. It is now October before her 80th birthday. She has slowly been sorting through her stuff; deciding what to keep and what to give or throw away. This has led to some interesting conversations. Today she called me out of the blue.
Mom: Do you have any potting soil left? I only need a little bit and I don’t want to buy a new bag.
Me: No, sorry. I used everyting I had.
Mom: I just need to repot this plant. Your dad bought it in 1983 just before he died. It’s not really my type of plant, but I kept it and it languished for years before I decided to repot it. It’s been flourishing ever since, but I think I need to repot it again. Never mind, I’ll ask around if anyone has any soil left over. This plant is now almost 40 years old, isn’t that weird?
I lived with my Mom until 1994 and have been to her flat at least three times a week in the the last 15 years. I have never heard about this plant or it’s significance. I don’t have a lot of things from my Dad and cherish every piece. How did I not know about this?

I subscribed to a streaming service to watch horror movies (like Netflix but for horror). I am a student and had been busy during term time, but once I finished my last exam I was looking forward to watching a dozen trashy movies back to back as all the knowledge I’d crammed in before my exams trickled out of my ears. I went to log in and got an error message saying that there was a problem with my payment. I checked the payment details and they were correct. I emailed the streaming service’s customer service department and explained and they told me that the credit card they had on file for me was “not working” and to contact the bank. Since it was my husband’s card I had him call the bank. They told him that the two major credit card companies in Australia were not accepting charges from the company because of “mass fraud”. Through a quick Google I found many stories from customers who had charges appear on their accounts from this service when they were not even subscribed to it, and subscribers who had been overcharged. I emailed customer service again and they said they hadn’t heard anything about this and that it couldn’t be true because “many customers use credit cards”. They also asked if I would use paypal instead, which was weird because the streaming service doesn’t even offer paypal as a means of payment. At this point I finally gave up on what must be some kind of scam (although a weird one since I couldn’t actually give them money if I wanted to), still disappointed because I had been genuinely enjoying watching films on the service and would have continued using it if I could.