First year teacher in our school assigned writing assignments every so often that counted as a major grade. We all handed in the first papers around 6 weeks into the school year. I had worked on the paper over a period of several days due to the nature of the assignment. I have reasonably neat handwriting, but I don’t always slant my words the same so what I wrote the first day slanted left, second day right, couple of days later was straight up and down. Teacher had not seen enough of my work to realize this so when he read my paper it looked like someone else has did part of my work. However he didn’t give me a bad grade, he asked to see my notebook of class notes for his class. Afterwards he did tell me he was glad he went with his gut feeling and asked to see my notebook.

My ex-husband comes over three nights a week to take care of our toddler and preschooler from dinner to bedtime. For some reason, he developed a habit of scrambling eggs for the baby and immediately giving them to her while the eggs were far too hot to eat. So he would blow on each individual bite to cool it off before giving it to her—and being a toddler, she found that very funny.

Well, one morning, I happened to have time to sit down with the kids at their table to eat breakfast together. I fixed them blueberries, Cheerios, cheese, and apple slices.

My daughter insisted that I blow on every single bite before she would eat it. Her older brother also insisted on it as well. It was a very long, thoroughly chilled breakfast.

From then on, blowing on food was officially declared “a Daddy thing.”

While I’m checking out, the cashier (an early twenty-something) goes through all the pleasantries, asks if I want a store card, allows me to answer no, gives change and finishes transaction.

Cashier: “Thank your, sir. Have a good day.”
Me: “Are you a new cashier here?”
Cashier: (suddenly looking very worried / concerned) “Yes I am, why?”
Me: “Every thing about your presentation was so perfect, I wondered if you were just trained.”
Cashier: (looking very relieved, breaks out a big smile) “Thanks.”

During secondary school, I had a friend I was very close with. During my teenage years, we were practically inseparable so when I had to move abroad to Australia it really sucked that I wouldn’t see him for a while. When I first moved, we were in contact almost every day but after the first couple of months communication suddenly went dead! He stopped replying to emails, whenever I was on messenger he would never respond when I started speaking to him. Lest to say, I was very confused. Whenever I would visit the UK, he would not reply to any of my messages. However, none of my other friends claimed to have seen much of him either.

Eventually, I realized he had moved on and I probably should too. It made me sad to think that such a good friend had treated me that way though. Fast forward a couple of years later and I am back in the UK for university and I am back for a weekend visiting my parents and friends. As I walking down one of my local streets I see a dishevelled looking guy staggering down the street randomly clutching a banjo. After a couple of seconds, I realize it’s my old friend!

Me: Hey (friend)… hey it’s me (my name)

Friend: Huh…

Me: Err… it’s (my name), remember we went to high school together, how are you, man?

He then takes the longest pause possible and his eyes are completely glazed over and he seems barely lucid.

Friend: You went somewhere…

Me: Umm…yeah I moved to Australia for a while, remember?

Suddenly the reason for his glazed expression becomes apparent…he absolutely REEKS of pot! He randomly sits on the wall and stares at me.

Friend: So how was it then?

Me: Oh it was …

Right as I start talking he starts playing his banjo and banging his head. Several times I try talking but he keeps playing away. Finally, I get fed up with this.

Me: HEY I’M F******* TALKING TO YOU!

Friend: You what?

Me: I was talking to you (friend) and you keep playing that f****** banjo!

Friend: Well then it must have been boring, you always were kind of a boring c***, to be honest!

Me: Dude…what the hell!

Right then he randomly starts laughing and I can tell I’m just wasting my time with this guy.

Friend: I have to go somewhere, you can’t come!

Then he walks aways playing his banjo nearly getting hit by a car when he crosses the road. As you can imagine, I was very confused and perplexed by this encounter. When I spoke to my friend’s things became clearer. Apparently, he had started hanging out with a group of stoners in college and according to them he ‘hit the wacky-backy pretty hard’ to the point where it became a serious issue. (Friend) became flakier and flakier over time and friends stopped hanging out with him because either he didn’t show up, would turn up stinking of weed or just wanted to smoke weed. His school work suffered and eventually, he got expelled from college for smoking on college grounds. Years later I’m told he’s still very much the same and he doesn’t work and just sits at home smoking away. Occasionally I’ve seen him around town but we never speak. Makes me sad that a person I had such great memories of became such a waste of space. Though, nobody can explain about the banjo!

Client: “I hear some secret whispers at the beginning of this video. Take them out.”

Me: “I’ve watched and listened to the video about a dozen times. I even shot it. There’s no whisper. There’s an audio watermark to denote that we didn’t purchase the music I used as is proper practice when sending videos out for client approval. Could it be the watermark?”

Client: “Nope, it’s still there.”

Me: “Okay, I’ll re-export and re-upload the file.”

I lied; I don’t re-upload at all. The client checks and gets back to me.

Client: “Much better. All I hear is the music and the watermark. Thanks.”