I tend to notice very tiny sounds that most other people miss. It is mostly annoying since I can get distracted by the oven turning off in another room. But it came in handy one time.

I am out camping with my girlfriend and a couple of friends when I notice that something is off. I perk my head, shush everyone else chatting around the campfire, and listen intently.

Girlfriend: “What is it?”

Me: “I hear something.”

Friend #1: “What? A bird?”

Me: “Um… A voice in the wind?”

Friend #2: *Snickers* “A voice in the wind? What have I told you about accepting strange rings from old men?”

Me: *Giggles* “Yeah, but… it sounds like crying. Like a sobbing child?”

Everyone listens, but only I hear it. 

Friend #1: “It could be a fox? They sound like crying children sometimes.”

Me: “No… No, I can’t tell you why, but… it sounds like a child? Look, I have to check it out. You know how I am.”

Girlfriend: “Of course! I’ll come with you.”

We head off in the direction I think it’s coming from. My girlfriend starts to hear it after a couple of hundred meters. She runs back to tell the others. We all head off in that direction, the jokes about evil forest goblins and hulders that want to kill us all dying off quickly. Since it is June in the north of Sweden, it is light even at night, so it is easy to find the way, but we are constantly attacked by swarms of mosquitos. But the sound gets louder.

We find a little girl, probably aged four or five covered in mosquito bites, sitting on a stump. She is wearing one shoe and a pretty dress that is tattered, stained, and torn up. She is bawling her eyes out and looks at us with great fright. I rush over and pick her up.

Me: “Hey, hey, there, there. What are you doing here?”

She sniffles. 

Me: “You seem lost. Are you?”

Girl: *With a tiny nod* “Yes.”

Me: “Poor thing! Let’s help you get home.”

We carried her back to camp, asked her name, told her ours, put her in a sleeping bag next to a new campfire, and gave her a mug of hot chocolate and a sandwich. She quickly fell asleep with a tiny smile. We called the police, meanwhile, to tell them that we’d found her, and we gave them GPS coordinates to our position. The girl’s parents called us, and we decided to meet next to a road the next morning since it wasn’t easy to get to us and we were several hours from the road.

We carried the girl out of the forest the next morning and handed her over to the most grateful parents I have ever seen. They were beside themselves with relief. The police took a statement, and then they all headed off to a hospital to make sure everything was all right. The girl had developed a fever, probably due to all the mosquito bites, and was obviously a bit dehydrated and hungry. The parents got in touch later and invited us to a fika (a Swedish custom) to properly thank us and fill us in on what had happened.

The girl had slunk away during a family party next to the forest to look at a pretty bird and followed it a bit deeper into the woods. Then, she stepped on a viper on her way back — but it didn’t bite her. She panicked and ran randomly until she got completely lost. She had probably been lost for at least ten hours, she had lost her shoe in a mire, and she had accidentally wandered very far away from civilization — the only direction that had literally no other humans for dozens of kilometers.

The girl was completely fine now, after about two weeks, and had drawn a little picture of us in the forest that still hangs on my fridge. She was very afraid of the woods now, but she and her dad would go camping in a glen close to the house to make her feel safe again. I’m still friends with the family, and we visit each other from time to time.

I still think about what might’ve happened if I hadn’t followed my instinct to check on the voice in the wind.

The first job I ever had was working as a counselor at a riding camp at the local barn. I knew the barn owner and everyone there and would get paid in free riding lessons. Some of the kids could be difficult, but for the most part, they were easy enough to deal with.

We used to partner with a sleepaway camp; they would come once a week and we would give their kids riding lessons. It was really annoying to deal with because we also had to watch our campers who were bored and wanted to go ride. But whatever, we all understood why the deal was in place, so we did it without complaint. 

The problem ended up being the sleepaway camp’s owner’s daughter, who would come ride with the rest of the camp. This child was a literal nightmare. She would bang her doll on the stalls and scare the horses, even when we asked her to stop. She was eight and old enough to know better.

[Camp Owner’s Daughter] also thought she was way more advanced than she was. She would often not listen to the trainers in her lessons and try to make the horse canter, even though she still couldn’t walk the horse by herself. As such, we always put her on Doran, who was an older gelding and could basically teach the lesson himself. He was the only horse we could trust not to do anything when [Camp Owner’s Daughter] kicked him. She was not happy with us.

Camp Owner’s Daughter: “I don’t want to ride Doran! He’s boring! I want to ride Dorito!” 

Me: “The trainers are in charge of who rides who, so if you really want to, you could talk to them about it. Also, Doran is awesome! I love riding him!”

Camp Owner’s Daughter: “If you don’t put me on Dorito, I’ll tell my mom you hit me!”

Me: “…I’ll see what I can do.”

I was about fourteen and didn’t really know what to do, so I went and told [Barn Owner] and the trainers about what [Camp Owner’s Daughter] had said. They must have worked something out because [Camp Owner’s Daughter] did end up riding Doran and the camp was not invited back.

Related:
Some People Have Never Been Told “No” And It Shows, Part 11
Some People Have Never Been Told “No” And It Shows, Part 10
Some People Have Never Been Told “No” And It Shows, Part 9
Some People Have Never Been Told “No” And It Shows, Part 8
Some People Have Never Been Told “No” And It Shows, Part 7

My partner and I lived in Alberta for quite a long time. In 2020, he decided to move some of his belongings to Nova Scotia. (We planned to retire there together, so we wanted to take belongings there over time.) He got to the Nova Scotia border at the end of April 2020, right when the border slammed shut.

Fast forward two years. We only saw each other three times in that time period, even though we talked on the phone every day. In July, I flew to spend two and a half weeks with him. My dad was also driving across the country to meet us there to spend time with me, my partner, and his family. 

At the end of the first week, my partner and I went camping for five days, trailering our motorbikes there. (It was too far for me to drive that entire way.) The first day, there was no problem driving my bike; we spent hours all over the place. The second day, the morning was fine, although I laid the bike down a couple of times. We came up to a T intersection, I waited for traffic, and then I started around the corner. My handlebars jerked to the left, I lost my balance, and I fell with my left arm outstretched. Instant pain. I could wiggle my fingers and move my wrist. I thought it was sprained.

My partner got the bike up and yelled at me to get up, which took me a few minutes to do. He kept telling me, “It’s just a bruise, it’s just a bruise,” so I got back on that bike, lifted my left hand to the clutch, and rode the bike for a half hour back to the campsite.

Some of the other campers came over to see what had happened and got me kitted out with a sling. We stayed there until the last day of our reservation and then drove back to [Partner]’s mom’s place where he was living. [Partner]’s mom took one look at me and told me that I was going to the hospital; my arm had swollen right down to my fingertips, and my upper arm was blueish-black.

We eventually got to the metropolitan hospital, and after a few hours, they were able to see me. After TEN X-rays, I figured it was worse than a sprain. The doctor came in.

Doctor: “The good news is that you need a CT scan. The bad news is that you need a CT scan because your shoulder is broken in three places.”

We got home at about 10:00 in the morning, and Dad arrived at noon. He was NOT expecting to hear that his daughter had a broken shoulder!

They were able to get me into surgery two days after that — a full seven days after I broke it! I had a plate and screws put in, and then I had six weeks of physiotherapy. I was planning to go to my dad’s at that point, so I was happy when I went in for my surgical follow-up. I was NOT so happy when they told me that it hadn’t healed at all. In fact, the bone had slid, and screws were up in the joint space. I ended up having an emergent shoulder replacement (titanium) and a lot more physio after that.  

The total time that I spent in Nova Scotia was three and a half months — way longer than the two and a half weeks I’d planned! After that, I did go to my dad’s, and I have been there since. I was off work for thirteen months, and I went back to work for the same company with restrictions. (They were so patient; it was unreal.) It’s been a bitter pill to swallow that I’ll likely never be able to lift properly above my head or make certain other movements.

On the other hand, my physiotherapist has been a godsend, as has as my auto insurance!

Don’t be like me: when you’re hurt, get it checked out!

CONTENT WARNING: Crass Humor

I was one of several volunteers running an event for a group of kids from a very deprived area. We’d taken them camping for three weeks in a different country. This was all a Big Deal. Most of them had never been abroad before; heck, most of them had never been away from home before.

The little sods were constantly ragging on each other. “Your Mum” jokes were having a bit of a moment in school playgrounds at the time, and it was their favourite way to wind each other up. We had several kids with us whose mothers had died or left — mostly left. They were getting really upset because the others were just hammering them with “Your Mum” jokes.

So, we banned the jokes.

One night, with the kids in bed and (supposedly) asleep in their tents, a couple of the volunteers did a well-being and security sweep round the campsite… and returned to the central building (where the other adults were preparing the next day’s activities and clearing up) with two little ones in tow.

It seems that, instead of sleeping the sleep of the just, they’d been trading “Your Mum” jokes — and they seemed stunned to discover that tent walls are not soundproof. Who knew?

Anyway, the two volunteers basically called all our attention to the matter and told the kids to repeat what they’d been saying to each other. The idea was we’d all consider their transgression, set a firm face against it, and agree on a “punishment”.

I cannot remember what the first “joke” was; I know it was pretty weak. The second one had pretty much all of us suddenly suffering “coughing” fits.

“Your mum’s t*ts are so square, the milk comes out in cartons.”

In October of 1995, I went on a mid-week overnight trip with my Girl Scout troop, in the greater Seattle area. We were all giddy about getting to skip school for a couple of days and spend time with our friends. 

After dinner, the camp counselors and a few other people gave us all a talk about the rules for the couple of days we’d be there. We were all around the ages of ten to fourteen, and we were getting antsy, but we tried to listen. The last talk was from a man whose job it was to clean the Port-a-Potties. In his few minutes of talking, he went into a strange amount of detail about his job, probably to encourage us to not make any extra mess. 

We understood the importance of his job, certainly, and we were glad someone was there to do the literal dirty work. The man was pleased that we took him seriously.

As he reached the end of his talk, all of us Scouts broke out in cheers.

Man: *Blushing* “I’m glad to hear that I’m appreciated!”

Then, another staff member behind him coughed. The man turned to see the real reason for cheering.

The other staff member had turned on an overhead projector and written the final score of the tie-breaker game between the Seattle Mariners and the Los Angeles Angels. The Mariners had won nine to one, securing the team’s first-ever trip to Major League Baseball’s post-season. As much as we appreciated having toilet facilities to use, baseball was more exciting!