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

When I was preparing for my Bat Mitzvah (the Jewish coming-of-age ceremony, for those unfamiliar), part of the preparations involved performing an act of charity — something larger than just a random act of kindness. In my case, I organized a school supply drive for a local girls’ group home. It went well, and the group home wanted to thank me, so they invited me for dinner.

Everyone was very nice, and as we sat down to dinner, the staff member in charge announced that they were going to say Grace. Everyone bowed their heads and went quiet, so I followed suit.

I would like to reiterate here that I was and am Jewish, and at thirteen, I had never in my life done the whole “saying Grace” thing before, though I was at least aware that the practice existed. I assumed that there would be some sort of signal that we should lift our heads again and start eating.

After a minute or two, I felt like this was going on for an awfully long time, so I peeked up, only to find that everyone at the table was staring at me. One of the girls piped up.

Girl: “So… are you done?”

It turned out there was not a signal.

Being a young teen, I was mortified.

Me: “Oh! I’ve never said Grace before. I thought someone would say something when it was time to eat!”

Then, the staff member had a lightbulb moment and clapped a hand to her forehead.

Staff Member: “Oh, duh! That’s the whole reason you’re here!“

The dinner from that point was very nice, and everyone happily forgave my faux pas as they realized that they should have explained first… but I still can’t make homemade tacos without thinking about the time I learned how saying Grace worked!

The first time I went through a haunted house, I was in middle school and with a group of my friends. I was pretty nervous because I had never been in one before, which I told my friends. One particular friend promised me that she had a foolproof way to make me not scared.

Cut to the first scare, which was an actor dressed as Freddy Krueger sneaking up on us as soon as we were finished being told the rules. 

Friend: *Turning around and waving* “Hi, Freddy!”

Freddy Krueger: “Hi, kids!” *Waves back*

We did that through the entire haunted house, and I must say, it was a lot less scary after that!

My younger sister has had glasses since she was a baby — like ten months old. She’s extremely farsighted, so her glasses make her eyes look much bigger than they really are. She can barely see without her glasses, but her glasses are always somewhat heavy and can get uncomfortable, so despite that, she sometimes takes breaks from wearing them.

When she was little, like three to six years old, she had trouble saying the word “glasses”, so she’d call them her “eyes”. It made sense to me as a seven-year-old since her eyes looked so much smaller when she took her glasses off. This would lead to a lot of funny stares when we went out in public and my sister, who was otherwise quite an eloquent toddler, would announce loudly that she was going to take her eyes off and no one in my family would bat an eye.

As my sister grew up and added the word “glasses” to her vocabulary, most people forgot about the time when she’d tell us she’d taken off her eyes — most people, except for our grandmother.

My sister just finished her freshman year of college. She still wears glasses almost all the time, but she has contacts for special occasions when she’s going out. She tried contacts for a year in high school but found them too uncomfortable to do every day.

My sister started dating for the first time this year. One day, when she was with her boyfriend, she had a massive headache. She suffers from random headaches sometimes, but this was a pretty bad one and the first one she’d had around her boyfriend. She was basically crying because of the pain, so he helped her Facetime our grandma. (She first tried our parents, but both were busy and didn’t answer the phone.)

Our grandma’s first question was:

Grandma: “Did you take your eyes off recently?”

Sister: “No, I’m not wearing my eyes now.”

That was the only part her boyfriend could hear. Her boyfriend was already pretty panicked, and he was so shocked that he started to look up their school’s emergency mental health hotline; he was convinced my sister was going insane or something.

It took my sister about ten minutes to convince him that she was totally fine, which took her mind off the headache for long enough that it went away.

CONTENT WARNING: Missing Child

When I was a kid, sixty years ago, my parents took us swimming at a pond where you had to pay to get in. I have no clue where it was other than in Connecticut.

Besides the pond, there was a playground. For some reason, this was not adjacent to the swimming area; you had to cross the parking lot and it was surrounded by woods. My parents stayed in the swimming area with my baby sister, while my brothers and I went to the playground.  

We had a great time, playing with kids, making friends, and just having fun. Eventually, my brothers and I tired of this and returned to our parents.

Unfortunately, everyone was out of the pond while it was “being cleaned.” They were using equipment I had never seen before, but it looked unpleasant. I had not heard of anyone cleaning a pond before, and certainly not while it was open. But I was maybe in second or third grade. What did I know about pond maintenance?

Eventually, they let everyone back in the water.

What had happened was a kid went missing and was presumed drowned. They were dredging the pond for his remains.

He showed up maybe half an hour after we had returned to the pond area.

He had been one of our playmates at the playground, and apparently, it was easier to dredge the pond than it was to check for him there.

His poor mom!