I work in the poultry industry. I am out visiting one of our farms, and a few of the shed walkers and I are having lunch up at the farm office.

An elderly man shows up at the gate, wanting to buy eggs. We’re all a little confused because we absolutely cannot sell eggs directly from the farm, but he’s insisting he’s bought eggs from this farm before. One of the shed walkers goes to find the farm manager as the man asks us to make sure all his eggs are double-yolks because that’s what he got last time.

Finally, the farm manager shows up.

Manager: “We can’t sell you eggs. You have to go to [Store #1] or [Store #2] to get eggs.”

Man: “No, no, but I used to buy eggs from here. Maybe five years ago, you used to sell eggs to the public.”

Manager: “Sir, I have worked on this farm for twenty-five years. We have never sold eggs from here. Please leave.”

He did leave, begrudgingly.

Two weeks later, we had almost exactly the same conversation with an elderly woman who argued even harder that she used to buy eggs from the farm. It took nearly fifteen minutes for her to give up and leave.

My parents own farmland and rent it out to farmers. We went to a seminar for farm owners, so there were lots of very wealthy people in the mix. They served us lunch at the hotel restaurant, and it was very good food.

This hotel is part of a huge international chain, so it was their own catering service.

At the end of the meal, one of the women at our table flagged down a waiter.

Woman: “Can I get a box to take the rest of my food home in?”

Waitstaff: “We don’t have boxes or allow anyone to take the leftovers home.”

Woman: “That’s terrible! You just lost your tip!”

Waitstaff: “I’m sorry you feel that way.”

Woman: “That’s it?! You’re not going to do anything for me?”

Waitstaff: “I can get my manager for you.”

They got the manager, who came out and told her the same thing: she couldn’t take home the food. Cue her screaming at the manager.

Manager: “Ma’am! There are still a full six hours left of lectures for your event. We cannot ensure the quality of your food being left out or in a box that long. We would be liable for any food safety issues.”

Woman: “I can’t even take this food home to my dog?!”

Manager: *Knowing what kind of seminar this is* “You can afford a farm, but you can’t afford dog food?”

Woman: “I will ruin you! You don’t know who you’re messing with!”

My dad looked at me and explained quietly.

Dad: “I know who she is; she only lives like twenty minutes from us. She has a net worth of at least ten million, I’d say.”

Me: “And she’s whining about not being able to take home a few bites of leftover pot roast?” 

I don’t doubt that she has some influence with as rich as she is, but as far as I know, she has yet to take down the Hilton!

CONTENT WARNING: Animal Attack, Animal Death, Gun Violence (Child attacked by pet boar, which is then killed with a shotgun)

I almost got eaten by a boar as a kid. My cousins kept pigs, and I was staying with them for a few weeks. They sent me out to feed one of the sows, Jasmine, who was generally known to have a gentle nature, but one of the boars apparently felt he wanted human meat and burst through his pen door.

He rammed my legs, and somehow I ended up holding onto the sow’s pen. (It’s unclear if I unlatched her pen or not; my Cousin J says I did “in a survival haze”, but I don’t remember doing it.) I ran — which was stupid because it turns out that a boar can definitely outrun a seven-year-old.

I got hit again from behind and sprawled on the barn floor. I covered my face and was sure I was gonna die. Then, I heard this noise, and even almost twenty years later, let me tell you, it was a scary noise.

I uncovered my face, and Jasmine was in front of me, making the noise I’d heard with her mouth “foaming” — not like rabies but still scary-looking, like a snarling dog.

Cousin J ran in and, without hesitation, grabbed a shotgun while my aunt picked me up. I kept screaming not to hurt Jasmine because she didn’t “do it”.

I was carried off, and I heard three shots. At that point, I don’t remember much other than screaming and crying in my granddad’s lap while my aunt patched me up and kept promising me it was okay.

Later that evening, Cousin J brought Jasmine up to the porch so I could see she was unharmed. But it took three shots from a shotgun to put that d*** boar down.

Jasmine’s “reward” for her bravery was her own pen closer to the house — mostly so I could safely feed her myself — and the one and only boar piglet from her litter (she was pregnant) was made the new boar while she kind of got retired and made into a pet.

My uncle said he couldn’t let “our hero mama” be processed.

But I was a wreck for days. And my mother was furious because Cousin J and his brothers had been told a few times not to send me into the pig barn by myself. But they took it as, “Oh, it’s fine; she knows only to touch Jasmine,” not, “If that boar breaks its door, he can eat the second grader.”

I live on a small farm with a very pretty apple orchard attached. It has a small creek running through and lovely views along a beautiful line of hills. It’s blissful, and we’ve made it nicer with a few small benches, a pergola, and a small cooking area where we entertain family and friends.

One beautiful morning, I look out my window and see two large vans pull up at the gate into our orchard. A driver gets out and starts trying to open the gate. I run out to see what is going on.

Me: “Hey there, are you lost?”

Driver: “Is this [my address]? We’re here to set up.”

Me: “I am afraid there’s been some misunderstanding. This is private property, and you’ll not be setting up anything today.”

Driver: “Look, we don’t have time for whatever this is. I’ve got to set up all the tables and chairs, put out the floors, lay table settings for 300 people, and get the food set up. Can you just open the gate for us so we can do our jobs?”

Me: “Absolutely not. You’re in the wrong place. This is private property, I am the owner, and you are setting nothing up on my land.”

Driver: “F*** man, wait…”

He gets out his phone and starts making calls while another two vans arrive and I head back to my house.

About twenty minutes later, there is a furious knocking on my door. I open it to find an angry woman and a nervous-looking man, both complete strangers.

Woman: *Screaming* “You gotta open that motherf***ing gate and get a move on so we can set up. My baby’s getting married today, and you’re not going to f*** it up for her, you piece of s***!”

Me: “Get lost. This is not my problem, and you will not be using my land. Now, get off my property or I will have you trespassed.”

Woman: *Still screaming* “You will open that gate right now! I’ve got 300 guests coming to the reception! Open it!”

Me: “Nope.”

That’s when she started screaming like a banshee and tried to grab me. I fended her off and called the cops. They arrived in time to arrest her while she was running amok on my porch, smashing flower pots and windows. She was arrested and the caterers left.

About two months later, I received a box of chocolates and a letter of apology from the bride and groom who, apparently, were both mortified by and all too familiar with the behavior.

At my previous job, I worked for a university as a network engineer. It was a large campus with lots of agriculture. Because of some of the distances between buildings and the nature of the “farm” on the south side of campus, fiber was not run everywhere.

This is the story of one such building that was provided with a point-to-point wireless link. The shot was just over a mile in distance. Everything worked as expected, and they really only had issues on rainy days.

One bright sunny day, we got a ticket that the Internet was out at the farm building. We went out there, and everything looked fine. We left.

A few days later, the same thing. Okay, odd.

A couple of weeks later, we got the same report. We thought maybe foliage from a nearby tree was causing issues; it was springtime and the link had been installed during winter. So, we trimmed the trees.

But we were still getting reports of outages. We realigned the access points. I didn’t help. What gives?

One day in late summer, some coworkers were out there and noticed a very large bull lying on top of a hill — the same hill that the wireless link shot over.

LIGHTBULB!

They asked about the bull and were told that was his favorite place to lie down. Face-palm.

They raised the access points higher in the air, and the problem went away. A dang cow was blocking the wireless signal!