One of my best friends from childhood “M” got married recently. She has a sister “A” who has been married for several years and has two young children with her husband, “J”. At the wedding reception, I was talking to the mother of the bride “K” when the sister’s husband “J” walked by. He stopped and chatted with us for a bit.

J: It is a beautiful wedding, isn’t it?
K: It sure is!
Me: Great weather, and M looks so happy!
J: She sure does! Now we’re just looking forward to grandbaby number three!
K and I stop and stare at J, mouths agape and smiling.
K: Does this mean?…. Is A?….
J: What? Oh! No! No, no, no! Not A! She is not pregnant! I was just saying that, you know, since M wanted to start a family right away… No! Two is enough for us right now!

There were probably better ways to phrase that

I’m a child of the 80s and happen to have several severe food allergies. This isn’t really a common thing yet in schools and my parents had been having trouble with my elementary school and daycare trying to feed me things I’m allergic to.

We moved to a new state, so new elementary school, and the new allergy circus began…

I heard everything from:
Food allergies aren’t real.
God is punishing you with food allergies for being a sinner.
If God loved you, you wouldn’t have this problem.

My first grade teacher was actually really great, but one day we had a substitute. Note: my lunch was always packed. Substitute teacher felt my packed lunch wasn’t good enough and tossed it in the garbage. She then proceeded to make me eat a school lunch. It was a corn dog and there was a side of peaches. I’m allergic to both beef and pork and also stone fruit. I tried to tell her that I was super allergic and couldn’t eat any of it. She didn’t believe me.

She pulled the food allergies aren’t real bit and forced me to eat everything on the tray. Within 10 minutes I was covered in hives, told her I didn’t feel well, and wanted to go to the nurse. She refused. I stood up to run to the bathroom and she attempted to stop me. I proceeded to exorcist projectile vomit all over the place, hitting her mid chest. It was a glorious scene.

I FINALLY got to the school nurse, who took one look at me, popped me with epi, then called an ambulance. The teacher was fired, which was an exceptional outcome for the time! She’s kept muttering about how was she supposed to know my allergies were real! The school nurse pointed out that there was a note in the attendance book with an entire list as soon as you opened it.

I’m having one of those days where I’m not really with it. Like when you’re listening to happy upbeat songs to try and convince yourself you’re not sad and then you’re just sat there listening like “hmm, yes, this sure is music I’m listening to.”

I’m at work. Everyone else seems to be busy, but not many orders have come through for my section of the kitchen. The line manager asks me for a little plate with some cucumber on it, so I put four slices of cucumber on a plate.

Usually this would mean I’ve missed something on the screen, so I look for the kids meal to double check if it specified no tomatoes or if the line manager forgot to ask for them. But no, the customer literally just wants a plate of cucumber.

Four slices of cucumber on even a little plate looked sad, so I added some more and arranged them into a smiley face. As I was debating the very serious issue of whether or not I should add some of the chipped slices as eyebrows (I did) my coworker notices the plate and finds it hilarious.

We send down that smiley cucumber face with some other orders. I hope it made someone’s day a little brighter.

I work at a University and the semester is just starting. A new student taking the basic course in my field writes to several of the teachers that he can’t come to a mandatory exercise. Once they find out he is in my group, the send the message to me, it goes something like this:

“Hi I’m [student] and I can’t come to the mandatory exercise this week. The reason is I got an internship in another city this summer, which is very important to me, and it got prolonged into the semester. Could I get a home assignment instead?

Kind Regards
[Student]”

We actually have a solution for this, if people are sick or if they for another reason aren’t able to come, so I reply him, and we have the following conversation.

Me: Hello [student], I’ll note down you won’t make it and make sure you’re assigned in one of the groups. Then it is extra important that you come for the exercise next week, so we can see you are accustomed to the software.

The other exercise is not mandatory, however it is an alternative for those missing the first one for valid reasons.

Student: The thing is, I won’t be able to make it next week either, I’ll not be in town during the first three weeks, and even if I could go there for one day it would be so expensive.

At this point I am wondering how he expected to handle a full time course while being gone for three weeks, since they will be divided into groups and get home assignments, he would miss that deadline too. Nevertheless, I double check with the principal to see if he should get another assignment instead, however this is only done in very special cases, as it means more work for us. In this instance, the Principal ruled that working at a firm is not a good enough reason to miss it. Furthermore, since he will be gone, he should be there the first time to connect with his group so they can keep contact on a distance.

So I write back to him.

Me: Hello again, I’ve double checked, and unfortunately your work does not constitute as a good enough reason to miss it. You will also get an assignment at the end of the week, and since you are away it will be important to connect with your group, which is why you’ll need to be there at the mandatory exercise this week.

Student: Alright, I understand. I’ll come to the one next week.

I literally face palmed reading this, but at this point I’m not sure it is worth it to argue at this point (and I understand it might be difficult to get tickets on short notice). It is not my job to make sure he handles his studies, however I do hope his group lets us know if he doesn’t do the work.

My family lives in Alaska. When my mom was pregnant with me, my dad had a scheduled hunting trip with his buddies. It was supposed to take place after my mom’s due date. Her own mom was supposed to come and help while he was away.

Well, I decided to be fashionably late, and circumstances conspired against my grandma’s arrival on time. Mom went to 40 weeks, then 41 weeks, and was soon closing in on 42 weeks. Dad wasn’t pleased, because where we live, that hunting trip wasn’t just hanging out with ‘the guys.’ It was important because the game they were going to catch was meant to supply us with meat for the winters we got around there.

Obviously, he didn’t blame mom. It just worried and upset him that I was late. It worried and upset him because hunting was also a necessity. And it worried and upset him that my grandma wasn’t going to be able to help his wife if he was gone. It was just one big ball of overall stress.

The guys told Dad to stay home, and dad stayed because knew where he was supposed to be.

Ten days or so later his buddies came home.

Dad’s best friend showed the moose he had bagged, “Look at what I got!”

Dad then brought me out with a huge papa grin, “And look at what I got!”

The guys made the appropriate fuss, then dropped the surprise: they had hunted FOR us. Not only had they bagged game for their own families but also hooked up our own little family with meat from their trip.

The guys and dad spent guy-time together, preparing the meat for storage, packing it up, and occasionally popping a head indoors to check on mom. A few were fathers themselves and helped out to do little things for her around the house while the others worked. This let dad let off steam preparing food for his family, while also giving mom the break she needed.

To this day, those guys are like my uncles, and they and my dad are tighter than thieves.