This story reminded me of my own senior year at college. For various reasons, the school neglected to give me my mandatory meal plan for my final semester. I called several times to get it figured out, but they were insistent that there was no error.

Me: “Fine, I’m just as happy to have more freedom of choice.”

It worked well for half the semester, paying cash for my meals, except they eventually figured it out and insisted I sign up for the entire meal plan, with only half my final semester left.

Me: “Wait, what? That doesn’t make any sense.”

When I protested, they just said:

Dining Department: “You should have known.”

Consequently, at the end of the year, I still had a ton of meal points left. These were usable at the dining hall or at the tiny grocery store at the edge of campus. My now-wife and I made one final trip to the grocery store on our way out of town to stock up on spices and other expensive-but-small things for our future apartment, but I still ended up with a few hundred dollars’ worth unspent that I wouldn’t get back.

As it so happened, there was some construction going on across the street. My wife and I went over to one of the workers and managed to communicate:

Me: “Hey, I want to buy you all lunch at the grocery store.”

Turns out even lunch for a dozen construction workers didn’t use up the whole fund, so I told them:

Me: “Pick out whatever you want, and I’ll keep the cashier ringing things up until we hit the meal card’s limit.”

It ended up being enough for a sandwich, drink, ice cream, and a snack or two for everyone on the construction site.

I’m sure it wasn’t life-changing for anyone, but I like to think I helped make someone’s day a bit easier, and I got to say one last f*** you to my university’s dining department. I think they got all of an extra $0.07 from me.

It’s me, the author of this story, with a sort of comical one from the same school year. It’s how I ended up meeting one of my best friends during that year before I moved.

Partway through the school year, we got a new transfer student in my class. I’ll call her S. Now, for a bit of context, I was a bit on the short side and chubby (5′ even, or about 152cm, and about 120lbs, or 54kg), a bookish goody-two-shoes who preferred books and drawing over sports and socializing, and as mentioned before in a previous story, I’m autistic, so I was a prime target for bullying

Within two days of her being in our class, S had singled me out as a target. It was awful. S was nearly twice my size and stood a good head and a half taller than me, so I couldn’t fight back in any way. Among other things, she stole my clothes while I was changing in the locker room and ran to the other side of the gym, and I couldn’t go after her because I was in my underwear, and she pinned me up to the lockers by my throat more than once because I tried to tell her off. Teachers wouldn’t do anything more than a slap on the wrist, and when she did get in trouble, she knew it was me and doubled down on her bullying.

One day, I had been in the sixth-grade English classroom during lunch because I had volunteered to help my teacher rearrange our desks to make room for our upcoming lesson project (writing impromptu scripts and making performances). The desks were arranged in two rows on either side of the classroom, leaving a narrow walkway between the two rows so the students in the front rows could get to their desks.

While I was finishing up, I’d stepped into one of these walkways to help write the lesson plan on the board, and my teacher stepped out… and S stepped in, seeing me by myself, and decided to trap me in that little walkway by getting directly in front of me in such a way that I couldn’t even move the desks to get out of the way.

I don’t remember exactly what was said, pretty sure S was taunting me and trying to goad me into doing something. What I do remember, however, is that I was getting pretty tired of her bullying me, so I braced against the wall behind me for a moment and threw myself forward.

According to my dad, I have linebacker shoulders (straight and wide) and I tackled S halfway across the classroom to get her out of my way. I don’t know how I managed that, I just know that I did, and by some blessing, I didn’t get in trouble for it. My teacher came back in right before the tackle, and saw how S had me pinned in, so she vouched for me.

I thought it was over, but the following day during recess, S decided to pin me in again, this time looming over me while I was sitting with my back to a railing. She was furious with me because she had gotten caught red-handed in bullying me, and I’m not sure what she was planning to do. Thankfully, one of the teachers saw her and yelled at her to back off, which gave me an opportunity to run, bolting into the field.

In my previous story, I mentioned my asthma. Being that I was already out of shape and asthmatic, there was no way I was going to actually get away from S, but maybe the prey animal instinct kicked in or something, and I hoped that someone would notice that something was wrong. Sure enough, she caught up quickly, and the next thing I knew, she tackled me right back, slamming full-force into my back and sending me tumbling head over hind-end through the grass for several feet. Somehow, I landed sitting upright.

You could hear a pin drop in the grass. The entire sixth-grade class stopped what they were doing and stared at me and S, because S had tackled me hard enough to possibly hurt me. Perhaps they’d finally realized just how serious things were? I don’t really know. My mind was still playing catch-up with what had just happened, and one of my other friends ran over to make sure I was okay and to help me up.

After the initial shock wore off, I did the only thing I could think I could do… I laughed.

I started laughing my eleven-year-old butt off. I don’t know why, but it just ended up being completely hysterical to me. Of all the things S could do, she just tackled me and sent me rolling like a bowling ball!

The rest of the day is a bit fuzzy after that. I remember going to the nurse to make sure I wasn’t hurt, then to the principal’s office in case I wanted to make a proper complaint. I don’t remember much else. I don’t even remember if S got brought to the office.

The next day, S found me in the hall at my locker. I had braced for the worst… but she apologized, and ended up laughing. Apparently, my laughing after she tackled me like that made me seem a lot tougher than I looked, because she’d tried to actually cause some sort of harm and I laughed it off. It caused her to end up developing a strange sort of respect for me, because no one was brave or crazy enough to laugh at something like that.

The rest of the year, she and I were actually great friends. She came to me for help on our classwork because her grades were slipping, and other bullies weren’t exactly jumping at the bit to go after their old perfect target with S in my corner. We ended up actually bonding, making it pretty sad when I moved and had to transfer out, causing us to fall out of touch. Sometimes I look back on those days and wonder how she’s doing.

I’m a functioning workaholic in a college class. We’re doing small group discussions, and I’m talking to the guy next to me, who had to miss the previous class. In the middle of the conversation, our professor walks up and interrupts.

Professor: *To the guy.* “See? You should be more like her. She never misses class.”

Me: “That’s just because I hate makeup work. Most times I’d rather drag myself to class and puke in a bucket in the corner than have to play catch-up.”

Professor: “…Oh.”

She never tried to use me as a good example again!

It’s the first day of a graduate seminar. The professor has a noticeable Spanish accent, but he hasn’t said where he’s from yet. He steps out briefly to make copies, and the room immediately buzzes.

Student #1: *Whispering.* “Where do you think he’s from?”

Student #2: “I dunno… maybe South America?”

Student #3: “Could be European, right? He kind of looks European.”

Student #4: *Confidently.* “If he speaks Spanish, he’s Mexican. Duh.”

The room goes silent.

Me: “Uh… not necessarily.”

Student #3: “Yeah, there are lots of Spanish-speaking countries… not to mention Spain.”

Student #4: “Spain, Spanish, whatever.”

Me: “…Whatever? Spain is in Europe.”

Student #4: *Stares blankly, then frowns.* “Wait… Spain is in Europe?”

The professor walks back in, completely oblivious, while twenty grad students actually face-palmed in unison. I’m yet to see anything like it since.

I’m teaching history to a class of Year 4 students (ages nine to ten). They are learning about the European explorers of Australia. Today, we are discussing Captain James Cook, the English settler who charted the east coast of Australia. One student eventually raises her hand.

Student: “I thought that a different explorer discovered Australia.”

Me: “Well, a few explorers charted different areas of the country. James Cook was the first to chart the east coast, but he wasn’t the first to discover Australia. Who was it that you were thinking of?”

Student: “George Washington? Wasn’t he one of the explorers?”

Me: “No… for a wide variety of reasons.”