One winter a few years ago, one of our heat pumps broke, so we didn’t have heat in the living room, kitchen, and downstairs family room. I brought up a heater and plugged it in in the family room to take the chill out. We were discussing the issue and how long it would take to get a repairman out.

Daughter: “At least you have the heaters, so it’s not a big deal.”

Me: “Yeah, it heats the living room nice, but it’s going to kill our [Electric Company] bill if we don’t get the heat fixed quickly.”

Daughter: *Kind of bewildered* “It’s just plugged into a regular outlet, like the lights. Why would it cost more?”

My wife looked at me and I looked back at her.

Me: “[Daughter], you do know that it costs a lot more to run a heater, right? It pulls a lot more electricity than a light does. It’s like the stove or dryer; the stove is plugged into an outlet, but it costs a lot more than a light.”

God as my witness, she said:

Daughter: “We pay for the stove? It costs money to run the stove? I thought the electricity was just for the lights and plugs.”

My wife, my son, my other daughter, and I all started laughing.

We went on to explain to my reasonably well-educated twenty-three-year-old daughter that more than just the lights and plugs cost money to use in the house.

I run a small non-profit cat rescue. My mother-in-law has had cats her whole life but never bothers to take them to the vet for anything. As such, she always has kittens around, and her cats are always dying from flea bites and other completely preventable issues.

One day, she comes to the rescue.

Me: “Hi, [Mother-In-Law]. What’s going on?”

Mother-In-Law: “Someone called the police and told them I was hoarding cats. Now I have to get them all vaccinated and fixed or I’ll pay a fine.”

Me: “Okay, I can give you some low-cost resources if—”

Mother-In-Law: “Why can’t you just do it?”

Me: “Oh, you want to surrender them?”

Mother-In-Law: *Dramatic sigh* “No. I want you to fix them and give them back. Don’t you have some kind of cheap connections?”

Me: “I have vets I work with, but I’m not going to use my donations and resources for cats I’m not taking care of. I’m sorry, but—”

Mother-In-Law: “So, you don’t actually care about cats. I get it. Fine. I’ll just put them all down.”

I know she won’t, and I know she has the money to get them fixed; she just doesn’t want to deal with it. I decide to call her bluff.

Me: “That’s your choice. Have a nice day.”

Mother-In-Law: “Are you serious?”

Me: *Shrug* “I offered resources to do it yourself and you said no. If you aren’t surrendering them to the rescue, there’s nothing I can do for you.”

Mother-In-Law: “You are disgraceful!”

She stormed out.

A few hours later, my husband called and asked why his mother was demanding we get a divorce. I explained everything, and he sided with me.

She did not get her cats fixed, so the animals were removed from her care. As a little extra shot, the person who removed the cats called Child & Youth Services, and her family is now under investigation for child neglect and endangerment because her house was covered in cat poop and a complete wreck.

I’m writing this for my grandmother, who doesn’t speak a single word of English.

Grandma has lived her whole life in rural China, in one of those really backwater villages that basically remained unchanged by time, even now. The only major highlight of the village is that it runs an orphanage for the surrounding region. It came into existence to take care of unwanted and abandoned girls due to China’s One Child Policy, and it was rather communal.

Nearly every housewife in the village chipped in to help take care of the children, and Grandma in particular was essentially the manager of the place. She basically ran the orphanage for decades, refusing to retire or close shop no matter what.

Things back then weren’t so good. Girls were rarely ever adopted, and most wound up being shipped off to the cities as trophy wives. It got better over time — fewer abandoned girls, better funding and organisation, and these days, those who aren’t adopted are sent to an actual school in the cities — but back then, it was quite horrible.

One day, I found my grandmother sobbing in a corner. At first, I was worried, but she reassured me they were happy tears.

Apparently, one of the old orphans from the “Bad Old Days” had come by. She was of the few who had been adopted, so Grandma could remember who she was. 

This particular orphan was now a Canadian citizen and had a career, and after marriage, she decided to adopt a pair of girls as her way of giving back to the community.

Imagine that. She was apparently fine with adopting from any old orphanage, but her husband had painstakingly tracked down the very same orphanage she had come from, all in order to allow his wife to come full circle. This was no small feat considering she’d been adopted a quarter of a century ago, way before anything was digital.

Grandma says that running an orphanage is a thankless job, but it’s moments like these that keep her going.

While weaning my son, we had the common issue of constipation after introducing all these new solid foods after a milk-only diet. I did all the right things — butternut squash, prunes, pears, tummy massages, cycling legs, etc. — but my poor seven-month-old was just having trouble doing his business.

We were visiting my parents in the thick of our issues, and my dad was holding and playing with the baby. My son began trying to poop and, noting the particular position he was being held in and seeing it was helping, I shouted at my dad to keep holding him like that.

Amid the cries of pain and struggle coming from the baby, my dad proceeded to freak out that he was holding a pooping child — despite the fact that not only was my son wearing a nappy, but he was also fully clothed!

Sometimes I really wonder what life was like for the older generation.

CONTENT WARNING: Peaceful Animal Death

My brother is autistic and lives in a group home. When we were kids, we had a black lab mix named Buddy. [Brother] decided that he wanted another dog, and he wanted it to be a black lab mix, and he was going to name it Buddy, too. My mom heard there was a rescue with a therapy-certified dog named Jax, so my mom took [Brother] there to look at him.

In the very first kennel, there was a yellow dog. He saw my brother and just started going nuts. He started barking, jumping, and whining. The lady took him out of the kennel, and he started running around the room. He came up to my mom and my brother, waving his front leg in the air.

Rescuer: “He wants to shake.”

My brother was immediately taken with him.

Rescuer: “He’s a lab mix. His name is Butter, but we call him Butty for short.”

My brother thought this was a sign that they were meant to be.

The lady told them he was a last-minute death row rescue from the local shelter, but she swooped in and got him. It was decided that Butter, now called Buddy, wasn’t trained well enough to live in a group home, but he could come and live with us, and my brother could visit him.

He would later go on to star in such classics as this story and this story. He passed two days ago after being with us just shy of ten years at the age of eleven. He was the best dog and will be missed.

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