I’m kind of a pet peeve for Grandpa. He doesn’t like me. Like, at all.

You’d think it’s because I was born out of wedlock, but no. It’s because he insists that if it weren’t for my birth, Dad could have done way better in his A-levels and not have gone to what he calls a “garbage university”.

Back when they were teenagers in boarding school, Dad and Mom accidentally got pregnant with me. Mom didn’t find out she was pregnant until literally three weeks before my birthday. I’ve seen the photos, and yes, Mom really didn’t look like she was pregnant. Sure, she put on a bit of weight, but I was born in spring. It just looked like the regular Christmas and New Year weight gain.

As for the other symptoms — morning sickness, mood swings, and the like — both my parents were studying for their A-levels. They were way too stressed out to realise.

And thus, Mom gave birth to me, when she and Dad were both international students half a world away from home and their families — a pair of clueless nineteen-year-olds saddled with a newborn daughter to raise less than 100 days before the A-levels.

They both achieved straight As and got their courses of choice: medicine for Dad, computer science for Mom.

Both of them also raised me rather successfully (though not without their fair share of bumbling mishaps) while being full-time students in a foreign country three continents away from home.

Also, that “garbage university” they both went to? Birmingham University.

And Grandpa still claims that Dad could have done better if he “hadn’t wasted time looking after a kid.”

I swear, there just isn’t pleasing some people.

My sister and I share godparents — a married couple who are old friends of my parents. Officially, the guy is my sister’s godparent and the wife is mine, but unofficially, we share!

I am six years old, my sister is eight, and my mum has just had her third child, our baby brother. Realising that she is in need of some peace and quiet, my godparents take my sister and me to an aquarium somewhere for the day.

We spend the day looking at all the different fish and some small sharks, and we eventually end up in the gift shop. I find a rubber bouncy ball I absolutely have to have; it’s half-blue, half-clear, with three small plastic dolphins positioned to look as though they’re jumping out of the blue half. Six-year-old me thinks it’s the most beautiful thing I’ve ever seen, and I read the price tag, knowing my mum gave me a small amount of money to spend on the trip. However, being six, I also can’t resist the pick and mix stand! I put a small amount of candy in the paper bag and notice that they don’t have a scale out to measure how much it will be (and it’s priced by weight).

When I get to the till, the lady scans my sweets and ball and tells me the total. Whilst my weight estimation for the sweets turns out to be very accurate, I have misread the price tag for the ball and am £1 short. I begin to have what I think was my first ever panic attack. Being six years old, short of money, without my mum, and very scared of being thrown in retail jail — and completely unaware that I am fully allowed to just put the sweets back! — I am a few seconds short of either hyperventilating or crying or both.

Out of nowhere, my godmother appears by my side and senses the situation. She wordlessly reaches into her pocket and slides a £1 coin across the counter to the saleswoman. I say thank you (A LOT) but she brushes it off as no big deal. It was a huge deal; I needed a mum and she stepped right in.

She died recently (she had kidney failure my whole life), and only after speaking to some people did I find out that she did the same thing on a much larger scale for my University graduation. Knowing that my best friend, who lived over 150 miles away, couldn’t afford the hotel or travel, my lovely godparents picked her up, drove the entire way, and paid for her hotel room just so that they could all see me graduate.

She was utterly selfless, and I miss her endlessly.

One of my older cousins got married when I was in my early teens. Some of the bridal shower decorations were made with pearly pale pink beads. There were a few packs of beads leftover, so I used some of them to make a short necklace for my cousin. It didn’t look too different from any other inexpensive faux pearl necklace.

A few weeks later, she brought up the subject of the necklace.

Cousin: “It really is beautiful. Thank you.”

Me: “You’re welcome!”

Cousin: “You know the best part?”

Me: “What?”

Cousin: “I get to tell people, ‘Oh, my cousin made me a necklace for my wedding shower!’ and they assume I’m talking about a little kid. Then, I point to my neck and say, ‘Isn’t it pretty?’ and the look on their face is hilarious!”

She’s mostly stopped wearing jewelry since the birth of her first child, but I’m glad she got a few laughs out of it before it had to be hidden from grabby baby hands!

I am a customer at a restaurant. A woman and a teenage girl sit down at the table next to mine. I swear I didn’t mean to eavesdrop.

Woman: “And where is [Boy], exactly?”

Girl: “He wasn’t feeling well so he stayed at home.”

Woman: “[Health crisis illness]?”

Girl: “His tests all came back negative. And he’s not coughing, he’s tummy-and-headache sick.”

Woman: “Too sick to visit on my birthday?”

Girl: “That’s just how it goes sometimes, Mum.”

Woman: “I suppose, but I think he’s exaggerating. The world doesn’t stop just because you don’t feel well.”

Girl: “The last time you told me that, you sent me to school with shingles.”

Woman: *Triumphantly* “And you passed your exam with an A!”

I drive a taxi. In the mid- to late 2000s, I picked up a man and his five- or six-year-old son late one Saturday evening. Back then, we had small screens mounted behind the front seats. They showed news and commercials to those sitting in the back seat.

The boy asked:

Boy: “Dad, what is on those screens?”

Dad: “News.”

Boy: “That’s boring. What is it about?”

Dad: “About some people in jail.”

Boy: “Who are they?”

Dad: “Some people in Iraq.”

I then recognised the story, which was about some 24,000 Iraqis who, at that point in time, were imprisoned by the Americans. This made the last comment rather funny.

Boy: “What are their names?”