I went to a nearby Thai place for lunch because they are one of the only Thai places in town that serves my favorite dish. When I walked in today, the first thing I noticed was that the big menu boards behind the counter were gone. Since I knew exactly what I wanted, this didn’t matter, but it was a huge change to the space. When I got to the counter, I asked the server at the counter what was happening.

Server: “Oh, we are updating our menu because Grandma retired, so my Uncle wants to change everything.”

I’m a little nervous because – like I said – this is the only place in town that serves my favorite Thai dish.

Me: “Oh, is it a big change? And how is it working while you’re still open with no menu?”

Server: “Uncle is just making some changes, it won’t be too much, I’m sure. Most people are just ordering Pad Thai and Drunken Noodles because that’s all they can remember. So, what do you want?”

Me: “Do you have Kaeng Pa still?”

Server: “Oh yeah, that was Grandpa’s specialty. He taught all his boys to make it, I’m sure it’s still on here.”

She starts scrolling on her touchscreen and begins to look confused. Then she calls back to the kitchen in Thai. A harried-looking man comes out of the kitchen, and she starts talking to him rapidly in Thai.

I only speak English, and enough Spanish to be polite, but I do hear them both say “Kaeng Pa” once or twice. I begin to worry that my favorite dish may no longer be available. Then the server calls another man over who has been sitting in the back of the dining room. He comes over and they fill him in and gesture at the touch screen, which I can only assume is their POS and does not include Kaeng Pa.

The man from the Kitchen and the man from the dining room start yelling at each other, and the server gives me a look like, “these guys are such dorks,” like I have any idea what is going on. At this point, the man from the kitchen is yelling “Kaeng Pa” followed by several other words that I do not know, and the dining room man has thrown his hands up and is repeating a shorter phrase.

Finally, Kitchen Man turns to me:

Kitchen Man: “What meat do you want? And how spicy?”

Me: “Uhm… tofu? And extra spicy… with jasmine rice?”

Kitchen Man: “Okay, I’ll make you spring roll too, to cool your mouth after you eat.”

Kitchen Man storms back into the kitchen.

Server: “Uhm, Uncle, how should I ring it in?”

Dining Room Man: “It won’t ring up! I guess it’s f****** free!”

Server: “Okay.” *To me.* “It should be ready in about fifteen minutes.”

I tipped a $10 and sat as far from Dining Room Man as I could. It wasn’t until I finished my (absolutely spectacular) meal and got back in my truck that I realized this was the first and only time I might ever see “It won’t ring up, it must be free” work in real life.

I’m going through airport security to get home. I have a water bottle on me, but I know it can’t have water, so I just leave the ice and plan to get more before the flight. As I show my ID and boarding pass, I decide to confirm it’s all right.

Me: “Hey, is it okay if I bring this through? It’s just ice.”

I shake the bottle a bit so she can hear it. She looks tired and responds like I’m an idiot.

TSA Agent: “That’s fine. Ice isn’t water.”

This happened about a decade ago while I was still a university student. One day, on my drive home from campus, I passed by the bank my account is with as I did nearly every day. However, this time, I saw numerous police cars in the parking lot and figured something had gone down.

Sure enough, when I checked the news upon arriving home, I found that the bank had indeed been robbed. There was a silver lining, though; the culprit was arrested at his home only a short time later and all the money was recovered. And when I say, “a short time,” I mean it took police less than an hour to track the culprit back to his house, arrest him, and recover the stolen money.

How did they manage to track the criminal back to his house so quickly, you ask? Well, in this case, the bank robber was incredibly dumb. How dumb was he? Dumb enough to write the note to the teller on the back of one of his own personal checks — the ones containing his full name and home address. Not only that, but he only lived a short distance from the bank.

When I was growing up, my mother regularly talked about how she hated Pomeranians — “little yappy things,” she called them — and how she hated dogs named Mitzi and would never own one, ever. She had a neighbor when she was young with a vicious little dog that matched this description.

One day when I was about fourteen, I was at a mall with my parents and my mother had gone into a fabric store. My father and I walked into a pet store to kill time, and while we were there, someone brought in a sweet-tempered little dog she wanted to sell.

My father started interacting with the dog and liked it.

Father: “What sort of dog is this?”

Owner: “She’s a Pomeranian.”

Father: “What’s her name?”

Owner: “Mitzi.”

My father lit up like a Christmas tree.

Father: “[My Name], go tell your mother I’m buying a Pomeranian named Mitzi.”

I thought it would be funny to tell her that, so I found her.

Me: “Dad’s buying a Pomeranian named Mitzi.”

I’d never seen my mother look so horrified in her life. She dropped her shopping and stormed off to the pet store. However, by the time we got back, my father had actually bought the dog. My mother stared daggers at him all the way home and said she wanted nothing to do with the dog. 

But within about three days, that dog had my mother totally smitten. She was gentle and mischievous and not at all happy — except when moose came into the yard. The only remainder of her previous insistence was that we were not allowed to call the dog Mitzi but instead called her Mits.

She ended up becoming my mother’s dog until the day she died while out chasing a moose — her favorite activity. My mother ended up with her favorite dog all because it was a breed and name she despised.

At the doctor’s office where I work, one person schedules appointments in a handwritten paper schedule book, and I create and print off the day’s fee slips the morning of. Her handwriting is difficult to read, and she frequently misspells or abbreviates patient names, so I have gotten in the habit of trying to find a close match for possible names when I make the fee slips. Usually, new patients are noted on the paper schedule with “NP” in a circle.

Today, we had two patients I could not find names for in the computer, but I found a close match for one; think “Mel Brooks” on the schedule but “Melvin Booker” on the computer. Given how bad my coworker’s handwriting is, the fact that it’s not marked as “NP,” and her history of misspelling and abbreviating names, I was fairly certain that Melvin is the person we were scheduled to see.

Nope.

This afternoon, my coworker comes charging up to my desk and slaps a new patient chart with Melvin’s fee slip on it

Coworker: “Does this look like Mel’s name?”

She gets in my masked face with her unmasked face. (She believes the health crisis is a scam invented for political gain.)

Me: “Closest match in the system. He wasn’t marked as a new patient, and you sometimes abbrev—”

Coworker: *Snarls* “I never abbreviate! And you should never assume that I wrote it down wrong! He’s obviously a new patient!”

I sighed, remade a fee slip for “NP Mel Brooks,” and requested that she note new patients when she schedules them so I could avoid looking for them in the system.

She’s not the only reason I’m job hunting — our boss is much worse — but seriously!