I work for our local shire council, and we’re organising a career fair mainly for students in high school and university. We are a few weeks out, and the deadline for businesses who want to have a stall at the fair closed two weeks ago. We allowed a few late requests, but we have now reached capacity; there is physically no room for any more.

A “gentleman” from a religious charity that employs trainees phones asking for a stall. We let him know that, unfortunately, the deadline has passed and we are at capacity, but we’d be happy for his trainees to come along as attendees, and we can make sure to put him on the mailing list for next year.

He snaps back:

Gentleman: “No, that’s fine. I’ll just call the mayor!” 

Because, apparently, the mayor can turn back time to before the cut-off date or make the venue bigger just to fit him in! We have not heard from the mayor… yet.

My friend called me to complain. Her husband was blaming her because their daughter had broken her leg while riding a motorbike owned by another friend’s kids.

Friend: “Just because I told [Daughter] she could ride the motorbike bike, he’s blaming me because she crashed.”

Me: “Had she ridden a motorbike before?”

Friend: “No, but she can ride a bicycle, and she is fourteen. [Other Friend]’s kids are eight and ten, and they can ride it. Being older, she should know how to ride it better than them.”

Me: “But haven’t they been riding mini bikes since they were three years old?”

Friend: *Snapping* “You, too? That’s what [Husband] said. I thought you would be sympathetic. She’s older than them!”

She hung up, and that was the last time she spoke to me.

I have been the person shopping at ridiculous hours on Christmas Eve. In my defence, it really wasn’t my fault!

Some years back, my husband and I drove down on Christmas Eve to join my parents for the holiday. Mum immediately assigned us tree decoration duty, so we were upstairs digging boxes of decorations out of the spare room when we heard the sounds of other people arriving. We came downstairs to the delightful but confusing sight of my sister and her five children walking in the front door. Delightful, because they live in a different country and we only get to see them maybe once every second year. Confusing, because we didn’t know they were coming this year… and because we didn’t know they’d be there, we hadn’t brought them any presents. We were planning to ship them later.

My sister’s four older children were all in their late teens or early twenties, and theoretically, we could have told them, “Oh, heck, we didn’t know. We’ll have to give you an IOU!” Her youngest child, on the other hand, was four or five at the time, and we weren’t going to do that to him. (And to be honest, even if the others would have been fine with it, we would have felt terrible.)

Me: “Oh, hey! Excellent timing! [Youngest], you guys are just in time to decorate the tree! Here’s the tinsel and ornaments. You guys have fun! Great to see you, Sis; WHAT A SURPRISE! Honey, I forgot something; WE HAVE TO GO SHOPPING!”

Mum: “What? Now? Can’t it wait until Boxing Day? They just got here; you can’t—”

Me: “NOW.”

We raided the mall like a pair of desperate Vikings — extra desperate because it was seven pm… in a small country town that usually shuts down completely at five pm and on weekends… on Christmas Eve… which fell on a Sunday that year. We honestly expected nothing to be open, and on the way there, we came up with a fallback plan that involved getting cash out of an ATM and wrapping it up in silly ways to disguise it. Amazingly, though, half the shops were still open, and we actually managed to get good presents for everyone.

Later that night, I cornered Mum in the kitchen.

Me: “Why didn’t you tell us [Sister] and the kids were coming?!”

Mum: “What are you talking about? Of course, I told you! We’ve been planning it for ages!”

Me: “You might have been planning it for ages, but it wasn’t with us! The first we knew about it was when they walked in the door!”

Mum: “I told you! I’m sure I told you! Well… I think I told you… I was talking to your sister about it for months!”

Me: “Talking to her about something and expecting me to know about it worked when we all lived in the same house, but not anymore!”

It’s three days before Christmas and I’m picking up last-minute gifts and food at a huge shopping centre with my three kids aged fourteen, eight, and two.

This shopping centre is so big that they run free shuttle buses between different entrances and carparks. I don’t drive due to medical reasons, but since we live within walking distance we often use the service. Today, we have just gotten off the bus when a bad storm hits. It is so bad that it is hailing sideways and pouring rain, with really strong winds and thunder and lightning.

Me: *To the kids* “Oh, that’s not good. We might go and get a drink and see if it passes before walking home.”

Shuttle Driver: “Where do you live?”

Me: “Just up on [Road]. Hopefully it passes soon, or my husband can pick us up later.”

Shuttle Driver: “I’ll be back here in half an hour and then I’m going on break. If you like, I can drop you guys home.”

Me: “Oh, wow! Thank you; that’s so nice. Why don’t we grab a drink and see if it passes? If not, we might take you up on that.”

Shuttle Driver: “You and your kids are always really friendly and polite. You’ve got really good kids. It’s only up the road, and you can’t walk in this weather.”

After thanking him again, we went and got drinks at a coffee shop where I picked up a gift card. It was still storming when we left, so we met the bus. He loaded all of our thing for us and dropped us right as at our front door, insisting that I run ahead and get the kids inside while he brought everything onto our porch. By the time he was done, he was soaking wet. I thanked him profusely and gave him the gift card. He was extremely grateful and told me that anytime he was working, if I needed a lift home, he’d be more than happy to help.

In an effort to boost morale, my workplace decided to host a competition around Christmas. They set up a section on each floor (most each business group was together on one floor) to decorate with a Christmas scene and declared that each floor would be competing with each other. The upper executive would judge who had the best Christmas decorations. There was no prize, just clout.

Of the six floors, five jumped into the idea immediately. They had a great time working together, or when someone had the idea of playfully stealing the tinsel from another floor, against each other. One had a crime scene set up where Grandma had been run over by a reindeer. Another had a diorama of the Home Alone house. A third made a Christmas tree of tin cans and other goods they’d be donating afterward.

Floor Four did not participate. The executives sent out emails and tried to encourage them, but no such luck. Finally, floor four was chastised as being fuddy-duddies bringing down the fun and ignored.

Then came the day of the judging. The executive laughed over Grandma, oohed over the lovely Christmas lights of the fireplace scene, and spent far too long looking for all of the details of Home Alone.

They got to Floor Four and found that someone had simply placed a large piece of paper on the ground. It showed a graph of the average current flexitime banked up by employees in each of the business groups. 

For those unfamiliar, flexitime is the extra hours that someone has worked over their contracted hours, which they are supposed to be able to then spend another day by going home early or even taking the day off.

I should be clear; when I say “a piece of paper” I actually mean two A3s (11.7 by 16.5 inches) stuck together. The only graph line that went even above halfway on the first A3 was Floor Four, which was a full 900% higher than the next highest.

We’re still unsure who printed the paper, but the fuddy-duddies — too overworked and overcapacity to have any fun at all — had made their point.