This was back when my border collie and I still lived at my parents’ house. I owned a bearded dragon who was kept in my bedroom. One night, I was downstairs focusing on college work and my mum had gone up for a shower. My dog was relaxing next to me. All of a sudden, he bolted upright, staring ahead with his head to one side. Then, he took off upstairs.

At the time, I didn’t think much of it; he sometimes liked to greet the resident humans after their traumatic time in the shower. I thought my mum had just come back out and he wanted to make sure she hadn’t drowned. But then, I heard a yell from upstairs.

Mum: “[My Name], your bedroom is full of smoke!”

I ran upstairs and found out that, indeed, the room was full of smoke. Something had gone wrong with the heat lamp in my bearded dragon’s enclosure. Perhaps the lizard had been climbing and the fitting wasn’t tight enough, but the whole thing had spun toward the back of the wooden vivarium and was slowly burning through. And yes, I do still kick myself about this. It was an eighty-watt bulb pointing at wood. You can imagine.

It turned out that my mum had come out of the bathroom to see my dog scratching at my bedroom door. She’d opened it, and that’s when she’d seen the smoke.

I immediately took the lizard out and put him in a temporary enclosure while I made sure his usual was completely free of smoke and while my dad drilled the fitting in place.

That was probably eight years ago. My border collie is now almost twelve, and my bearded dragon sadly passed away in 2021, aged thirteen. My dog still loves to check in on his little critter friends, now consisting of a hamster and guinea pigs! In fact, the hamster has moved into the four-foot-long refurbished and hamster-proofed vivarium my lizard used to live in. It still has the burn marks. I still feel terrible. But I’m eternally grateful to my pooch for that and all the times he’s tolerated and supported me through poor mental health.

Related:
Collies Without Borders
Border Collies Are Focused… On Something…
No Borders On That Guy’s Rudeness
No Borders On That Kid’s Kindness
No Borders On That Lady’s Crazy

This story is part of our Border Collie roundup!

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I was returning from a trip, on a bus from the ferry terminal to the train station. The bus was so full that some people had to stand. It was hot and crowded, and everyone was tired from the trip. One man in particular was frustrated. He claimed that some other passengers were cutting the line and being rude to him. They tried to move away, but it was impossible to escape as the bus was between stops. It almost seemed like there was going to be a fight… until…

One lady sitting next to the angry standing man started to talk to him. She asked where he lived, how long he had been living there, how he liked the place, if he had been on vacation, etc. Little by little, he started to calm down. When he tried to complain about the other passengers’ behavior, the lady just calmly stated:

Lady: “I guess we are all tired from the trip. This is always the worst part of traveling, don’t you think?”

After a while, they were joking and laughing, and everyone relaxed.

When the man got off the bus, one of the passengers thanked the lady. She replied with a smile:

Lady: “Distraction techniques for children are often useful with adults, as well.”

I have since found out that she was right!

Work has sent me off to Chicago to conduct a training. I have arrived at the airport in San Diego, but the plane is delayed. It happens, but I’m now worried about my connection since the flight is not direct.

While we’re waiting, there is a small earthquake. Is this going to affect my flight? Yes and no. It is large enough to be felt but small enough that they’re just taking the reports of all the staff that there is no damage at face value and continuing. But my flight is still delayed. What was supposed to have been a 9:00 am flight is now well after noon, but it still hasn’t been canceled.

The flight finally comes, but I have clearly missed my connection, and by the time they get me onto a new plane for Chicago and I get into O’Hare, it’s about midnight. The rental car agency has closed, and I need to get to North Chicago, about thirty miles away. My hotel is also up there.

My first decision is to find a room where I am, get my rental car in the morning, and hightail it up to my location to hopefully get there in time. However, the cost of the hotel by the airport is outrageous, so I make some more phone calls and find a long-haul taxi service to get me to my hotel. I have called to let them know that I am here but I’m stuck at the airport.

Fortunately for me, the training is taking place at a location right across the street from the hotel, so I don’t need transportation if I can just get to the hotel. They understand and say that they’ll be waiting for me and will have all the paperwork set up so that all I’ll need to do when I get there is sign on the line and I can go straight to bed.

The taxi driver is very sympathetic to my plight.

Taxi Driver: “How are you going to get back to the airport?”

Me: “I’ll either have someone at the training give me a ride back or find another taxi service to get me back.”

Taxi Driver: “No, no, I’ll have none of that. When is your flight out, and when do you expect to be done with training?”

I tell him, and I point out that the timing is such that I’ll pretty much need to leave immediately after the training in order to have enough time to get to the airport and through security to make my flight.

Taxi Driver: “I’ll make sure that I’m available at that time.”

He gives me his business card.

Taxi Driver: “Call me an hour before you think you’ll be done so I can be there to collect you.”

The next day went off pretty much just fine. I did my training, I called the driver, and he came to get me, driving a bit quickly (but not recklessly) in order to get me to the airport on time.

To that taxi driver, thank you so much for this. I’m sure that part of it was that you’d have a good fare, but it was still exactly what I needed given the predicament that I was in.

And by the way: when I got to the hotel, the paperwork was right there, I signed, and they directed me to the room that was right there on the first floor by the front desk: room 101.

It was actually a very nice room.

Last month, my daughter’s middle school English teacher asked her students to write a haiku to review for a vocabulary test. The haiku had to utilize at least one of their vocabulary words. The teacher also gave them another specific instruction remarking that the students were NOT allowed to end their haikus with the word “refrigerator,” which is a popular joke in haiku circles as the word contains five syllables.

So, my daughter came up with this little gem:

Poem: “Refrigerator

I circumvented the rule

Haha microwave”

I eventually stopped laughing long enough to wipe away my prideful tears and give her a hug. (“Circumvent” was one of their vocabulary words.)

Her teacher just laughed and said, in a slightly annoyed tone:

Teacher: “That’s very clever.”

My daughter received full credit on the assignment.

I used to work at an office supply store. I wasn’t regularly a cashier but filled in when needed.

I was filling in for the regular cashier’s break when a woman came up with a fairly large order. Some things didn’t want to scan, so the whole thing was a bit of pain. The total was $75 more than she expected.

I ran through everything and found it was mostly a box of printer ink driving the price — two had rung up. She said she only had one. I looked through the bags and only found one. The normal cashier had come back, so I had her double-check and she only found one. I deleted the extra from the total and the customer went on her way.

Normally, this is where I find out we got scammed, right? Well, the customer came back the next day, holding the phantom box of printer ink.

Customer: “Yeah, so, you know how this rang up twice? Guess I had two. I, uh, don’t need it. Here.”

I guess there are some honest people still.