I lived in the suburbs on the edge of Baltimore City. My neighborhood was okay, but as you drove down the road a mile or so, as one friend said, “First you have houses, then you have houses with bars on the windows, then houses with boards on the windows, and then you get to the neighborhood where someone stole all the boards.”

I have just texted a friend that I am willing to sell her “Smash Bros” on GameCube. She replies that she doesn’t have time really, has to go work, she’s going to drive by the end of my street and just hand me cash. 

I stand on the street corner, she pulls up, I lean over and give her the game.

Two seconds after she leaves, multiple plain clothes officers pull their badges.

Cop #1: “Are you selling drugs, son?”

Cop #2: “What exactly was in that bag?”

I’m a skinny, pale nerd. If you Googled “NERD”, you’d get a photo of me.

Me: “Smash Bros on the GameCube. I have my GameCube opened and it was my last game played if you need to see?”

Cop #1: “No, that’s fine, carry on.”

Me: “You’re just going to take my word for it?”

Cop #1: “Twenty years on the force, and you’re literally the first person not to run.”

Cop #2: “And ‘It was Smash Bros, not crack I’m selling!’ is just… too believable, honestly.”

Reading some of the stories on here about teachers who can’t tell their heads from their a**es sometimes and dole out ridiculous punishments for the tiniest infractions reminded me of something that happened back when I was just a little five-year-old with undiagnosed autism in first grade.

My teacher was, to put it bluntly, terrible. She punished the whole class for something one or two students would do and had ridiculous expectations. I have two stories about her; the first is just her being petty, and the second is just cruel to an impressionable kid.

For the first incident, I had accidentally hit a girl in the nose. I don’t remember how; I think I was turning around and my hand was raised a bit, and I nailed her on the nose. Didn’t break anything, no nosebleed, I apologized, and she was fine with it. [Teacher], however, demanded that I write her an apology letter explaining “why” I had hit her. I hadn’t done it on purpose, but whatever.

At that point in my life, I had started to develop my handwriting style. Some letters I wrote a little differently because my parents taught me cursive when I was four and I liked how some of the letters looked. Most notable was my lowercase “a”, which I wrote as one would do normally nowadays — a loop and then a tail without lifting the pencil.

I hadn’t even written more than one word; I had written “Dea” out of “Dear [Classmate]”. Immediately, [Teacher] snatched the pencil out of my hand, erased what I’d written, and told me to do it again. She didn’t specify what I had done wrong. I just wrote it again, and she snatched the pencil from me again. She refused to tell me what I was doing wrong, just screeching at me, “DO IT RIGHT!”

Just a reminder. I’m autistic. Screeching like that without actually explaining anything does not help a five-year-old who doesn’t understand why you’re screeching at them; all it does is confuse them and lead them into a meltdown.

Eventually, I broke down sobbing and asked what I was doing wrong. She said I was writing a “cursive” letter and no one could read cursive yet.

It was one. Single. Letter. That anyone could have read. But, apparently, that warranted her screeching at me for fifteen minutes that could have been spent learning something new or interesting — not learning that my non-conforming handwriting was a blight on her sensibilities.

I don’t even remember if I finished the letter, but I do know that my dad was not particularly happy to find out that his kid had gotten screamed at for a single letter. This, unfortunately, was not the only time [Teacher] singled me out.

For a bit of context for the next story, our cafeteria was set up where each class had to sit at a designated table (imagine a picnic table but about eighteen feet long), and each table had to be called one by one to go get their food; if you brought your own food, you weren’t allowed to eat until the rest of your class got back to the table. You couldn’t sit wherever you wanted; if you had a friend in a different class, too bad, so sad. Designated seats only. This was a public school, mind you, not some prestigious academy.

One day, [Teacher] gave us detention and made us sit in the cafeteria after school. Not just whoever was causing trouble — the whole class got detention. She didn’t care if we were just sitting there minding our own business; if one person acted up, the whole class was punished. I was one of the ones who did absolutely nothing to warrant detention, and I don’t even remember what had happened to cause it in the first place. I just remember that I was sitting there crying my eyes out because I had recently read the first of the Junie B. Jones books and remembered when Junie B. got locked inside her school and couldn’t get out.

About ten minutes into detention, my dad came in. I lived a few streets away, so my dad would come pick me up and walk me home. My dad was confused and about to get pretty mad — why was I in detention?

What [Teacher] didn’t count on was the fact that my dad had attended this school when he was a kid, and the teacher who was watching us had not only been his teacher, but he had been her favorite student. She remembered him and, when my dad asked what was going on and why I was in detention, she vouched for me and said that I hadn’t done anything wrong. (She even said I reminded her of him, just doing my work and minding my business.) She let me leave since my dad was here to pick me up, she wished me a good day, and that was that.

The next day, I found out that [Teacher] was decidedly not too happy that I had left without her explicit permission. (Keep in mind that this woman wasn’t even watching us, and even if she had been, she couldn’t exactly stop my dad from coming to get me if I had done nothing wrong.) I don’t know how long the rest of the kids were stuck in detention, but I have a feeling a lot of parents weren’t happy.

When lunch rolled around, I got ready to sit in my usual spot. However, [Teacher] wrenched me up by the arm and marched me over to a single, unoccupied table away from all the other classes and told me I wasn’t allowed to sit anywhere else. I was forbidden from talking to anyone, and anyone who was caught sitting with me would get detention again. She glared daggers at me, and I imagine she’d hoped that since I was sitting alone, the lunch monitor would forget I was there and not call on my “table” so I wouldn’t be able to eat lunch.

I was scared and sobbing once again. I didn’t understand why this teacher seemed to hate me so much, only that she did. (Looking back at my school photo, though, I may have a hunch… Let’s just say I looked “different” from both her and the rest of my class.)

The next day, I tried to sit with my class. [Teacher] dragged me back to that same empty table and told me this was my seat from now on, and I would get detention if I tried to sit elsewhere.

Thankfully, this story does have a silver lining and happy ending that [Teacher] didn’t count on. My three best friends — two in my class and one in the next-door class — all effectively said “screw that”, and after they got their lunches, they came and sat with me. [Teacher] tried to get all of them punished and put them in detention — even the one who wasn’t in her class — and the lunch monitor reamed her out for isolating a kid who hadn’t done anything to her. Take a guess who the lunch monitor that day was.

From then until the day we graduated from fifth grade, that table became our spot. The four of us would sit at that table and enjoy our lunches because the lunch monitors and the other teachers all knew we weren’t getting into anything; we were just kids talking and being kids. I don’t remember if [Teacher] was there when I moved on to second grade, but frankly, I couldn’t care less.

I have never been the kind of person to think fraternity life sounds fun. I was nearly done with college when I became friends with someone in an “engineering fraternity”, which was as nerdy as it sounds; they had a higher chance of watching Ted Talks versus watching sportsball, although they did enjoy both. They were more nerdy than your typical frat, but they still got up to hijinks.

One evening, it was about 95 degrees out (35 C). Air conditioning in the dorms and on-campus housing was inefficient and basically non-existent. One very hairy frat boy had an idea, inspired by the shaving scene in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”; you could pay $5-10 and wax a strip of his leg or chest.

He got a bit liquored up for this. It was so hot that we were all sweating. A couple of dudes took their shirts off. It was finals week, I believe, and many people were already done for the semester/year and were partying.

I was playing on my DS, waiting for pizza to come, only vaguely watching the fratty nonsense going on around me. I was really only friends with the one guy there, who was manning the camera. These were pre-smartphone days, so they were using a large digital camera to film the hilarity.

So, they were waxing this large man, who was lying on the kitchen table. He was shrieking each time a strip got pulled, just like in “The 40-Year-Old Virgin”. Two people were holding him because he kept involuntarily kicking or twitching.

A large man walked in, looking vaguely like Anthony Anderson. He looked around, startled.

Man: “Uhh… sorry… I was looking for… I think I wanted the next… Y’all have… Bye!”

He ran backward out of the room.

Frat Boy #1: “What was that? He seemed scared. I think the apartment across the walkway is having a big party tonight; he’s probably looking for that one.”

Frat Boy #1: “Yeah, I think he’s still running. He’s… really booking it out of here? Why?”

Me: “Y’all are shirtless with a crying, greased-up man bent over while you’re filming him. I’ve been to a couple of sketchy strip clubs for a friend’s birthday, and this is the freakiest s*** I’ve seen in my life. Y’all need Jesus.”

And I went back to playing on my DS.

Frat Boy #1: “…what?”

Frat Boy #2: “Oh, God… It looks like we’re filming torture p*rn.”

Me: “Legally, I think you are.”

“Pokémon GO” was at its height. A coffee chain had a “Pokémon Frappuccino” that looked cute. My office was a block from a [Chain], so I went in. The guy behind the counter looks to be about twenty-four, and I guarantee he was a gamer.

I passed two signs for the Pokémon Frap on the way in. The store was a “Pokémon GO” spot, and the symbol for that spot was an ad for the drink.

Me: “I’d like a large Pokémon Frappuccino, please.”

Barista: “I’m not sure we have that. What was the name?”

Me: “…the Pokémon drink? Digital monsters?”

Barista: “I’m not familiar with that one. What’s in it?”

Me: “Err… purple dye? Berries, I think? Foam? Maybe?”

For whatever reason, that coffee shop was a data plan dead zone. I was unable to pull up “Pokémon GO” or Google.

Me: “Your store has two signs for it in the windows, which… you can’t see from this angle.”

Barista: “I’m really sorry, I can’t go outside and look. You said it’s a Pack-A-Mant frap?”

An awkward silence fell. What twenty- to fifty-year-old doesn’t know Pokémon?!

Me: “Pikachu? Charmander? ‘Gotta catch ‘em all’?”

Barista: “OH, MY GOD. OH, MY GOD. YOU’VE BEEN SAYING POKÉMON THIS ENTIRE TIME. DEAR LORD. I OWN ALL THE GAMES AND GREW UP ON THE SHOW. I DON’T KNOW WHY I KEPT HEARING YOU WRONG. Jesus, dude, I’m sorry. I was literally playing Pokémon Yellow this morning.”

My grandfather owned the land and building of a small mechanic shop. It was a block from our house, and we took our cars there — once, in twenty years, to give you an idea of how the business was run.

Two stories stand out.

Baltimore got an insane snowstorm in 2003. Average snowfall was just under three feet, with downhill areas getting four or five feet, easy. 

My mother called the mechanic, who had a snowplow. He was behind in rent, again, and she thought it’d be a nice way to pay him a bit/forgive the lateness.

He never answered. My mother dug her way out of the yard, eventually, and finally saw him in person.

Mother: “I was trying to give you money to plow the driveway so I could get my car out.”

Mechanic: “Oh, I don’t check my cell phone much; it’s on silent.”

Mother: “I left a voicemail and called the office.”

Mechanic: “I rarely check my voicemails, and I don’t check the office phone since I have a cell.”

Mother: “Which you never answer. I can see why your business is failing and you have zero customers.”

Fast forward a year. [Mechanic] has been forced to close up shop.

My mom and I arrive to check things, and there’s a shifty-looking dude poking at some old cars and minivans. Imagine the main guy from “My Name Is Earl”, but less handsome.

Earl: “Oh, I know the owner of these cars. He told me to take the batteries and tires. I own the truck, I swear.”

Mother: “I don’t care at all. It’s all just junk to me. As long as someone is taking it, I don’t care.”

Earl: “Do you want me to call Freddy? This is his van.”

Mother: “I have no idea who that is; it could be anyone on the phone.”

Earl: “I just want to prove that I own this truck.”

Mother: “I don’t care if you’re stealing all five of them. In fact, it’d do me a service to have them gone immediately. Enjoy your free cars!”