When I was around eight years old, my mom, my aunt, and I were driving down the road. We stopped at a traffic light with a strip club on the corner, and my aunt laughed as she read the sign out front.

Sign: “Banana Eating Contest Tonight!”

Me: “I want to go because I bet I would win! I love bananas!”

They started to laugh hysterically.

Me: “It’s true! I love bananas! I could eat ten in one go!”

Mom: “[My Name]! Stop talking about how much you love bananas!”

Aunt: *Laughing* “No! Let her say how much she loves them!”

Me: *Confused* “Why, Mommy? Bananas are good for you! But you have to peel the skin off because those parts don’t taste good.”

They both screamed at me to stop between laughing fits, and I never understood why until it was brought up when I was a teenager.

I was once sitting at a red light when I saw this girl hauling a** behind me and not slowing down in the least bit. I just knew I was going to be hit from behind. I had about two seconds before impact, so I sort of just put my hands in my lap and sat there.

Sure enough, BAM!

I got out of my car, and before I could say anything, the girl hopped out of her vehicle and just started repeating, “It wasn’t my fault!”, several times in a row. I was so thrown off that I wasn’t sure what to say or do.

As the gods would have it, a police officer happened to be going through the intersection, so he flipped on his lights and pulled up to us. (Talk about luck!) The girl immediately ignored me and ran up to the cop.

Girl: “It wasn’t my fault!”

After she repeated it a bunch of times, the cop stopped her.

Cop: “I saw the whole thing, ma’am, and it was your fault.”

She started tearing up and continued to repeat, “It wasn’t my fault,” over and over.

At that point, I don’t know which of the three of us was more bewildered at the situation. I figured the girl was drunk. Sadly, I didn’t stick around to watch her breathalyzer as I had to get to work, so the cop gave me the report information, and I went on my way.

I drove a beater made of metal, so I took the $500 cash from the insurance company and just pocketed it. Why did I get money? Because it was definitely her fault.

My mom and I recently bought a new house about five minutes away from our current one. This neighborhood has mostly old people, and at thirty and sixty-five, we’ll likely be the youngest people living there. It’s still undergoing renovations before we move in, and we’re driving over to check something when a car pulls into the neighborhood ahead of us. My mom looks at their license plate frame.

Mom: “I think that person’s a [Politician] supporter.”

Me: “Oh, no. We’re moving to a neighborhood full of old people in a red state. How many of our new neighbors do you think will be like that?”

Mom: “I think our immediate neighbors are okay.”

Me: “Well, one way to find out fast: hang up a rainbow flag and see who complains.”

We both laugh a bit, and then Mom drops her voice to a dramatic, soap opera-esque tone

Mom: “That’s not my daughter; that’s my lover!”

I burst out laughing.

Me: “Oh, my gosh! I didn’t even think about how that would look!”

Yeah, we’re DEFINITELY not putting up a rainbow flag now, though I joked about finding another non-pride flag that just looks like one as an alternative test. Fingers crossed we have more good neighbors than bad!

I’m a police officer. I was on patrol on a four-lane freeway, one lane from the fast lane, when a motorcycle decided to lane-split between me and the car to my left. I don’t know how to type out the sound of a motorcycle shooting past you quickly, but you’ve heard it. I put my right foot to the floor.

Me: “Unit 1 to Dispatch, attempt to overtake a high-speed motorcycle.”

Dispatch: “Unit 1, go ahead.”

Me: “We’re eastbound on [Freeway] passing [Street #1], over 100.”

This was a downhill, so while the bike had a good head start, I was able to see him in the distance.

I activated my radar to get his exact speed.

Me: “120… He’s still pulling on me… Exiting on [Street #2].”

Wrong move. I followed as he blew through a stop sign, made a left, and headed back onto the freeway to go the other way. I had my lights and sirens going and was able to get within twenty feet of him.

Me: “Unit 1, license plate [number].”

I went over my car’s loudspeaker.

Me: “Dude, just pull over. I already got your plate.”

We crossed over the overpass to another stop sign… and he pulled over.

Me: “Stop made, [Street #2] over [Freeway]. I’ll advise status.”

I stayed in my car in case he changed his mind. Over my loudspeaker again, I said:

Me: “Turn the bike off.”

He motioned to his helmet like he couldn’t hear. I repeated, more aggressively:

Me: “TURN THE BIKE OFF!”

I heard his engine shut off before walking up to him and taking the keys out of the ignition.

Me: “What’s the emergency, man?”

Guy: “No emergency.”

Me: “Why were you going so fast?”

Guy: “I didn’t think I was going that fast.”

I stared at him.

Me: “Okay, 120 mph isn’t fast to you?”

(That’s about 193 kmh.)

Guy: “Oh, what happened was the string on my sweater got stuck on the throttle. I wasn’t even trying to go that fast.”

Me: “You know, I’m not that old, but I wasn’t born yesterday. Matter of fact, I’ve been riding motorcycles for about fifteen years. And if my throttle got stuck, I’d squeeze the clutch and pull over to figure it out.”

Guy: “Yeah, I don’t know what to tell you. That’s just what happened.”

Me: “You didn’t see me when you passed me?”

Guy: “I passed you?”

Me: “Yeah, dude, you blew my doors off.”

Guy: “Ah, no. If I had seen you, I wouldn’t have gone that fast.”

His story was really falling apart. He got a ticket for 120+ because he was a liar, which carried a license suspension with it.

A few months later, I had court for that ticket. In a rare case, I brought my car’s dashcam video with me because him passing me as fast as he did was great evidence. He had hired a lawyer to represent him instead of showing up.

Judge: “How does your defendant plead?”

Guy’s Lawyer: “Not guilty, Your Honor.”

Judge: “Trooper, are you prepared to testify?”

Me: “Yes, Your Honor. And uh, I’m not sure when you provide this, but I brought my patrol vehicle’s dashcam of the event.”

Judge: “Okay, after you testify, we can see the video.”

Guy’s Lawyer: “Uh, actually, Your Honor, we’d like to change the plea to No Contest.”

Good move. The judge can practically do whatever they want after testimony, but with a plea, they give them the standard punishment — $a 1,000 fine and a thirty-day license suspension.

I worked for a place that was a bit awkward because there were two different campuses and people occasionally had to shuttle between the two locations. Not everyone had a car to drive themselves between the two campuses.

So, how would a sane company handle this situation? With a regular shuttlebus, most likely, or perhaps with a designated company van and/or driver for shuttling people in between the two campuses.

How did my company handle it? By having unpaid college interns shuttle workers between the offices, in their personal vehicles, in between their other duties.

One day, the inevitable happened, and one of these college interns got into a wreck — with paid workers in his vehicle. The college intern’s BAC [blood alcohol content] was above the limit.

His insurance wouldn’t pay for the damages because he was fully at fault, and he hadn’t selected any sort of insurance to cover his own damages when he was at fault, only damages to the other vehicle and people within it.

Our workman’s comp didn’t want to pay for the injuries suffered by the workers, especially not the intern, because they thought that the automobile insurance should pay. They also didn’t want to pay because none of this was a something that would occur under reasonable circumstances, and our liaison with them was a good fast-talker who pretended that sending interns to drive people around was not normal for us.

So, the intern sued our company since he was using the vehicle for work purposes during work hours, and our company sued the intern for causing an accident due to being drunk at work, which was prohibited.

That’s around when I quit, and in my exit interview, I explained that I was leaving because of how disgusted and bothered I was by that whole situation. 

My friends who still worked there said that the company won the lawsuit against this college kid (of course they did), putting him personally on the hook for the injuries to the others in his car, as well, but that they also finally instituted a regular shuttle between the two campuses.