CONTENT WARNING: Violent injury

I work for a general contractor as an on-the-ground man for several small city projects. I am conducting a lock-out tag-out check when one of my people comes up to me rather slowly. 

Staff: “Sir?”

Me: “Yeah?”

Staff: “I might need to go to the hospital.”

I turn to face him. He looks totally fine, isn’t showing any sign of injury, and is standing straight up. 

Me: “Are you not feeling well?”

Staff: “No, sir. I think I have been stabbed.”

Me: “What?”

Staff: “There was a man over by the generator; I think he was stealing fuel. I stopped him and spoke to him, and I think he stabbed me when I turned around.”

At this point, I have pulled out my mobile to call 911, but I am still confused. 

Me: “You think he stabbed you?”

Staff: “Yeah. Actually, can you check?”

This man turns around and my heart falls out of my chest. Lodged in his lower back is what appears to be a jagged piece of metal with an electrical-taped handle. Blood has run into and stained both his high-vis work shirt and the vest he has on. 

Staff: “Did he get me?”

911 was called immediately. It was a few days later that I got to have a talk with the staffer. He told me he felt the blade go in, but after that, nothing at all. To this day, we don’t know if that was purely due to adrenaline or some other bodily reaction to the stabbing. 

The individual that had stabbed him was captured on the cameras another vendor used to monitor their onsite battery boxes. He was quickly identified by police and arrested. 

I do know that he was let out again and returned to our worksite. He ended up messing with another vendor and tried to stab their employee, as well. Fortunately, the employee was no pushover and ended up breaking the man’s arm and slamming his face into the side of a Toyota Tacoma so hard he indented the bedside. 

The police responding had a laugh and told the employee that his actions would be considered self-defense, and the man was arrested again. This time, he never returned.

We had a horrible snowstorm one year that had drifts of snow everywhere, and we lived on a side street which meant that the city would plow our street last, if at all.

This year, in the apartment building where I lived, the whole building went out to shovel out all the cars parked there. We lived near the end of the block, about three or so buildings from the corner, so we started in front of our building and worked our way down to uncover all of our cars. On a whim, we started shoveling other cars out. Other neighbors saw us, grabbed their shovels, and came out to help. Another guy had a snow blower and helped get the snow off the street. It was a beautiful thing.

Then, some a**hat came driving up.

Jerk: “Hurry up and shovel out those spots over there so I can park!”

They lived in the building next to ours. We told them to grab a shovel and help, and they refused. We just looked at them and then turned back to what we were doing, completely ignoring them. We didn’t shovel out their spot.

It would have been one thing if they asked us nicely, but to rudely demand we do it? Uh, no.

My mom and I are both very short: she’s about 5’2″ and I’m 5’0″. We go to a local retail chain, and she is looking for tampons in a specific brand. The only one we can find in that brand is on the very top shelf, where neither of us can reach, and the shelf is too unstable to climb. We turn to the nearby employee for help.

Employee: “Can I help you two?”

Mom: “Hi. Can you grab a ladder or a taller employee to reach those tampons for us?”

Employee: “Certainly, just wait right here and I will be back in a few minutes.”

A few moments after the employee left, I noticed that there was the exact thing my mom needed, well within reach and hidden behind a different box of tampons. Now, the smart thing to do would be to take the tampons and apologize to the poor employee — who was just as short as we were — for wasting their time.

I did not do the smart thing.

I took the box and tossed it up on the top shelf. To the poor employee whose time I wasted, I am so sorry for being that kind of person. You were very helpful and lovely.

I am working at the front desk of a hospital during flu season, so kids are not allowed. A mother and two kids walk in. After I explain the policies, the mother is visibly angry and tries to explain that the kids want to visit the patient.

She begins screaming in the kids’ faces and turns to me. She tries to claim that I made her children cry despite them not caring about visiting and the fact that she literally screamed and tried to make them cry on purpose.

Mother: “Look at this! You made my children cry. They want to see their [family member]!”

Me: “I just saw you scream in their face; that doesn’t make any sense.”

She turns to the kids and speaks in a tone that implies I somehow ruined their evening.

Mother: “C’mon, kids, let’s go.”

My cousin, age ten, and I, age seven, went to the local grocery store to get some stuff for my mom. She had (jokingly) added “a six-pack of cold beer” to the shopping list.

My cousin and I arrived at the checkout lane, and the nice lady told us:

Cashier: “I’m afraid you can’t buy beer because you’re under eighteen years of age.”

I did a bit of quick math.

Me: “But, we are seventeen together. You can overlook one year, can’t you?”

The checkout lady smiled and shook her head. The other people near the counter chuckled. We were embarrassed and returned the beer to the shelf.

Arriving home, we told the tale to my mom and cousin’s mom. They had big grins and told us they were joking and just wanted to see what would happen.

I grumpily replied, something like:

Me: “Well, the beer wasn’t cold, anyway.”