(I’m out grocery shopping, and I’m having trouble finding something, so I go to find a store employee. It’s worth noting that I’m a very petite blond woman in my early thirties.)

Me: “Excuse me, do you happen to know where the VapoRub is?”

Stocker: “Oh, yeah, it’s over here.”

(He hands me a tub of the stuff formulated for babies, and I thank him and immediately swap it out for a jar of the menthol mint formula.)

Stocker: “Ma’am, you don’t want to use that stuff with your kids. It’ll be too strong for them.”

Me: “Well, that’s good, because I don’t have kids.”

Stocker: “What’s it for, then?”

Me: “Cadavers. I’m a pathologist, and peppermint oil just doesn’t last through the workday. Water deaths, especially; you would not believe the smell…”

(The guy went sheet-white, and hurried away as fast as he could without running. I felt kind of bad, but it was definitely the funniest part of my day! My mentor always said that pathologists have the weirdest sense of humor…)

(My daughter is six years old and takes everything literally. For example, when saying something stinks such as “Oh, well, that stinks; you can come out for the day” she will ask me, “How does it smell?” Today I had to take her to her pediatric cardiologist, to have her heart murmur checked. I explained to her that it wasn’t going to hurt and that the doctor was just going to listen to her heart. She said okay and I thought nothing more of it. But when the nurse came in.)

Nurse: “All right, we are going to look at your heart.”

Daughter: “Okay. I took my shirt off, but how are you going to open my body to see my heart? Because Mommy said this wouldn’t hurt.”

(I will admit, the nurse’s eyes only bugged out for a second before she pulled herself together and explained that she had a special camera to look at it without having to “open her body.” Next time I will try to remember to explain a bit better!)

(My husband and I are at the beach with our outgoing, precocious five-year-old, and we are trying to convince her to wade in the lake. It’s warm, and not too deep for her, but she is afraid of the waves and the group of seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boys also in the water, who have spread out their things on a blanket a few yards away. A girl who’s about fourteen and seems to be the younger sister of one of the boys is building a very small but very nice sandcastle alone, and I feel a bit bad for her, as she looks miserable. My daughter refuses to get in the water, so my husband and I get out and relax on the beach while our daughter surveys the area. She notices the lonely girl on the blanket and hurries over to talk to her and admire the castle, and the girl seems to light up. After a few minutes, my husband calls out:)

Husband: “[Daughter]! Come back over here!”

Daughter: “Can [Girl] come, too? She said she can help me make a sandcastle.”

(The girl’s name is apparently the same as my daughter’s, which is somewhat uncommon.)

Me: *surprised* “Oh, her name is [Name], too? How do you spell it, [Girl]?”

(It turns out, she spells her name like [Daughter]’s, but with an A and Y instead of an E and I.)

Me: “How interesting! It’s not an everyday name.”

Girl: *nods*

Daughter: “Can she come and build a sandcastle with me?”

Husband: “Do you mind, [Girl]?”

Girl: *smiles* “I… I’d be glad to. Nobody else asks to, you know, build with me.”

(My daughter brings her new friend over to start the sandcastle. The girl is quite the artist and builds my daughter a pretty castle with windows and stairs. She even gets my daughter to wade in the lake to get water! They both seem to have fun, and my daughter is sad when one of the boys tells the girl it’s time to go. After taking a picture of the castle, I stop to thank the girl.)

Me: “Thanks so much, [Girl]. [Daughter] had a blast. It was so nice of you to play with her.”

Girl: *looking genuinely thankful* “No, thank you for letting me play with her. I… I mean … It’s been a rough couple weeks, and my brother kind of dragged me out here to have fun. Your kid made my day.”

(The girl’s brother called again, and the girl ran over to meet him. I don’t know what was going on with her, but I was glad that my daughter could make it a little better. If you’re reading this, nice girl, I hope everything gets better for you!)

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(I love beach glass, and since I live near a public beach, I’ll usually go for a walk and collect some when I get home from work. It can be hard to tell exactly what beach glass looks like when it’s wet, so I usually collect a handful of my favorite pieces, and sort through them later, at home. The best ones I keep and make into jewelry, and the rest goes in a bowl by my door, and when I go for a walk the next day, I’ll return it to the beach. I forget to take the glass with me one day, so when I go out the next day, I have a bigger pile than usual to take back. As soon as I arrive at the beach, I can tell I won’t find much that day – the lake is perfectly calm and flat, so the waves aren’t bringing up new pieces, and the beach is full of families, so the kids will have already collected most of it. As I’m arriving, I see a group of young kids, maybe five or six, finishing up a sand castle.)

Girl: “It’s done! Maybe if we find some beach glass or pretty rocks or something, we can decorate it?”

(I can’t resist.)

Me: “You said you want to decorate it with beach glass?”

Girl: “Yeah, but the bigger kids already found most of it. I don’t know if we can find enough…”

Me: “Here, I can help!”

(I pulled a big handful of beach glass out of my pocket and handed it to her. From the kids’ reactions, you would think I had just given them a treasure chest full of pirate gold! Totally made my day. I continued my walk, and they came and found me a few minutes later, to show me how they’d decorated their sand castle.)

(There’s a guy in my high school theater department who isn’t necessarily a bad guy, but he just doesn’t realize when he’s being annoying instead of funny and can’t let a bad joke die. His favorite joke recently is to ask people for a song title and then shout, “In my pants!” For example…)

Guy: “Hey, [Girl], what’s your favorite song?”

Girl: “Oooh, Defying Gravity!“

Guy: “In my pants!”

Girl: “Ewww.”

(As you can imagine, this gets old quickly, and he keeps it up for almost a month before I get an idea.)

Guy: “Hey, [My Name], what’s the last song you listened to?”

Me: “Can’t Get It Up if the Girl’s Breathing.”

Guy: “In my… Oh. Wait. Ewwww. That’s not a real song!”

Me: “Yeah, it is, it’s from Repo! The Genetic Opera.”

(The whole group has recently seen this musical.)

Guy: “That totally wasn’t in the movie!”

(I am prepared for this, so I pull out my iPod and show him the song, halfway down the show’s soundtrack.)

Me: “It was cut from the final movie, but they included it on the soundtrack as a bonus. Have fun with those mental images!”

(He stopped doing it after that!)

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