I’m the oldest child in my family, so I tend to bear the brunt of first-child anxiety that every parent experiences. When I was a teenager, my phone had GPS tracking so my parents could always know where I was. (We had the same feature on every phone, which was handy whenever we needed an estimate for how long it’d be before someone came home.)

When I went off to college, the tracker remained. It was mostly only used so my parents could reassure themselves that I was safe without infringing on my life with constant calls and texts. It was a good system, especially in the early days when my parents were dealing with the worst of the bittersweet “my baby isn’t a baby anymore” feelings.

One spring day, my parents checked in on the GPS app and saw that my location was pinged in a small apartment complex a significant distance off-campus. Cue immediate panic from my father, who was convinced that I’d been kidnapped. My mother made him calm down, and they sent a text and continued to check every ten minutes or so.

No reply. They continued to send texts. They tried calling, but no answer. This went on for almost an hour, and by the end of it, my dad was pacing and probably ten seconds away from calling the National Guard.

Finally, I picked up my phone, saw the texts and several missed calls, and excused myself to call back.

Me: “Hello?”

Parents: “WHERE ARE YOU?!”

I explained to them that I was at a friend’s apartment with my church group and we were eating pizza and playing video games. I’d had my phone turned off because that’s just good guest etiquette. My mother then filled me in on the drama, and I’ve teased them about it ever since.

Classmate #1: “I can’t wait for break. We’re going to Nepal.”

Classmate #2: “What are you going to do there?”

Classmate #1: “Dunno yet. I’m trying to find things to do, but I can’t find it on the map.”

Classmate #3: “[Classmate #1], Nepal’s in Asia. That’s a map of Mexico.”

Classmate #1: “Nonsense. It’s somewhere here on the west coast.”

Sometime later…

Classmate #1: “Told you! Here it is.”

Classmate #3: “That’s still not… You know what? I hope you enjoy your vacation. You should learn all about Nepal before you go.”

[Classmate #1] triumphantly showed us his map. He was pointing to Naples, on the coast of Italy.

My boss used to be a teacher in IT at university. He had the weirdest quirk for a teacher — at least compared to my own student experience.

During any written (noted) assignment, students were allowed to ask him any question they wanted, and he would answer them legitimately and correctly. In exchange, he would dock an amount of points depending on the importance of the answer.

His reason: in IT, when you are locked, you pay for a consultant. So, in order to prepare his students for real life, he applied the same principle.

CONTENT WARNING: Dead Animals (Taxidermy)

My aunt used to do free presentations using taxidermy specimens from the college where she worked. I’d help. These specimens had tags saying the dates they’d been stuffed — some back to the early 1900s. (The oldest I recall was a bear cub from 1903.)

The kids understood that the animals were dead and stuffed. On multiple occasions, we had parents ask what kind of drugs we had given the animals to keep them so quiet and docile.

THEY’RE DEAD!

When I was in college, I worked part-time in the building that served as the central hub for the college campus. No classes were held there, but the building had conference rooms, an auditorium, restaurants, and a computer laboratory, where I worked. The computer lab also sold software and printouts. Plus we were expected to help students on occasion, so we had basic office supplies on site: staplers, pens, etc. 

Like any other retail place, we had regulars. Most were fine, but one guy was just weird. He bought a copy of MS Office once and then just walked around the place a bunch of times, never using the computers, studying, or anything. He would frequently stop by and ask to borrow a pen, and then he would go back to walking around the place some more. I don’t think I ever saw him actually write anything down with the pens. 

One day, he asked to borrow a pen from me, and I gave it to him. He gave it back a few hours later, and I was disgusted to find that he had chewed it up. 

Me: “No, I’m not taking this pen back. This is now your pen. Keep hold of it now, because I’m not letting you borrow any more pens from here.”

[Weirdo] took the pen and left without saying anything. I didn’t see him for the rest of the day. 

On my next shift, which was late afternoon to close, [Weirdo] was there again, because he always was. 

Weirdo: “Can I borrow a pen?”

Me: “No. Last time you were here, I gave you a pen to keep. You can use that pen, and it should be fine because it was two days ago.”

[Weirdo] left immediately without saying a word. No arguing, no hassle. I didn’t think anything of it at the time. 

Later in that same shift, I was getting a bit hungry, so I called a member of the setup crew (other student employees who set up the auditoriums and conference rooms for events) to cover for me a bit because I wanted to get some dinner at one of the restaurants in the building.

I came back twenty minutes later to find the place swarming with police.

Me: “What in the h*** happened here?”

Setup Crew Guy: “[Weirdo] came in with a large axe and just started prowling around the place! I called the police, and they arrested him.”

I never saw [Weirdo] again after that. To this day, I wonder if [Weirdo] would have tried to murder me with an axe because I wouldn’t let him chew on a pen. If that’s the case, I’m glad he wasn’t smart enough to check the restaurants in the building.