Four members of my family are on a two-day trip on a point-to-point daily excursion train, with a long stop at the destination for touristy-type doings. While most people who board at the main station, as we did, ride the same train both ways — or one way and take a bus for the return — we have opted to spend the night in a hotel after arrival and return by train the following day. The time and number of the return train are clearly noted on our tickets.

On the first leg of our trip, a photographer passes through, taking pictures of each person, couple, or group. Normally, they are printed and presented for sale shortly before the end of the run for those who won’t be on the train for the return, or on the train later for those who will be in their seats on the way back. Because we are not returning on that same train or by motor coach, the photographer (supposedly) notes which train we will be on for our return the following day. Great! My sons want copies, so we look forward to that; it’s pretty much a guaranteed sale.

On the train the following day, a photographer first passes through the train cars taking photos of those who are “new” to the train, and then they return to present the packets for potential sale, but ours is not in the bin. We are told that’s not a problem; it’ll be available at the photography studio at the train station.

After departing the train, my two sons and I head to the studio as instructed while my husband walks to the remote parking area to collect the car.

Attendant: “I’m sorry, your photos aren’t here. I’ll take your details and have the manager contact you. There are three trains a day a couple of hours apart, so the packet may have accidentally been sorted into the wrong bin. Do you have the card that you were given when the pictures were taken?”

Me: “No. Unfortunately, we’ve misplaced it.”

Attendant: “That’s okay. We should still be able to locate the pictures since we know which trains you were on. Are there any special features, besides three men and a woman, that would help identify the pictures?”

Me: “Well, the other man is bald on top with a white beard and long white hair; he’s often mistaken for Santa.”

Attendant: “Anything else?”

And here the three of us stand facing her: an imposing gentle giant with missing front teeth and a receding hairline, a heavily bearded, long-haired mountain-man-type guy, and me, a woman with a very short pixie cut, a large, purple facial birthmark, and a right eye that points to the side instead of ahead.

I asked myself if she really needed to ask that question, and then I provided the obvious specifics.

Later, we found and provided the code on the photographer’s card, but they claimed to have never located the photos. I suspect no one even tried.

I’m working a weekend shift when we run into some technical difficulties. Our IT department is closed over the weekend, so rather than calling the help desk, I log in to our intranet page to submit a ticket to the help desk so they will see it when they get into the office on Monday. However, the page to submit help desk tickets is also down.

On the following Monday, I try again, and the page is still down, so I call the help desk.

Employee: “IT department, this is [Employee].”

Me: “Hi, [Employee], this is [My Name] from [location]. We had some computer troubles over the weekend, and I tried to submit a ticket for them, but it looks like the page is down—”

Employee: “Ma’am, I don’t do any of the website stuff. You’ll need to submit a ticket on the intranet to have that fixed.”

Me: “Well, I tried that, but the page is down.”

Employee: “Again, I don’t handle the company website. You need to submit a ticket—”

Me: “The page to do that is down, [Employee]. That’s what I’m trying to tell you.”

Employee: “I don’t do any of the website stuff—”

Me: “Then can you transfer me over to someone who does?”

Employee: “Well, they’re out of the office, but if you submit a ticket—”

Me: “Can you put me through to [IT Guy who I know will know what to do]?”

Employee: “He doesn’t do the website, either—”

Me: “JUST TRANSFER ME OVER, [EMPLOYEE].”

He sighed and transferred me over to the IT person I’d requested. I left a message for him, detailing the technical issues we’d had as well as the fact that the help desk page was down on our intranet. I got a phone call back from him shortly, letting me know he’d get ahold of the woman who maintains our intranet page and that he’d send someone out to look at our computers later that day.

I was the only one on location when the person showed up, and lo and behold, it was the same guy who’d answered the help desk line earlier. He was not happy to see me in person.

This is a story from my high school days when a chemistry teacher taught me that you can be good at what you do and still not take yourself too seriously. The incident occurred in my senior year.

I don’t recall what the experiment specifically was, but [Teacher] was heating something in a glass beaker over a Bunsen burner. He then needed to cool the mixture off. This he did by holding the beaker with a pair of tongs and carrying it over to a sink, where he ran water over the sides of the beaker.

Thermodynamics being what it is, as soon as the hot beaker touched the cold water, we heard a very loud CRACK. The beaker had broken by cooling too rapidly.

While the class chuckled, [Teacher] sighed, dropped the broken beaker into the trash, and calmly began preparing a second sample. He then heated the second beaker and carried it to the faucet.

Another CRACK. The class began outright laughing now.

[Teacher] sighed again, tossed the second beaker in the trash, and picked up a third. We were still laughing. He looked up at the class with the third beaker in his hand, shrugged — and suddenly threw the beaker into the sink, absolutely shattering it! After a brief stunned silence, the class went into hysterics.

After I graduated, I learned another lesson from [Teacher]: you don’t have to follow traditional paths or be stuck in a mold. Most teachers who aspire to greater things move into administration or pursue a doctorate. When [Teacher] got bored, though, he’d just take a sabbatical year off, attend a few more college classes, and come back teaching a different subject. When I visited the school two years after I graduated, he was teaching Art.

There’s no telling what he got to break doing that!

I work in downtown Denver and had a couple of hours before an appointment, so I decided to get lunch. I’ll occasionally pop into one of the places I used to work at because I know the food is good.

Every time I go into this one place, I remember what happened to me one time twenty years ago. I was having a beer and the bar was slow, so I was chatting with the bartender and telling him the story.

Twenty years ago, I was a server at this popular place, and they had a no-cell-phone policy. Yes, we had cell phones twenty years ago. We had to leave them in our lockers or get written up. I already had one write-up, so I put mine in my locker and went about greeting my first table.

It was slow, and I had the urge to urinate, so I went before the rush would hit. I washed my hands, tried to open the door, and… nothing. The lock had broken.

I started knocking on the door.

The employee bathroom was located back by the lockers, kind of tucked off a corner of the kitchen, away from the line where people would be.

So, I started pounding on the door. Anytime I heard a noise, I’d pound on the door and yell. But the noise of a busy kitchen and lunch rush drowned me out.

Fifteen minutes went by. Still no one. Another ten minutes. Now I was wondering how was I going to get out of this and how long was I going to be stuck in there.

Then, I heard a noise close by, and I resumed yelling and pounding on the door. Someone had gone to their locker for cigarettes. They heard me!

Coworker: “You’ve had three tables seated in your section. We couldn’t find you! The managers are furious with you!”

Me: “I’m stuck; the lock broke and I can’t get out.”

They got the manager.

Manager: “Open the door!”

Me: “I can’t!”

Duh!

They had to track down the maintenance guy, who was twenty minutes away, but luckily, the hinges were on the outside of the door and he was able to get me out. By now, I’d been in there for the better part of an hour.

The first thing the manager said to me was with anger in their voice.

Manager: “Why didn’t you just call us with your cell phone?”

Of course, they also had to check the lock to make sure I wasn’t making the story up. And I wasn’t.

My first table was understanding and laughed about it with me, but they left me no tip. I didn’t get another table that day.

I finished telling the bartender this story. Then, I went to use the restroom, and when I came back, he had confirmed with the general manager the reason the employee bathroom had a sliding bolt latch instead of a lock on the door handle: so an employee couldn’t get locked in there again. The general manager had never known who’d been locked in, though, as they took over years after I left.

They both bought me a beer.

I work in the digital camera department. We’re actually the closest store to a lot of the nice ski towns — Breckenridge, Aspen, etc. — so it isn’t uncommon to get people making a couple-hour drive down into town to go shopping.

A customer comes in wearing items linked to a specific ski resort and slams down a camera.

Customer: “The screen is broken!”

This camera’s main selling point is its ease of use, and she was obviously frustrated.

I looked at the camera, hit the “Display On” button, and watched the color drain out of her face when she realized that she had driven four hours just to have me press a button.