This happened back in 2002. The Air Force Office of Special Investigations called and told me to report to their office.

When I arrived, they began interrogating me.

Investigator: “We have reason to believe you’ve been using illicit substances and spending time with [Other Airman].”

Me: “I haven’t been using anything, and I barely even know that guy.”

Investigator: “We know you’ve been hanging around with him.”

Me: “No, I haven’t. You’ve got the wrong person.”

This argument continued for about ten minutes before one of the investigators finally asked an important question.

Investigator: “Wait. Aren’t you Airman [Extremely Common Last Name]?”

Me: “Yes, but there are multiple Airmen named [Extremely Common Last Name] in my shop alone.”

In the Air Force, a “shop” is a work section or unit. There was a pause.

Investigator: “Oh.”

It turned out that they had meant a completely different person. They had seen my last name and summoned me without checking my ID or even asking for my first name.

I then had to be read into the investigation because they had f***ed up and told everything to the wrong Airman.

I was a sheltered freshman living in dorms attached to campus. I was walking into the parking lot on my way to my next class, and I saw a guy sitting in a car smoking. He looked at me, groaned, then got out of his car and put his hands on the roof. I froze, not sure what to do. After a beat, he looked back at me and laughed.

Guy: “Oh! You’re not a cop.”

Me: *Wearing a green t-shirt and white basketball shorts.* “No.”

Guy: “I totally thought you were!”

I watch as he laughs and gets back in his car. Then he looks at me.

Guy: “I should probably move, though, right? That way if you call the cops, you won’t be able to tell them where I am.”

Me: “I guess…”

This is a small lot, with one row on either side. He puts his car in reverse and backs in a straight line into a spot directly across from where he was parked before. Then he waves at me.

Guy: “We’re good now.”

I wave and leave, not entirely sure what to do. When I come back, the guy is gone. My roommate reads me the riot act later for not calling 911 on a clearly impaired guy behind the wheel of a car and for how, by not calling the cops, I had endangered everyone on the road. My only excuse is that it was my first encounter with drugs, and I was baffled by the whole experience.

I teach kindergarten, and this happened about a year ago. One Monday, a student of mine, a very sweet girl, gifted me a picture she had painted during the weekend.

Girl: “I was going to make one for [Teacher Assistant], but Aunt [Name] said I couldn’t because we had to go get her drugs.”

Me: “You said she had to get drugs?”

Girl: “Yes. I didn’t want to go, but she said she ran out and needed to get more.”

Me: “Where did she take you?”

Girl: “It was a long way away outside, and it was hot. We met a strange man, but Aunt [Name] said he was nice, not scary.”

Me: “Then what happened?”

Girl: “Nothing, it was boring, and I got tired. But Aunt [Name] gave me ice cream after for being good and not calling mom to tell her.”

This was a declaration that required following up on. After a longer conversation with [Girl] and her parents, this is what I understood happened.

[Girl] had stayed with her aunt on Saturday so her parents could have a date night. During that time, [Aunt] realized she had run out of a medication and had taken [Girl] with her on a fifteen-minute walk to her local pharmacy to pick up her prescription for the night.

Along the way, they walked past a unkempt man who might have been homeless, and [Girl] had said he looked scary, so [Aunt] had responded that it wasn’t nice to assume a man was scary just because of his looks, and suggested the man was probably nice, though they didn’t stop to actually talk to him.

On the way back, [Girl] complained she was tired from the walk and had wanted to call her parents to tell them she was tired, but [Aunt] refused to interrupt their date night for such a trivial reason and so offered to give [Girl] a piggyback ride home instead. Once they got home, [Girl] got ice cream for being a good sport about the unplanned chore.

I also learned that [Aunt] regularly refers to her medications as drugs, which technically they are. I suggested to [Girl]’s parents that they may want to encourage [Aunt] to use the term medicine instead when talking with [Girl] in the future.

I work in a grill restaurant in Amsterdam. A tourist bought a full rack of smoked spare ribs.

Customer: *Calling me over.* “I need to complain.”

Me: “What’s the issue, sir?”

Customer: “The ribs were really tasty, but I’ve been waiting for an hour, and I haven’t felt anything yet. I’m quite dissatisfied.”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Customer: “I ordered a smoked rib, and I’m still not high!”

Me: “Sir, smoked means the ribs were smoked on a grill. They don’t have weed in them.”

Customer: “But… this is Amsterdam!”

Me: “This is not a magical place where everything has weed in it.”

The whole kitchen crew laughed for a solid ten minutes when I told them.

I know this thing has happened numerous times in numerous stories, so you probably all know where this is going, but I wanted to share it because of what the doctor said.

We had one woman come back again, and her chief complaint was constipation. Going into her chart, I saw that she had been previously given some suppositories to take, and in the triage note, she said her meds weren’t working, and she wanted some different ones.

So, the doctor is asking her questions, making sure nothing else is wrong, and they get to the part about the meds. She says:

Patient: “Well, yeah, the pills I got last time were huge! I have to break them in half to swallow them!”

And then we had to explain that suppositories are not meant to be eaten, and that was why her medication was not relieving her symptoms.

Patient: “Oh, I thought suppository was the name of the medication, like Tylenol. So… how do I actually use my medication?”

Doctor: “On your thumb and up the bum!”