I was prescribed Tramadol for my sciatic pain a few years ago; the pain was so bad that I literally couldn’t get up, sit, or walk without it. I’d actually had to take a couple of weeks off work as my doctor and I were experimenting with less-potent drugs, but this was the only one that worked. On Tramadol, I was perfectly functional; off of it, I was bedridden.

I had to refill the prescription in another EU member state once, and they gave me trouble at the pharmacy, questioning the doctor’s choice of the drug. I had to explain to them that maybe they should just do their jobs and fill in the prescription since they weren’t my doctor.

Then, one day, I took a trip to Egypt. (The condition lasted almost a year before it cleared, and I couldn’t put my life on hold, so I tried to live a normal life in the meantime.) To my horror, I discovered that I had forgotten to pack enough pills, and I would be out of them soon. I also didn’t have a valid prescription with me. I thought I’d try my luck at the hotel pharmacy; maybe Egypt had different rules that could work in my favor this time?

I explained my situation to the pharmacist, and she immediately handed over a box of Tramadol and told me the price.

Me: *Happy but confused* “Wait. Isn’t this a prescription-only drug over here?”

Pharmacist: “Yes, it is!”

Me: “But I don’t have a prescription with me; that’s part of my problem!”

Pharmacist: “Yes, you do!”

Me: “I don’t understand.”

Pharmacist: “We just wrote you one!”

Me: “But don’t you need a doctor for that?!”

Pharmacist: “See that gentleman in the lab coat sitting over there? He’s our doctor. He just wrote you a prescription.”

The hotel pharmacy actually employed a doctor who’d write prescriptions for hotel guests! There’s probably a ton of stuff wrong with this setup, but it certainly saved my butt this time, so the last thing on my mind was to complain.

My nephew is in the army and stationed in Egypt. He signed up on his day off to go scuba diving in the Red Sea. He jumped in and was happily swimming when he remembered… he had forgotten to take his wallet out of his back pocket. He reached back and realized it wasn’t there. He swam back to the boat, looking all over, and it wasn’t there, either.

Scuba Instructor: “I’m sorry, but your wallet is most likely at the bottom of the sea.”

My nephew was heartbroken, because his wallet had his paperwork so he could come home in a couple of weeks on leave, and without it, he wouldn’t be able to. He hadn’t seen the family, his wife, or his kids in person in almost seven months.

The next day, he got a phone call from the scuba instructor.

Scuba Instructor: “While I was out with another group in the same spot today, I found your wallet down at the bottom of the sea!”

It still had all of his paperwork, ID, and the $500 in it that was for him to use on a tour of the Pyramids the next week!

The instructor refused any reward, so since then, he and my nephew have been chatting online whenever they can, becoming fast friends. Not only was his wallet found in the middle of the sea, but all of his stuff was returned to him. There are still decent humans in the world!

A user through chat support informs me that no one hears him whenever he talks through Skype calls. I go through the regular troubleshooting steps for almost twenty minutes but nothing seems to work.

User: “Do you think nobody can hear me because I don’t have a microphone?”

Me: “Do you have an internal microphone?”

User: “How can I know?”

Me: “Are you contacting me through a laptop or a PC?”

User: “A PC.”

Me: “Oh… Then please buy a microphone and try again.”

User: “Okay. Thank you.”

Me: “Welcome.”