I’m a young adult living on my own, and my mom and I haven’t had a chance to see each other in person for a while. When we both have a day off, we agree to meet up around 5:00 pm to just catch up and see each other again. Due to my odd sleep schedule, I wake up extremely early that morning, and around 11:00 am, I find myself the victim of a caffeine crash. I set an alarm for 3:00 pm and lay down for a nap.

The next thing I know, I wake up with my phone on the bed underneath me and the alarm blaring. I’m not surprised; I must have hit snooze in my sleep and rolled on top of it, which happens sometimes. What is surprising is looking at my phone and finding that it is 5:45 pm.

I immediately call my mom, about to apologize like my life depends on it. No answer. I send her a text. No answer. At this point, I’m scared that she is really mad at me for being this late.

A few minutes later, she calls me back.

Me: “I am so sorry! I swear I didn’t mean to sleep that long!”

Mom: “It’s okay! I was calling to apologize because I fell asleep while doing laundry and just woke up.”

Needless to say, we rescheduled our visit.

I am a private tutor. I have given my fourth-grade student the following question: “Buses need to be rented for twenty-seven children going on a field trip. Each bus can take twelve children in addition to the driver. How many buses must be rented?”

Student: “I say two buses.”

The answer is supposed to be three.

Me: “How did you get two?”

Student: “Because it’s too expensive otherwise.”

Me: “Wait, what?”

Student: “Otherwise, you’d get three buses, but the third bus is only going to have three kids in it. That’s a waste of a bus.”

I burst out laughing. My student is giggling as well now.

Student: “Or, how about two buses, and we’ll strap some chairs at the top so the other three kids can sit up there.”

Me: *Recovering* “That doesn’t seem very safe!”

Student: “Right. So it’s only for the bad ones. The naughty kids have to sit on the top of the bus while the good kids can sit inside. It’s cheaper and better for everyone!”

We drew a model of her bus prototype after she completed all the word problems. I love this kid.

My partner is in the latter stages of recovering from a serious car accident. At this point, it’s pretty obvious that he will have a permanent limp, and I’m trying to convince him to get a cane so he can get around better. 

Partner: “I don’t want people to look at and treat me like I’m an old man!”

Me: “You’re only twenty-eight. I think you’ll be fine, hun.”

Partner: “Nope. Not getting one.”

Me: “Okay, think about it this way: it gives you a weapon that’s socially acceptable for you to take literally anywhere.”

He looked at me and opened and closed his mouth like a fish a few times before huffing at me. He got a cane!

I’m the only front desk worker at my doctor’s office, and I usually lock the front door so patients won’t come in while I’m out. However, this time, our IT guy is working on my computer, which is in the office right beside the front door, and one of the nurses is going in and out, so the front door is unlocked.

I’m only out for twenty minutes, so I figure no one will have shown up yet.

Nope.

A patient has shown up thirty minutes early and is standing at the dark office window, grumbling. Luckily, my office door is right beside the window, so I try to move around her to get into my office, but she instantly moves in my way and glares at me.

Patient: “I was here first. Wait your turn.”

When I try to explain that I need to get into my office, she interrupts me multiple times, so I finally sit down to go through my phone and check a few emails. After she’s stood there almost ten minutes, she complains.

Patient: “Are they ever going to check me in?”

I look up from my phone and give her a pointed look.

Me: “I can’t. I’m not at my desk.”

She gets the point and sits down, allowing me to get to my desk. I take my time with clocking in before I ask her to approach the desk.

Patient: “You could have told me who you were.”

Me: “I tried, and you interrupted me.”

I’m definitely making sure the others know to lock the front door when I’m not here.

My dad may be retired, but he’s still involved in quite a few things — including local politics — that require meetings. Because of the health crisis, he has a lot of video meetings at home. My dad does not like headphones, and he likes the volume loud, so we can hear quite a bit of what is being said. On top of that, my dad’s voice is quite loud and carries quite far. It wasn’t too bad when it was still a bit cold and he had the door of his office closed, but now we’re in a heatwave and we can follow everything that is being said if we don’t put something on ourselves.

This particular evening, my dad has another video meeting and he has his door open. I have a little bit of a headache and my mum is sorting some paperwork, so neither of us are wearing headphones with sound on them. It gets on our nerves quite badly.

At one point, I enter my mum’s room and we start being a bit silly together. It doesn’t get that loud, but it’s a bit louder than our normal voices, and with my mum’s door now being open, it carries into my dad’s room. After a bit, we hear my dad come out of his room. 

Dad: “I can’t work like this!”

My mum said, “Sorry,” but both of us were trying our very best to hold in the laughter that we silently uttered when he’d closed the door. We got what we wanted, even if we didn’t expect it to happen.

My mum confessed she was being a bit loud on purpose, hoping he’d be disturbed and close his door, though this is definitely the first time that actually worked.