Way back in the 1990s, when computers were new and floppy disks roamed the earth in great herds, my parents bought a new game for us all to play on the family PC.

We installed it, booted it up, and a happy little computer chip appeared on the screen, welcoming the player. Then, he dramatically announced the arrival of the game’s villain: his exact words were, “A Virus Has Been Detected!”

Cue my dad shutting down the game, uninstalling it, and running diagnostics on the family computer for the next several hours.

(My fiancé works in a customer service call center for a large cable, Internet, and phone company. He takes mostly calls related to cable, or payment questions and issues. This occurs one night close to the end of his shift.)

Fiancé: “Thank you for calling [Company]. This is [Fiancé]. If I could just start off with your name and account number, I’d be happy to assist you.”

(The caller, an elderly woman, gives her information.)

Fiancé: “All right, Ms. [Caller]. What can I do for you this evening?”

Caller: “I’m trying to buy a game for my grandson, but I’m not entirely sure how to do it.”

Fiancé: “All right, ma’am. I’m sure I can help with you that. Were you talking about [Special Product]?”

(This is a product sold by the cable company, allowing access to several PC games provided by the company, with an addition to the customer’s bill.)

Caller: “No, no. It was some kind of war game… Modern Duty, Calling Something… I’m not entirely sure.”

Fiancé: “Okay, well, I’m not seeing anything in my system matching that description. Is there any other information you could give me?”

Caller: *yells to grandson in background* “[Grandson]? What was the name of that game you wanted?”

Grandson: “‘Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2.’”

Fiancé: *overhearing the grandson and containing his laughter the best he can* “Ma’am, we are an Internet, cable, and phone provider. The only video game service we offer is [Special Product]. What you are asking for is a disc game, designed to be played on a gaming console. Now, it’s a decently dated game, so your best options for finding it would probably be Amazon or eBay.”

Caller: “What’s Amazon?”

Fiancé: *facepalm*

(I decide that I will take in my XBox 360 and my PS3 Slim for trade-in towards a new PS4 or XBox One. I haven’t decided on which to get but I figure I’ll get store credit and decide later. When I take in my games and the two systems, the people behind the counter look at me a little sadly.)

Employee: “Do you have anything older, like NES, SNES, Sega, and so forth?”

Me: “Actually, yeah, I do.”

(I go home and come back with a box of NES cartridges — about 90 — instead, and the two guys are excited as they dig in and start to go through all of them. A young boy, about nine years old comes in.)

Boy: “Do you have the Gold NES Zelda?”

(This peaks my interest, because here is a kid not old enough to be ten, asking for a NES game.)

Employee: “Sorry, we don’t have any of those, just the Adventures of Link Gold Edition.”

(I go over and point to one of the stacks.)

Me: “No, you guys got a Gold NES Zelda right there.”

Employee: “Oh, I stand corrected. Here, is this what you were looking for?” *shows it to the boy*

Boy: *excited* “Yep!”

(The father comes over:)

Father: “How much?”

(The employee behind the counter looks to me.)

Me: “Well, I haven’t traded it in yet, and it’s rare that a kid this age would want an NES, so he can have it.”

(The father looks at me his eyes going narrow and his face curling in disgust like he’s looking at rotted meat.)

Father: “No, f*** you! We don’t take no freebies!”

(He storms in and stares at the employee behind the counter.)

Father: “How much will it be after he trades it in?”

Employee: “Well, they go for thirty-five, but I’ll do thirty. Or, you can do it for free right now from this gentleman.”

Father: “No! I told you we don’t do no f****** freebies!”

(He takes a hold of his kid’s arm — who is in near tears at this point, staring at the game he wants — and starts dragging the boy out.)

Father: “We’ll be back to buy it later after it’s traded in!”

(I try and stuff the game into the boy’s hoodie as he is being dragged by, but the father sees and gets up on me with his fist under my nose.)

Father: “NO! F*** YOU! WE DON’T DO FREEBIES!”

(With this, he pushed his kid out in front of him, and he stormed out.)

(I am making a call to a customer service line.)

Employee #1: “Hello, thank you for calling [Company]. How can I help you today?”

Me: “Yes, I just bought the collector’s edition of [Game] for the Playstation 4, and it does not have the DLC codes included.”

Employee #1: “Yes, we are aware that there was an error with the packaging. You should receive your downloadable content code to the email inbox that you used to preorder the game.”

Me: “But I didn’t preorder it.”

Employee #1: *pause* “Then how did you get it?”

Me: “I bought it at a local retail store.”

Employee #1: “Really?”

Me: “Yeah, why?”

Employee #1: “That collector’s edition has been sold out for months. How could you have found one at a retail store?”

Me: “Well, I live in Alaska, so there isn’t always as much competition.”

Employee #1: “Okay. What I need you to do is take a picture of the game and the receipt and email it to us at [address], then call back and ask for me. My name is [Employee #1].”

Me: “Okay.”

(I do as she asks and call back.)

Employee #2: “Hello, thank you for calling [Company]. How can I help you today?”

Me: Hi, I just spoke with [Employee #1] about [Game].”

Employee #2: “Oh! You’re the guy from Alaska! We’ve all been talking about how you are! Have you tried playing the lottery today, as well?”

It was the second to last day of a summer scheme my best friend and I were attending. That day they had a water fight. Even though there was a “ceasefire in the refill zone” rule, most people didn’t obey it. I had just got outside, the last to do so, and a boy with a bucket spotted me. He cornered me and called out to his friend, who also had a bucket, “Target practice!” And they started soaking me.

After I managed to escape, I grabbed a squirty-foam-pole-thingy and ran around hitting people with it because my water gun had very little water in it and I needed to save it for revenge on the boys — at this point, they were chasing me. Combined with my best friend giving me terrible advice, and a girl who was freaking out and splashing a hose at everyone whether they were going for her or not, I wasn’t doing very well.

When I managed to hide behind a bush to gather my bearings and re-organise myself, I spotted three people: two boys and a girl. The boy was squirting the girl, who was squirting back; however, she wasn’t trying to squirt the first boy. She was trying to squirt the boy’s friend, who had nothing and was soaking wet and cowering behind his friend. I threw my squirty-foam-pole-thingy at her to temporarily distract her and quickly scooted over and gave my water gun to the boy.

“Here. It’s not got much water left, but it’ll keep you covered for the rest of the game,” I told him, and he and his friend scooted off, quickly followed by the girl, without so much as a thank you. I picked my squirty-foam-pole-thingy back up, extended it fully, and went around beating people up for the rest of the game. I even braved the hose girl.

Later, in the car on the way home, my dad told me that I was very brave to “take a water bullet” for someone I didn’t know, and that he would have me by his side in a war any day.