CONTENT WARNING: Severe Injury To A Child

This happened years ago when I was a nurse. I was tasked to design the T-shirts for a work event and have them printed and produced for our next conference. I secured a local printer to produce the shirts, and when they were completed, I went to the printers to pick them up.

When I got there and produced my invoice, they needed to prepare and wrap them, which would take a few minutes, and I waited in the lobby. While I was waiting, a woman and her son (around five) came in for her order for a family reunion. She barely paid attention to the staff, and when told to wait, she got on her phone, pretty much ignoring her son, who was running all around the lobby, screaming at the top of his lungs. He then decided to run behind the counter toward the back where the printing machines were. The counter clerk tried to get the woman’s attention, but she just ignored the clerk and continued talking on her phone.

The clerk did successfully get the kid to go back into the lobby, but she was called to the back to pick up my package. The kid took this as his chance to shoot behind the counter and went running into the back. I thought one of the staff would catch him, but they were swamped with orders and just didn’t see him run past. But the time someone spotted him, it was too late.

There was a loud, high-pitched scream and crying, and then there was a loud commotion and it appeared that everyone was screaming… except for the kid’s mother, who was still on her phone, oblivious to the chaos coming from the back.

That’s when another staff member came out carrying the crying kid and holding a bloody towel around his hand and screaming to the receptionist to call 911. Only then did the woman turn around to see her son. She then screamed at the staff member:

Woman: “WHAT DID YOU DO TO MY SON?!”

Employee: “Somehow, the kid got to the back, ran up to one of the working machines, and stuck his hand in between the hot blades, and it sliced off one of his fingers!”

The woman started screaming at the staff member and the counter clerk, berating them and threatening to sue them, while still ignoring her son. He was still in the arms of the staff member, who was trying to stop the bleeding. That’s when I went up and assessed the situation, got something to slow down to bleeding, and tried to save the mostly severed finger.

As the ambulance pulled up, the woman was actually STILL ON THE PHONE, telling whomever she talking to what had happened to her son, and she STILL hadn’t checked on or even touched her son. The staff member transferred the boy to the EMTs, and they put him in the ambulance and took him to the hospital.

The woman actually waited and demanded her package before she even attempted to follow the ambulance to the hospital.

A month later, when I went back to the printers for another order of tees, I had to ask if they ever heard what happened to the little boy. He did lose his finger and his mother was charged with neglect due to the testimony of the staff of the shop and video evidence. I didn’t find out much more than that, but I do hope that the woman did not regain custody of that poor kid.

I worked at a little mom-and-pop pet store that sold all sorts of animals.

Male Customer: “I want to return this dog that I bought here. I wanted a male dog, but this dog has nipples. Male dogs don’t have nipples!”

I’ve worked for a grocery store or three. While working at one, I notice three teenage girls entering our store at about nine-ish, all shifty-eyed. Most shoplifters have the same predictable sort of eye-shift game that’s a dead giveaway; it resembles Randall from “Monsters Inc.” I am in charge of loss prevention, so I have the ability, along with the rent-a-cop that usually accompanies inner-city grocers, to watch these girls on video.

They make a beeline for the feminine product area and grab either condoms or pregnancy tests; I can’t see which. I can see that one girl looks around and clearly asks another girl to put the items in her purse. They then walk together to the bathroom. There are no cameras in the bathroom, but the girls come out of it squealing with excitement for the obviously pregnant third girl.

They are stopped on the way out by [Rent-A-Cop] and told to come back in and have a seat.

Rent-A-Cop: “Show me your purse.”

They do, and there’s nothing there, so then [Rent-A-Cop] clears the women’s restroom while I fill out my paperwork, interview the girls, and have a courtesy clerk get a new pregnancy test to scan.

[Rent-A-Cop] comes back with the box and the actual test — positive and gross; no gloves or anything!

The girls are all crying by now and their parents have been called.

Girls: “Please don’t show our parents the results of the test! Please!”

I wasn’t allowed to let this go, but I really felt for the pregnant girl. The officer convinced her that it was best they know now so they could get her the help she needed.

Mom came in, not looking happy. I’ve already processed my part, so I’d moved on by this time — closing duties — but man, did I want to be in that room when Mom found out. She was white as a ghost on her way out. She also bought another pregnancy test on the way out because she probably didn’t want to believe it.

In the late 1990s, my high school — and I think the whole district — did a policy change where the front office, nurse, teachers, etc., were no longer allowed to pass out condoms or provide any type of advice on how to avoid pregnancy.

We already had a couple of girls get pregnant that year, so there was a bit of an outrage about this new change, not that I think many people went to the front office to get condoms.

One of my friends lived within spitting distance of the free health clinic, so two or three times a week, I started going there and getting free condoms in bags of twelve. I purchased a giant bag of Dum Dum lollipops and tied them together with rubber bands. Within a few weeks, I had students that I didn’t know come up to me asking for a lollipop or two. Teachers were fully aware, even more so when I threw a few across the classroom, but they never said a word.

My senior year, zero girls got pregnant, and the health clinic started giving me multiple bags of condoms at a time so I only had to go every few weeks, as they fully supported what I was doing.

I had somehow forgotten about this, as it was twenty years ago, until someone messaged me on Facebook asking if I was the Condom Girl from [High School] and if I remembered them. I guess that is better than Dum Dum Girl.

I tripped at work and hit my register face-first. Instead of asking if I was okay (which I was) the elderly couple I was helping slid a tiny cross across the counter.

Couple: “You obviously need Jesus!”

Meanwhile, their friend was trying to get my team member to come find the Lord at their church.