I’ve always hated going to church. Starting when I was about six, I’ve used any and every excuse I could find to get out of attending Mass on Sundays, ranging from faking sick to hiding until church was over. My parents wised up to my excuses and found all my hiding spots over the years, making it much harder to escape church.

One Sunday when I’m eleven, my mom is out of town. Thinking it’ll be easier to pull one over on my dad, I try the old fake-sick routine.

Due to several chronic health conditions, I’m prone to fainting in the right — or wrong, I suppose — circumstances. I skip breakfast that morning so that my act will be more believable. However, it doesn’t work, and my dad makes me go to church anyway. Since I haven’t had anything to eat or drink at all, I actually do start to feel faint on the way over.

I also happen to be in the process of losing my last baby tooth. It’s not quite ready to come out yet, but I spend the first half of Mass pushing at it with my tongue. If I can knock it out, I’ll be able to miss at least ten minutes of Mass. I eventually succeed and start to ask my dad if I can go to the restroom. He shakes his head immediately, knowing that there’s no chance I’ll willingly come back into Mass if I’m allowed to leave. When I smile and spit my bloody tooth into my hand, he begrudgingly allows me to go.

I go to the restroom and rinse out my mouth. But since the tooth wasn’t ready to come out yet, my gums just keep bleeding, more heavily than with any other tooth I’ve lost. Between the fact that I already was feeling faint, the blood loss, and seeing all the blood, I start to pass out. I’m used to this, so I sit on the floor against the wall to wait for it to pass.

I’m only semi-conscious for a while. At one point, I vaguely notice the sound of the door opening, and then several seconds later, I hear a bloodcurdling scream. My music teacher, a sweet old lady with a morbid penchant for true crime documentaries and police procedurals, has come into the bathroom to find one of her students collapsed on the floor, mouth hanging open with a trickle of blood leaking out. She assumes I have been murdered. She runs back to the rest of the congregation, screaming bloody murder.

My memory of the next hour or so is a little fuzzy, but I know a lot of people were packed into that tiny restroom. It quickly became apparent that I had not, in fact, been murdered or harmed in any way. I was given something to drink, and I believe an EMT checked me over while I was semi-lucid. Once everyone calmed down, they decided I just needed to eat something and lie down. I was fine within an hour.

A couple of years later, my parents finally gave up on forcing me to attend church. I’ve only been back for weddings and funerals since then. Every single time I’ve attended one of my more religious cousins’ weddings, someone has jokingly asked if I’m going to knock out my own tooth to skip the Mass portion of the wedding.

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I am seventeen, living away from home during high school. I contract the flu, so I go to the pharmacy and they prescribe me Tamiflu.

Because I am out of state, my insurance doesn’t cover it. The woman behind the counter says it will cost $100. I am already emotional because I am sick and away from home. I know my mom would pay for the medication, but it would be tight. I start crying by the counter.

The lady who filled my prescription hands me tissues and says she is sorry, but she can’t do anything about the cost. I fill the prescription and sit down in the waiting area.

A couple of minutes later, the woman comes over to me and says, “I went looking in our database, and I found a coupon for your medication. It will only cost you $40.”

I will never forget her kindness in my time of need.

This story was included in our May 2020 Inspirational Roundup.

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I’m pregnant with my second child and I begin to feel a few contractions. I call my doctor and she wants me to get an exam before the upcoming delivery, so I take a rideshare to the hospital. I know, from my first birth, that I’m still hours away before the baby comes out, and the contractions are still manageable without much more than a grunt, but car rides are very uncomfortable under those conditions.

We get stuck in traffic a few blocks from the hospital, and I suggest the driver turns on a different street that, from what I can remember from the last time I went to that hospital, will get us there. But I’m wrong and the driver makes a U-turn to get us back to the right path. It’s a little residential street, and several streets just like this one are two-way streets in this area. But this is not one.

We come out, going the wrong way, to find out the cause of the traffic jam was a police block. The cop is very excited to bust my poor driver for going the wrong way.

Cop: “You are going the wrong way; what were you thinking?”

Driver: “Sorry, I—”

I know all this is my fault, and I feel awful, so I open my window to intervene.

Me: “Sorry, officer! It was my fault!”

I feel a contraction coming and I let out a roaring scream like in the movies. I catch my breath and continue.

Me: “You see, I’m having a baby and we need to get to the hospital—”

I point to the hospital, just a block away

Me: “—and I thought this street got us there.”

The officer gets very alarmed and tells us to follow him.

I’m very happy he let the driver go without a ticket, especially since cops here are notorious for asking for bribes. But my driver is almost freaking out.

Driver: “WAIT! YOU’RE IN LABOR?”

I let out a very relieved laugh and explained to him that, well, technically, I was, but the baby was still hours away. 

The cop got in his car and escorted us the short distance, sirens blazing. It was all very cinematographic and completely unnecessary since there was no traffic past the police block.

We got there in minutes and all was well with us. I even went back home and then back to the hospital — no wrong roads this time — before having my baby later that day.

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I am working the checkout at a very large and busy grocery store. Due to a few weeks of panic buying and people needing to protect themselves from infection, our store has taken some safety measures for the staff.

All the checkouts have clear plastic shields between our faces and customers, with only our hands-free to handle the items. We also all have bottles of hand sanitizer to use on our hands on a regular basis.

Before I start to scan the items of a snooty-looking woman, I pump and rub some sanitizer.

Customer: “How dare you?!”

Me: “Pardon, ma’am?”

Customer: “I am not infected! I am clean and hygienic!”

Me: “It’s just hand sanitizer, ma’am. I use it every few customers; it’s nothing personal.”

Customer: “No! You think I have the disease, don’t you?! I am not the type to get diseases! I am clean and I am not poor!”

Shocked at this outburst, I just start trying to scan her items as quickly as possible. She then starts rapping her — unprotected — hands against the plastic barrier.

Customer: “And this! What is this!”

Me: “Perspex, ma’am.”

Customer: “This is insulting! Why do you get all the protection?! Where is my protection?!”

Me: “Ma’am, that is there because I handle thousands of products and hundreds of customers every day. We need to protect ourselves at the moment.”

Customer: “That is unfair! Why don’t I get protection when I come out?!”

Me: “You can wear a mask and gloves, ma’am.”

Customer: “I shouldn’t have to! You should be providing them for us!”

Me: “Ma’am, I have scanned your items, and will not be arguing this point with you further. Your total is [total]. Cash or card?”

The customer looked outraged but paid huffily and started bagging her items. As she did so, I looked her in the eyes, pumped three large blobs of hand sanitizer, and slowly massaged my hands entirely. The look on her face as she left was worth it.

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I am working at a popular sandwich chain at lunchtime. While working the line making sandwiches, I notice a family — a mom, dad, and a young boy — that just sat down a few minutes ago looking nervous and getting ready to leave already. I pause what I am doing to make sure they are okay.

Me: “Was everything okay for you guys today?”

Mom: “Oh, um, yes, everything was fine!”

They then rushed out of the store before I could try to say anything else. About ten minutes later, our rush was over, and I went out to clean the dining room. I found that their young son had thrown up under the table, and they had rushed out before anyone could notice.