I have been teaching at a private swimming school for over forty years now. It might be because of the “private” part, but until the past two or three years, we mostly had white students. We didn’t screen for that or anything; we just didn’t get any applications. But, like I said, in the past two or three years, it suddenly changed. Why, we don’t know, but we were overjoyed!

A new season starts, and I get a full rainbow of children. I have never taught these children before, so I want to see what they can do. They all have their basic diplomas and most are actually already quite skilled. I teach in a “competition pool” that’s about fifty years old; it’s three-plus meters (around ten feet) deep, and twenty-five meters (about eighty-two feet) long — half of an Olympic pool — with white tiles with black lines. 

Me: “All right, let’s see how far you can swim underwater. Remember, it’s how far you can reach, so any distance is fine. Just show me what you got.”

And the kids got to it. They lined up, and eventually, we got to a girl with beautiful dark skin, the darkest I’ve seen in real life. She wore a black bathing suit. She dove, I looked away for a second… and she was gone. Of course, I silently freaked out. Where did she go? I sighed, relieved, when I saw her climbing out of the water. I decided that she must’ve just been really fast and I’d just missed it. 

Just to test them, I decided to let them do it again. This time, I was going to pay very close attention to [Girl]; I wouldn’t be fooled twice! But again, I blinked and she was gone. Poof. 

Now, I just wondered if I was going crazy. What the heck was going on? So, I decided they would do the assignment one more time. I knew I was doing this just to find out why [Girl] just disappeared… and then I saw it. 

This girl swam very beautifully and hydrodynamically. She used minimal strokes and… followed the black line on the bottom of the pool perfectly. Due to the refraction of water and the lack of light underwater, she was almost invisible! 

So, while I always tell my students to follow the black line when underwater, I had to ask [Girl] to swim two tiles over from it. Part of me felt bad for having to ask her this, but honestly, if anything happens underwater while she’s swimming perfectly above that black line, I might not see it in time!

One week, I started suffering from stomach pain. I grew increasingly uncomfortable and felt weaker all week long. My parents let me stay home from school for the first couple of days, but then, they decided I was faking.

They dragged me to the doctor and demanded he tell me that I was faking.

The doctor examined me and ran some tests. He kept me overnight while the tests were run, to my parent’s objections. They were upset that he was “humoring” me.

Finally, when the test results came in, the doctor told my parents:

Doctor: “I can’t tell him he’s faking. He’s got stomach cancer.”

Clearly, I survived the cancer, but it was an unpleasantly close thing. I also don’t talk to my parents much anymore. They wonder why.

In college, I tend to go to a cat cafe when I’m anxious or to celebrate after a stressful period. The cat cafe partners with a shelter, so the cats in the cafe tend to rotate as they get adopted or new cats come in.

There is one new cat who is named Martha. Martha is older (five years old), missing her right ear entirely, and skittish. I am permitted to greet her, but afterward, she leaves when I try to pet her, so I let her be.

I sit down on a couch and get monopolized by a cuddly kitten. Immediately, I notice that a boy keeps “chasing” cats around the room (following them even when they get up and walk away from him), putting cat toys on their heads while they’re sleeping, and ignoring when the cats’ ears pull back — basically, ignoring the polite cat-speak for “I’m good, thanks.”

His mom doesn’t do anything and is talking to her daughter about which one they should think of adopting.

At this point, the boy starts following Martha around and actually corners her on an armchair where she has no escape.

I speak up at this point.

Me: “She’s a little skittish.”

The boy waves me off and pets Martha.

Me: “No, I mean she’s very skittish. I don’t think she really likes that.”

I am politely indicating that he should stop. I get a very polite response.

Boy: “Butt out!”

Okay, then I will.

Martha shrank back and was very obviously not happy; her one remaining ear was folded back at this point. The boy was basically standing over her, and no matter how much she meowed at him, increasingly louder, he didn’t stop petting her, even trying to play with her feet, which she withdrew hastily.

Finally, Martha had enough, managed to squeeze past him, and bolted into one of the empty cat boxes.

This would be the clue to stop, but the boy actively put his hand into the cat box to try to keep petting her.

He unsurprisingly yelped and jumped back; Martha had scratched him.

For the rest of the time I was there, the boy whined about how he was “just petting the cat”.

I enjoyed the rest of the hour allotted to me petting the cats (even Martha sat on the couch near me at one point) before leaving the cafe. I kind of doubt the kid learned anything from that, but one can dream.

I worked for a popular chain restaurant all through college, and the water from the faucet in the ladies’ restroom was always cold. I had a woman stop me one evening as she was exiting the restroom to tell me that we needed to have a plumber fix the hot water.

Woman: “The cold water doesn’t kill any germs. What’s the point of washing your hands?”

Me: “That’s not how that works.”

Woman: “What?”

Me: “The purpose of washing your hands is to wash away the germs. If the water were hot enough to kill them, it would scald you.”

Woman: *Laughs* “Oh, honey, wow… I guess that’s why you’ll always be a waitress!” *Walks away*

For the record, I was a biology major, and I’m a nurse practitioner now. 

Related:
H2-D’oh!, Part 8
H2-D’oh!, Part 7
H2-D’oh!, Part 6
H2-D’oh!, Part 5
H2-D’oh!, Part 4

In the late 1980s, the XO [Executive Officer] on my dad’s ship at the time told the sailors going out on the town that Spanish cops carried automatic weapons — but don’t worry; they use rubber bullets.

After some drinking, one of the sailors decided it would be fun to go down the street smashing the mirrors off of cars. A pair of cops caught him in the act and yelled for him to stop. He didn’t stop but instead ran.

It turned out the XO was wrong about one thing: they were not using rubber bullets. The captain, on being informed that one of his sailors was recovering from gunshot wounds before being processed into jail, decided it was best to leave the sailor to deal with all legal consequences there and that someone else back in Virginia could handle the rest.

This is the same XO who got relieved of duty, on the very same cruise, because he also kept getting arrested in foreign ports.