My dad is cleaning up and posts some stuff (old small furniture and the like) online as “free for pick-up”. He immediately gets a response from someone who is going to check the stuff out. After the meeting, my dad donates the stuff to the man.

The man asks if my dad is okay with him picking it all up over the spread of the next few days. When my dad asks why, the man says he has no car and has to use public transportation. My dad decides to just take the stuff to the man’s home.

Me: “Why did you do that when you stated it was ‘free for pick-up’?”

Dad: “It never hurts to help someone. And he was an old man, clearly over sixty. I just didn’t want him to hassle with this stuff.”

Fair enough, Dad. But… my dad is close to eighty years old!

You are as old as you feel you are, I guess?

My family members all live in different states. I live in Pennsylvania, my sister is in Kentucky, and my parents spend most of the year in Florida and come up to Pennsylvania in the summer. Most of our communication with my sister’s kids is over the phone.

My mom is having a very hard time bonding with my four-year-old niece. Since I’m currently my niece’s best friend and we spend hours each night talking on the phone or FaceTime, I decide to tell my mom what initially got [Niece] to warm up to me. (This is partly to get her to bond with my mom and also so I can get some of my evenings back.) 

Me: “Have you ever heard of Funko Pop?”

Mom: “Not really.”

Me: “They’re these stupid little collectible figurines for celebrities or characters from media. I had a few Disney ones just for particular favorite characters like Merida. One day, [Niece] wanted me to show her my apartment, and she saw it. She was really excited, so I got a few more, and now every time she calls, she wants to see my princesses.”

Mom: “And that’s why she started to want to call you?”

Me: “Yeah. I mean, no offense, but a boring adult with nothing that she’s interested in. Get a few, and she’ll like to see them.”

I decide to send my mom two “Encanto” figures, figuring it can be her starter pack, as [Niece] is obsessed with “Encanto”. My mom is beyond excited to try and bond with [Niece].

Tonight, I get my regular call from [Niece], and she asks to see my figures. 

Niece: “Pap showed me that he has princesses, too!”

Me: “Did Nana show you, too?”

Niece: “No!”

Interesting.

As soon as we hang up, I call my parents. 

Mom: “Hey, what’s up?”

Me: “Were you aware that [Niece] was already shown the Encanto figures?”

Mom: “That rat b*****d. He knew that was supposed to be my ticket in!”

She confronted my dad on the phone with me, and we thoroughly ganged up on him. I’m planning to send more Pops down with instructions to hide them so he can’t steal her thunder again as [Niece] already likes my dad.

I got a Ph.D. placement abroad in Switzerland, but because I was starting directly after my Masters, I only got about three weeks’ notice that I had been accepted by the university. Of course, this meant that my choices in flat hunting were limited. I ended up renting a room in a flat with two other people both in their forties.

Things quickly started going downhill — things like being accused of not doing the cleaning when I had, not being allowed to use the kitchen if the main tenant was cooking (he was technically my landlord as I had the contract with him), and having to eat my breakfast while the main tenant was having his morning meetings at the dining table. While not terrible, it did make the whole situation awkward.

Finally, I’ve had enough, and I start flat hunting and find a nice place closer to the centre of the city. Once I have signed the contract, I arrive back at the flat to tell the main tenant I’m leaving with four months’ notice. (It’s May.) He starts speaking before me.

Tenant: “I’ve got a favour I want to ask you. Would you mind if you moved out during August so my daughter who is visiting can stay in your room? Don’t worry; you wouldn’t have to pay any rent for that month.”

I pause in shock for a second.

Me: “Um, no. I’m working over August. I need to use my room.”

Tenant: “Oh, but aren’t you going home for the summer?”

Me: “No, I’m working in the lab over the summer.”

Tenant: “But you’re a student.”

Me: “Yes, I’m a doctoral student. It’s a full-time job. I only get twenty-eight days of holiday, which I imagine is the same as you. I’m not going to put in for all my holiday just because you want your daughter to use the room.”

Tenant: “Oh. Really? Oh, in that case, never mind.”

At that point, I gave him the news that I’d found a new flat and would be moving out.

The next day, I had a thought. I’m young for a Ph.D. student in Switzerland. (I was twenty-two when I first arrived, and all of the other students in the building were three to eight years older than me.) It didn’t help that I have a baby face. I think that somewhere along the line, the “doctoral” part got dropped, and the guy thought I was an undergrad and based his respect on that. The whole situation made me so glad I’d already got a new place.

CONTENT WARNING: Eating Disorder, Child Neglect
 

A friend of mine growing up had obscenely rich parents, a multi-million-dollar mansion, etc. He was an only child. When he was about twelve or thirteen, they used to leave him home alone for a night or a weekend while they went out to lavish galas. He was technically just old enough to be responsible for that amount of time, but he was immature in the way that teenage boys are. So, when they left him money to order a pizza (these parents never, ever cooked for themselves), he would keep the money to buy video games and just not eat.

Fast forward a few years. The loneliness and the lack of parental concern about his skipping meals led him to have a pretty serious eating disorder. Fortunately, they finally got him some good counseling and a nutrition coach, so he was getting healthy again by the time we graduated high school, but all of that would have been unnecessary if they had just been responsible parents in the first place.

Once his parents finally noticed something was wrong, part of his recovery plan involved getting a dog to keep him company. It was a tiny, fashionable dog that would look stylish in front of their mansion, but still, I think that was one of the best choices made by those questionable parents. The kid loved that dog to pieces.

CONTENT WARNING: Spider (Large!)
 

When I was in high school, I headed to bed one night, not bothering to turn on lights along the way. Fortunately, I did turn on my room light. A huge spider was sitting in the middle of my bed — at least six inches long. This is not normal here.

I quickly ran upstairs.

Me: “Dad! There’s a huge spider on my bed!”

Dad: *Laughs* “Huge, huh?”

Laughing some more, he grabbed a fly swatter. I tried to warn him, but he was too busy laughing at me to listen.

He walked into the room, and startled exclamations replaced the laughing as he hurriedly backed out.

Later that night we saw more, even bigger spiders outside. Dad took the BB gun instead of the fly swatter.

We still don’t know what they were; Dad said he had never seen anything like them, and I have never seen any again. It was a long time before I walked around the basement in the dark after that.