When I was a teenager and didn’t have quite all my common sense in place yet, my uncle was hosting a BIG party because a notable family member was turning eighty. Once the house was fully prepared, I thought that the best way to distract the kiddos and get all their wiggles out was to play my Tossing Game with them.

In the back room, I put a mattress on the floor, piled all the pillows in the house on top, and one at a time began to spin each toddler cousin, nephew, and assorted hanger-on in a big circle going, “One… two… three!”, before throwing them into the pile.

The kiddos love the Tossing Game. They’d crash, clamber out, and jump right back in line for another turn.

It took me a while to realise that there were suddenly MORE kids than I remembered throwing. Like, a lot more. Guests had started to arrive, and every. Single. Little. Kid. Immediately found their way to the back room to join in. I’d gone from seven to twenty-one.

Now, it took a bit, but then Teenager [Me] realised that maybe throwing STRANGERS’ kids might be a problem.

To solve this, I promptly went out of the back room with the gaggle of twenty toddlers to loudly ask the party at large:

Me: “Hey, is it okay if I throw your kids at a wall?”

At that point, the eighty-year-old guest of honour decided that rather than socialising with all his friends, HE’D like to throw the kids at the wall, too, thanks.

This was during the global health crisis. I was (and still am) living with my grandparents, and due to life difficulties that are outside the scope of this story, dependent on them. I had come out to them as nonbinary a year before, and though it confused them, it was never in a way they refused to accept.

No better was this shown than during this story.

I’m a walking bane to chargers and earbuds and am regularly forced to ask my grandparents to buy me more. I don’t know why; I’m not even rough with them! But anyway, after I asked for one, I popped into their Amazon account just to see how long it would take to arrive.

What I saw in addition was a mask. It was not just any mask; it had “THEY/THEM” emblazoned proudly on the front, in the colors of the nonbinary flag.

I hadn’t asked for it. They had meant to surprise me with this.

I broke the news that I’d found out when I got it, and they were a little disappointed, but I wore it everywhere while masks were still necessary.

If you take any moral away from this story, it’s that anyone can be accepting of identities — even grandparents who are over seventy years old.

Many years ago, my grandpa got fed up with some jerk driving through his fields to get to the guy’s hunting land. There was an access easement on the other side of the plot, but that would mean the jerk would have to cross a stream to get to his land. There was absolutely no access easement through my grandpa’s land.

One day, Grandpa saw [Jerk] drive his truck down the field lane, and he decided he was done with the bulls***. He got on the big Massey Ferguson tractor and drove it down the lane. He saw that [Jerk] was parked right up against a rock wall, so Grandpa dug the tractor’s bucket halfway into the ground immediately behind [Jerk]’s truck. He then disconnected the bucket and drove home. There was no way [Jerk] was going to get his truck out of there without either moving the rock wall or using a crane to get the half-buried bucket out of the way.

Grandpa and Grandma went out for dinner, went bowling, and went dancing after that. When they returned home, [Jerk] was sitting on their porch looking pissed off.

Grandpa wouldn’t even let him speak. He just walked into the house, grabbed his shotgun, and told the trespasser that he had five seconds to clear off his property before he got both barrels.

Grandpa ended up waiting two weeks before he went and removed the bucket from the ground. There was nothing the police or any other authorities could do to make him move it, and [Jerk] knew it. [Jerk] never came onto my grandparents’ property again.

CONTENT WARNING: Serious Injury (Chainsaw to the finger)

My mother suffered an injury to her finger while working in the garden and was bleeding quite badly. Knowing she would definitely need medical attention, she wrapped up her finger and called the hospital to book herself in.

She sounded quite casual about the whole thing as she spoke to the receptionist on the phone.

Mother: “Hello. I’ve cut myself quite badly, and I think it’s probably going to need stitches.”

Receptionist: “Well, I’ll see if we can fit you in. You’ll probably need to be triaged.”

Mother: “It is bleeding quite a lot.”

Receptionist: “Well, make sure you keep it bandaged for now, and I’ll check when there’s a spot available.”

At that point, I decided I’d better intervene, as there were key aspects of the situation that she hadn’t mentioned, and the receptionist, naturally, was assuming from her casual tone that it was something pretty minor.

I shouted loud enough to be heard down the phone.

Me: “She cut herself with a chainsaw!”

Receptionist: *Taken aback* “Oh! Um— Well, I think we may have a cancellation…”

Full disclosure: my mother had been up a tree trimming branches off and had managed to catch the end of her finger on the chain. Thankfully, it had only been a glancing blow, so it wasn’t as serious as it could have been, but it was still bad enough and did need attending to pretty urgently.

As it was, we got her to hospital, the damage was repaired, and her fingernail (which had borne the brunt of the damage) did eventually grow back, though she still has a nasty scar where it happened. Now, a few years later, she often recounts the incident — particularly my part in it and the receptionist’s reaction — with some amusement.

My childhood cat was very food-motivated and very vocal about wanting her next meal.

At one point, my mom told me to be prepared to come down for the cat’s final days because she’d stopped demanding food. We both figured that once she lost interest in eating, it was probably the beginning of the end for her. Mom continued to keep a close eye on her, and though her health did not seem to be declining, she still did not have her usual enthusiasm for being fed.

Eventually, my mom called me and told me to disregard her previous portents of doom. Between laughs, she told me how they’d emptied the bag of food they had upstairs, gone down to the basement to get the next bag, and discovered the hole she’d gnawed in the side of it. And once her secret stash of food disappeared, she immediately returned to loudly begging.

That cat went on to live until the ripe old age of eighteen. And she remained vocal about her desire for food until the very end.