(I am checking in a group of European guests at my hotel. They all primarily speak French, but one of them speaks a little English as well, so he does his best to interpret between me and the other two. Everything goes fine until…)

Me: “And initial here please.”

Customer: “I’m sorry?”

Me: “Just put your initials on this line here.”

Customer: *blank look* “I… what do you mean?”

(I realize that he does not know the word “initials,” at least not in the context I am using it. I try another way.)

Me: “You just want to write the first letter of your first and last name here.” *I try to illustrate by pointing at the letters of his name on the registration card.*

Customer: *still confused* “I am sorry… I do not understand.”

(I don’t want to embarrass the man, but I do have to have the form filled out properly. Suddenly, I get an idea! Many Europeans speak several languages. I think back to the German class I took in high school…)

Me: “Sprechen sie Deutsch?” [Do you speak German?]

Customer: *immediately brightens* “Ja! Ich spreche Deutsch.” [Yes! I speak German.]

(I suddenly realize that I don’t know how to ask for his initials in German, either! My eyes get big and I put my hand to my head.)

Me: “…Ich spreche nicht gut Deutch.” [I don’t speak German very well.] “So sorry!”

Customer: *laughs* “Okay.”

Me: *laughs* “Just sign here, please. Thank you!”

(I wish I had thought of that earlier, but thanks goodness they were so understanding! They turned out to be very pleasant guests!)

I was working the other day when a client called in frantically about her dog having a tick on its leg. I asked the doctor if we had time to fit her in and he agreed to see the dog.

The client arrived on time and we got her and her dog into an examination room. I happened to overhear her telling the vet that she had tried burning the tick off, tweezing it, and pulling it off.

The doctor looked at it for a few moments, looked up, and said, “Ma’am, this is a mole.”

This story is part of our Mole Day roundup!

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(I spend a weekend with a friend who is in grad school studying physics. He explains to me the idea of Schrodinger’s Cat and how it relates to what’s called the Double-Slit Experiment. While I find later that what he told me about the cat is actually a common misunderstanding of the illustration — in that he says the cat is literally dead or alive until it’s observed as either; not actually the case — my mind is nonetheless blown by what he explains to me. I make it home, and a couple weeks later I go on a camping trip with a bunch of guys. We sit around the fire that night, bringing up interesting things to discuss, and I remember Schrodinger’s Cat. Humorous ignorance ensues.)

Me: “So, if you were to put a cat in a box, and… Oh, gosh, how did it go? You put poison in the box and the cat maybe eats it or doesn’t? Anyway, there’s somehow a 50% chance the cat dies, but it’s in the box, and you can’t see if it happened or not. The cat is both alive and dead at the same time until you check the box.”

Friend #1: “What? That’s bull-s***.”

Me: “No, it’s physically proven! It has to do with this experiment with… electrons or something going through slits, and how they appear on a screen.”

Friend #1: “You can’t see electrons!”

Me: “No, I know, but it’s projecting onto the screen somehow.”

Friend #2: “So, if you kill a cat and put it in a box, then—”

Me: “—no, no, no. The cat’s alive when you put it in the box with the poison—”

Friend #3: “How are you supposed to keep the cat from eating the poison?”

Me: “You aren’t. There’s a 50% chance that it will.”

Friend #3: “I don’t see how that’s possible. You can’t control a cat like that.”

Me: “It’s something I’m sure I’m forgetting. I know the 50% chance of killing the cat is part of it. I think you have to assume that.”

Friend #4: “Okay, I’ve not been paying attention, but now I’m intrigued. Why does [My Name] want to poison cats?”

Me: “I’m not advocating poisoning cats!”

Friend #1: “No, it’s not about poisoning cats. I guess you shoot electrons through a poison cat and—”

Friend #2: “—see, I thought he said if you can make it a 50% chance to poison a cat but don’t watch, you get two cats, but one is dead.”

Me: “Are you guys actually being serious right now?”

(They were.)

Friend #1: “Don’t get mad at us. You’re the one talking about poisoning cats with electrons.”

(I gave up and then someone brought up football or action movies or cage fighting and we talked about that for hours, instead.)

(My husband and I are at the beach with our outgoing, precocious five-year-old, and we are trying to convince her to wade in the lake. It’s warm, and not too deep for her, but she is afraid of the waves and the group of seventeen- or eighteen-year-old boys also in the water, who have spread out their things on a blanket a few yards away. A girl who’s about fourteen and seems to be the younger sister of one of the boys is building a very small but very nice sandcastle alone, and I feel a bit bad for her, as she looks miserable. My daughter refuses to get in the water, so my husband and I get out and relax on the beach while our daughter surveys the area. She notices the lonely girl on the blanket and hurries over to talk to her and admire the castle, and the girl seems to light up. After a few minutes, my husband calls out:)

Husband: “[Daughter]! Come back over here!”

Daughter: “Can [Girl] come, too? She said she can help me make a sandcastle.”

(The girl’s name is apparently the same as my daughter’s, which is somewhat uncommon.)

Me: *surprised* “Oh, her name is [Name], too? How do you spell it, [Girl]?”

(It turns out, she spells her name like [Daughter]’s, but with an A and Y instead of an E and I.)

Me: “How interesting! It’s not an everyday name.”

Girl: *nods*

Daughter: “Can she come and build a sandcastle with me?”

Husband: “Do you mind, [Girl]?”

Girl: *smiles* “I… I’d be glad to. Nobody else asks to, you know, build with me.”

(My daughter brings her new friend over to start the sandcastle. The girl is quite the artist and builds my daughter a pretty castle with windows and stairs. She even gets my daughter to wade in the lake to get water! They both seem to have fun, and my daughter is sad when one of the boys tells the girl it’s time to go. After taking a picture of the castle, I stop to thank the girl.)

Me: “Thanks so much, [Girl]. [Daughter] had a blast. It was so nice of you to play with her.”

Girl: *looking genuinely thankful* “No, thank you for letting me play with her. I… I mean … It’s been a rough couple weeks, and my brother kind of dragged me out here to have fun. Your kid made my day.”

(The girl’s brother called again, and the girl ran over to meet him. I don’t know what was going on with her, but I was glad that my daughter could make it a little better. If you’re reading this, nice girl, I hope everything gets better for you!)

This story is part of our Making Friends roundup!

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(I love beach glass, and since I live near a public beach, I’ll usually go for a walk and collect some when I get home from work. It can be hard to tell exactly what beach glass looks like when it’s wet, so I usually collect a handful of my favorite pieces, and sort through them later, at home. The best ones I keep and make into jewelry, and the rest goes in a bowl by my door, and when I go for a walk the next day, I’ll return it to the beach. I forget to take the glass with me one day, so when I go out the next day, I have a bigger pile than usual to take back. As soon as I arrive at the beach, I can tell I won’t find much that day – the lake is perfectly calm and flat, so the waves aren’t bringing up new pieces, and the beach is full of families, so the kids will have already collected most of it. As I’m arriving, I see a group of young kids, maybe five or six, finishing up a sand castle.)

Girl: “It’s done! Maybe if we find some beach glass or pretty rocks or something, we can decorate it?”

(I can’t resist.)

Me: “You said you want to decorate it with beach glass?”

Girl: “Yeah, but the bigger kids already found most of it. I don’t know if we can find enough…”

Me: “Here, I can help!”

(I pulled a big handful of beach glass out of my pocket and handed it to her. From the kids’ reactions, you would think I had just given them a treasure chest full of pirate gold! Totally made my day. I continued my walk, and they came and found me a few minutes later, to show me how they’d decorated their sand castle.)