One time, I was flying out of Chicago, and at the security point, TSA confiscated my nail clippers. (Yes, clippers, not scissors.)

I got to the other side and into the shops. At the first pharmacist, I was able to replace the nail clippers. Next door? A shop selling products that included their small Swiss Army pocket knives, as the blades were under the 2.36-inch (6 cm) maximum!

I’m a recent college graduate who has just moved to a fairly rural area. I never got my license because I lived in a large city and didn’t need it. I realize quickly that I actually need it in this town.

I sign up for driving lessons with a local company. The instructor teaches driver’s ed for the school district. He is coaching me through everything that could be on the test. We pull into a neighborhood, and he has me pull over on a street corner.

Instructor: “Next up, backing up around a corner. This is almost always on the road test.”

Me: “…do what now?”

Instructor: “Back up around a street corner. Specifically, this one.”

Me: “Why would I do that?”

Instructor: “Okay, so you’re driving to a friend’s house and you miss your turn. You go around the wrong corner. What would you do?”

Me: “Drive around the block and try again.”

Instructor: “This is faster. You’ll see.”

After a few tries, I manage to pull it off.

Instructor: “Nice work. Now, you see there’s a house right here. Keep going and back into that driveway. Foot off the brake. Nice and easy. Check your rearview.”

I look out the back window and notice something else. I immediately reapply the brakes.

Me: “No, I can’t.”

Instructor: “Why not?”

Me: “If I keep backing up at this angle, I’ll take out the mailbox and the bushes before I get into the driveway. In this case, due to their weird landscaping, it’s better to go around the block and then pull into the driveway.”

The instructor turns around, does a double-take, and goes silent for several seconds.

Instructor: “Huh. You’re correct. I walked right into that one.”

Me: “Actually, you backed into it.”

Instructor: “You sound like my high schoolers. You’re over eighteen, right?”

Me: “Yes.”

Instructor: “Good. I can call you a smarta**.”

We both laughed, and he resumed the lesson.

When I took my road test a couple of weeks later, the DMV employee took me to that exact corner and told me to back up around it.

That was over a decade ago, and I haven’t backed up around a corner since. If I miss an address, I drive around the block and try again.

Due to scheduling conflicts, one of my coworkers can’t make an “event”, so she asks another coworker if she can. This second coworker (we’ll call her Jane) asks me to go to this “event” with her. Because it’s during work hours (and I don’t have too much to do), and we get paid, I accept. 

It turns out that this “event” is decorating a house for a charity our company works with every year. It’s not too far from the office, we get coffee on the way, and what could be better than taking some (paid) time off to take some photos and be nice and helpful? 

This house has bins and bins full of ornaments, and we decide we’re going to help decorate the tree. One of the people living there helps us, and it’s incredibly fun. 

When we start deciding where to put the ornaments, I notice that the tree is listing a little to the side. Not to worry! I get Jane to hold it straight before wiggling my way underneath it to tighten the screws. Luckily, it’s a fake tree. One of the workers tells us that the base isn’t the right one; after all the years they’ve spent in that house, they’ve got kind of a franken-tree. This happens a couple of times, in fact: Jane holds the tree up, and I screw it back in. 

When the tree and its room are finally done (and absolutely beautiful, in our opinion), we decorate outside with garland and wreaths and take so many photos. 

We’re only there for a few hours, and our supervisor wants us back by early afternoon, so about ten minutes before we have to leave, Jane asks if there’s anything else we can do. We feel we haven’t done much, but they thank us profusely and tell us there are several options for corporate outings if we so desire. 

And then… we hear a crash from the other room. You’d better believe it: the tree has fallen over. 

Tree: on the floor. Ornaments: broken. Glass: everywhere. The fairly large angel that I placed on top has been thrown into another room, and one of her arms is misshapen. 

We grimly decide that this is what we’re gonna do for the next ten minutes: fix the tree. 

All six of us (Jane and me included) take charge. We grab brooms and dustpans for the floor, two of us work on getting the tree at least upright, with me on the bottom to move the base, and Jane carefully picks up the bigger bits of ornaments the tree covered.

We decide that because the tree was originally in the center of an alcove, let’s just… shove it into the corner so it can lean. We’ll put other stuff in the other corner. It’s fine. At least we got photos from BEFORE the tree fell over? 

We take a selfie outside, and Jane and I head back to the office, job somewhat well done? 

The house we went to was a halfway house for homeless women, one of two in the area. Jane and I actually had a fantastic time; we had great chats with the people living and working there, and I got to geek out with one of them over Pokémon! What could be better? 

It reminded us not to take anything for granted this holiday season, regardless of where we are.

I answer the calls at our auto shop.

Caller: “Can I speak to a mechanic?”

Me: “I’m a mechanic; how can I help you?”

Caller: “Can I speak to a man?”

Me: “Can I?”

I hang up.

This happened some years ago when I worked for a small inbound call center that answered after-hours calls for many local businesses. One business was a branch of a cable company. We mostly just took calls during their lunches or after hours and only called out a technician if there was a problem or outage with local service.

This call happened on Super Bowl Sunday.

It was a mostly calm day with normal calls. I was on as Team Lead. Suddenly, our lines lit up. All of them were inbound calls for this cable company. It was instantly clear what had happened. The cable had gone out… right as the Super Bowl was starting.

I made a sudden decision that my team was NOT going to be screamed at. I yelled across the floor that no one was to answer any of those calls. Just pick them up and shunt them to our hold queue so we could get to other calls. I called the on-call technician.

Technician: “I KNOW! I KNOW! I GOT IT!”

With bated breath, we watched the call and hold count rise. Five minutes. Ten minutes. And then… silence and empty screens. The call count abruptly dropped to zero.

A single call rang into the cable company, and I took one for the team and answered it. It was the technician, sounding like he’d run a marathon.

Technician: *String of expletives not directed at me* “I got it. I’m gonna stay here for a bit and monitor it. Hope you ladies didn’t get s*** on too much.”

I haven’t a clue what actually went wrong, but kudos to that guy. The rest of the day went smoothly, and everyone was much happier we didn’t have to get screamed at by rabid sports fans.