I live on the same property as my landlord; he rents out his old house and lives in his much nicer one. Both are situated on a farm, and he has a small herd of gorgeous Belted Galloway cows.

One afternoon, I am just finishing up work when he calls me to say that a calf has escaped, and he is closing the gates while he looks for them. Since his farm is just off of a busy road, I offer to head out and check around the neighborhood. The edge of the cow pasture is right next to the backyard of a row of houses on the next street over, so that’s where I head first.

Granted, driving slowly down a no-outlet road while gawking at everyone’s backyard can seem suspicious, but I figure if anyone approaches me about it I’ll happily explain the situation, and they can also keep an eye out for this poor calf. I go down the road and scan the left row of houses, and then I turn around and am about to scan the right side when a resident comes out of their house and flags me down.

Resident: “What are you doing?”

His tone isn’t friendly at all. He sounds grumpy and irritated as if he is seconds away from calling the police on me for… driving slowly.

Me: “Oh, one of my landlord’s cows escaped. I was just checking here while he’s checking the other side of the property. Have you seen—”

Resident: “He was already down here three times, and he sent his drone over my house. The cow. Isn’t. Here.”

I am hardly confrontational, so I just reply:

Me: “Oh, okay. I didn’t know he had already looked here. Thanks!”

He is already walking back to his house the second I open my mouth — presumably to complain to whoever will listen about how annoying it is that someone would so thoroughly look for a lost animal.

I drive around a few more places before heading back to my landlord’s house to see if he has any updates. I tell him I went down the road next door and tell him about my encounter with the grumpy guy.

Landlord: “Oh, that guy. He’s so miserable! He saw my drone flying over and called me to complain about it, even after I told him why I was using it.”

Me: “Sheesh. He just made me feel like I was doing something wrong. I’ve been on that road lots of times, and everyone seems so friendly, except for him.”

Landlord: “He’s the worst. Every time I talk to him, he’s either complaining about me or complaining to me. I can barely stand it.”

Me: “Oh, do you have to deal with him a lot?”

Landlord: “At least once a year during the holidays. He’s my cousin.”

We did find the calf, almost six hours later!

Me: *Approaching one of my tables* “How is everyone doing? Can I top up any drinks?”

Diner #1: “This gnocchi tastes weird! And the texture is completely off!”

Me: “Those are new potatoes, sir.”

Diner #1: “Oh. Well, anyway, these diced carrots also taste funny!”

Me: “That’s squash, sir.”

Diner #1: “Oh…” *Looks around the table* “Well, these fries—”

Diner #2: “Oh, my God, will you stop! Did you even look at the menu?”

The other diner turns to me.

Diner #2: “Everything is excellent; thank you for asking!”

I smiled and walked away. The complaining diner screwed up his face in contempt every time I came back but thankfully didn’t say anything else. 

To this day, I am not sure if I witnessed genuine stupidity or an attempt to get out of paying.

Our fridge is clearly on its last legs. It’s so old that it’s faded to a yellow color, it barely keeps things cold, and most terrifying of all, it’s started screaming — not really screaming, but making a very loud, high-pitched noise that doesn’t stop unless we unplug it. The noise is so loud it hurts our ears after a while — and apparently, the people in the apartment next to us can hear it, too!

I message the landlady about it with a video attached.

Me: “Hi, [Landlady], our fridge is being strange again. I’m sending you a video so you can hear the noise it makes. The neighbors have also said they can hear it in their apartment.”

Landlady: “Okay.”

Me: “It’s also not keeping our food cold, and no matter how much we clean it, these weird stains aren’t going away. I think it might be time to replace it.”

Landlady: “Hmm. Well, you know, not everyone has a fridge. Maybe you should be grateful for what you have.”

Me: “Yes, I know. I was homeless for two years. Thank you for the reminder. But that doesn’t change the fact that we need a new fridge.”

We got a new fridge two days later, and she never told me to be grateful again.

The British newspaper that my parents get has had many critics over the years. However, there are two instances that have made me dislike them, long before I learned of their more common criticisms. This story is about one of these occasions.

The year was 1994, I had graduated from University, and I was back living with my parents. I was also looking forward to the new “Star Trek” film, “Generations”. As the November release date approached, I did everything I possibly could to avoid spoilers. The Internet was around then, but as I was no longer at University, I had no access, so all those message boards were not a problem for me.

Trailers, TV, and radio promotions were a bit more tricky, so depending on the situation, I would change channels, plug my ears, or leave the room. With newspapers, if I caught a glimpse of anything at all Trekkie, I would close my eyes and turn the page. It helped that these would have big headlines, boldly showing what the article was about.

I was really pleased with myself that it was a week or so before the premiere and I knew nothing about the film other than it having cast from “The Original Series” and “Next Generation”. 

And so, that morning, I did my usual breakfast routine, munching my cereal and flicking through the paper to the puzzle section. As always, I start with their quick quiz.

Question #1: “What is the name of the actor from A Clockwork Orange who kills Captain Kirk in the new Star Trek film?”

Ghuy’cha’!

Some people give orders but can’t distinguish between “Don’t do X” and “You don’t have to do X”. They tell us, “You don’t have to do X,” and get very surprised or pissy when we do X anyway.

Once, it was a systems person who told us that we needed to do something with certain directories but didn’t HAVE TO do X, but I did X anyway because it seemed easier, and I got a ton of error messages. Then, they said, “But we told you not to do that!”

I also had an idiot manager once who said that we didn’t HAVE TO write our test cases a certain way, and an extremely capable tester wrote them that way anyway because the result was much better than whatever the manager was thinking of. The manager blew up at her.

Tester: “Well, I didn’t do it to spite you.”

Manager: *Snapping* “Yes, you did!”

We were SO happy when she left.