I frequent Not Always Right and sometimes share the stories with my friends. Usually, we laugh about it or commiserate about it. Not this time.

I’m out one day with a few of them, hanging out after lunch, and I read “Too Bad It Wasn’t The Sobriety Society” to them.

Friend #1: *Nods* “That happened to me once.”

Me: *Joking* “What, you accidentally crashed an AA meeting?”

Friend #1: “Yup, except nobody told me I didn’t have to talk. It feels exactly as awkward and mortifying as the author described, like… stolen alcoholic valor.”

We all stare at her.

Friend #2: “Wait, back up. What… How… Why…”

Friend #1: “It happened years ago. I honestly don’t remember where it was or why I went there, just that I got the time wildly wrong. It was something like I was supposed to be there at 1:00 pm but showed up at 10:00 am or something. I remember thinking it seemed kind of weird that there were coffee and snacks out and so few people around, but I didn’t recognize that for the red flag it was. And yeah, the casual mingling is a powerful distraction tactic. It keeps you from noticing you’ve sat down in a big circle until it’s too late.”

Me: “What the heck happened?”

[Friend #1] turns to [Friend #3], the one in our group who’s known her the longest.

Friend #1: “You remember how I learned to BS people really well in college after I figured out that’s all you need to pass non-technical classes?”

Friend #3: “Oh, yeah. The start of your jadedness.”

Friend #1: “Yeah. Well, this was sometime between that and when I started working at the range and got over my inhibitions about confrontation. So, I was way too awkward and shy and nervous to try to explain myself and leave, but I was really good at figuring out what other people wanted to hear and riffing off of that, and as I said, no one told me I didn’t have to talk if I didn’t want to.”

Friend #3: “No…”

Friend #1: “I let a few other people go first until they got to me, and then I summoned every ounce of my decade of experience with creative writing and roleplaying and all my experience with procrastinating and improvising class presentations and essays.”

Me: “NO!”

Friend #1: “I swear, it was all in the name of anxious desperation. By the way, there’s a reason why I can tell this story so easily and make light of it. You’ll see. Anyway, I cannot for the life of me remember what I said, just that after it was all over, a good few of them came up to me to tell me how inspiring my story was. A couple of them even talked about how they’d been having a really rough time lately, especially after their recent relapses, but listening to me made them want to work harder at it and really commit.”

Friend #3: *With her face in her hands* “Oh, my God.”

Friend #1: “Right? I was so good at BSing that I managed to convince a group of actual alcoholics that I was one. It was a… weird mix of horror and pride I experienced to find that out.”

Me: “What could you have possibly said?”

Friend #1: “Hm… I do remember making sure to slip in that I wasn’t local, so they wouldn’t expect me to come back. I thought that was clever, and luckily, it was true. I’m sure I talked vaguely about myself and instead went into, like, the importance of the people in your life and the duty you feel to them, doing right by them. Things like that. Talking about values and shared life experiences is a really easy way to get out of talking about your personal affairs.”

Friend #2: “You are a terrible person!”

Friend #1: “Am I, though?”

Friend #2: “Yes! Even if you felt awkward, you never should have let it get that far!”

Friend #1: “But because I did, two alcoholics who were struggling felt inspired to work harder at bettering themselves.”

Friend #2: “That…”

Friend #1: “One of them said he hadn’t managed to go a full year sober yet, but he was going to that year. If he managed it, that means I helped, which would be a good thing.”

We all mull this over for a long moment, the rest of us very conflicted.

Me: “So, what’s the moral of this story?”

Friend #1: “Um… sometimes, when you do awful things, everything works out for the best for everyone?”

I’ll leave this one up to the popular vote.

This is a while ago but not in the early days of the Internet, so generally, people should still know better. A customer who bought a computer from us comes back a week or so later and, remembering me as the salesman, walks straight up to me.

Customer: “So, I just got the Internet, and I am confused.”

Me: “What are you confused about, sir?”

Customer: “So, all these people, they’re just giving me money?”

Me: “What are you talking about, sir?”

Customer: “I keep getting all these emails from these nice people that say they want to send me money. Straight into my bank account!”

Me: “I see. Those people are scammers, sir. They’re not nice. You need to ignore them.”

Customer: “Oh, are you sure? Some of them are very pretty.”

Me: “Especially the pretty ones, sir.”

Customer: “Oh… Well, if you’re sure. That’s a pity.”

Related:
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 7
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 6
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 5
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 4
Sooo Not Ready For The Internet, Part 3

One fine day, while attempting to work, I got the call we’ve all gotten. Mom was in an absolute tizzy because her computer didn’t work. Agh.

My retired mom loved to Click All The Things, as moms do, and had gotten one of those viruses that lock your computer for “security violations” or something, with a dire warning to call “Microsoft” at the number provided.

Sadly, she actually called the number and listened to the pitch in broken English. Happily, once the guy at the other end started demanding a credit card number, she finally got suspicious and hung up (despite her mortal fear of appearing “rude”) and called me.

However, she had recently moved to a farm several miles from her remote ancestral village, at least four hours away from me, and there was no way this was something I could coach her through without tears on both sides.

Man, I would give $100 to get out of this predicament… and thus the light dawned.

Me: “Mom, on the tiny road to your remote village, there should be a little house with a sign outside saying ‘COMPUTERS’ or ‘COMPUTER REPAIRS’ or something like that. Do I guess correctly?”

Mom: “Um, yes, I’ve seen something like that…”

Me: “Good, there’s one in every village, even yours. Okay, here’s what you need to do. Take your laptop, along with the power adapter, to this house tomorrow morning. Inside that house will be a man with a large beard.”

Mom: “Wait. How do you know he has a beard?”

Me: “He will have a beard; trust me. The bushier the better. Anyway, give this man your computer, tell him exactly what happened, and ask him to fix it.”

Mom: “Oh, gosh, I’m so embarrassed…”

Me: “That’s okay; he’s heard it before. But it’s very important that you do not lie to this man. Answer his questions, if he has any. If you don’t know, that’s fine; just say you don’t know. He will probably seem a little gruff and grumpy, but don’t worry about that. He will grunt and tell you to pick it up in a day or two.”

Mom: “He sounds mean…”

Me: “No, he’s not mean. Just, um, well, that’s how the best computer people are sometimes. He’s probably not really a people person.”

Mom: “Oh, like your father was.”

Me: “Uhh, yeah. Anyway, pay the man with the beard — it will probably be about $100 — and then follow his instructions. He’ll install software to make sure this doesn’t happen again, so make sure you read and do what it tells you.”

And lo, dear readers, so it came to pass, exactly as predicted in every detail.

Tiny house, gruff man, wildly majestic beard, $99, and all. Mom had her computer back in a day or two with a clean Windows install and a decent antivirus installed. Mine was not the only Mom in the village who clicked All The Things.

Even better, she returned to Beard Guy when she needed other help and followed his advice when it was time to upgrade.

Thank you, bearded man.

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My wife works as a school bus driver. During her morning run picking up elementary school students, the transportation supervisor calls her over the two-way radio.

Supervisor: “[Wife], I have [Student]’s mother on the phone. She says her son came in and told her you drove right past their stop and didn’t even slow down.”

Wife: “Can you have her ask him how his sister got on my bus at that stop?”

A customer bought some stuff with a check. The next day, he came back and pulled four items off the shelf that were identical to what he’d bought. Then, he tried to return them with his receipt.

Even if he hadn’t tried to scam us, we couldn’t return his money. The check hadn’t even gone to the bank yet, let alone cleared.