I was renting a small place along a suburban street. A man was renting the place above me, but I’d never had much of a reason to speak to him, so outside of recognizing him, and once doing him a favor by helping him figure out how to get his programable thermostat to work, I couldn’t say I knew much about him.

There was no parking besides street parking available at this place. This wasn’t much of a problem as I usually could find a spot very close to my house to park. However, on the night before this story, some sort of event was happening at a nearby church and the street parking was very full, resulting in me parking a little way away from my usual spot.

The next day, the parking situation had cleared up when I went outside to walk a bit and get some fresh air. That’s when the man who lived above me approached me.

Man: “Hey, is your car the [color] [Make]?

Me: “Yeah, why?”

Man: “You parked next to someone’s house down the street. The people living there need to park there to get stuff out of their car. They said you’d better move your car now or they’ll have it towed.”

Me: “Did they actually threaten to tow it if I didn’t move it?”

Man: “Yeah, they were really angry.”

Me: “Well then, if you go back down that way, feel free to tell them that the streets are public property and I’m allowed to park in any legal location. They can’t tow it, and I don’t respond to baseless threats. However, if it would make it easier for them for me to move my car, I’d be happy to if they simply asked me politely instead of making threats.”

Man: “Oh, yeah, they’re not going to like that. They were pissed you took their spot.”

Me: “I’m sorry if it inconvenienced them, but threatening someone who did nothing wrong isn’t a fair response, and I’m not going to encourage that behavior by responding to it. Like I said, all they need to do is ask politely and I wouldn’t mind moving it.”

The man headed back down the street. I stuck closer to my house than originally intended for a little while, just so I’d be available to move the car when they asked me to.

A bit later, an angry-looking woman came up to me with [Man].

Woman: “You’re the one who’s parked at our house?”

Me: “Presumably, yes.”

Woman: “Why the h*** did you park there?”

Me: “Last night, there was no other available parking near here, so when I found a legal place to park, I took it.”

Woman: “You can’t park there. That’s my spot.”

Me: “I’m pretty sure I legally can. Are you asking me if I would be willing to move my car?”

Woman: “You’d better, or I’m towing it.”

Me: “You can’t tow it; it’s parked in a legal location that is publicly available to any of us. You could instead try asking for it to be moved, though.”

Woman: “Why the h*** should I ask you when you’re in my spot?”

Me: “It’s not your spot anymore, then; it’s mine. It’s public property. You don’t own it. Wanting a spot doesn’t make it yours.”

Woman: “It’s at my house.”

Me: “It’s on a public road. The fact that it’s near your house doesn’t mean you own public property. Though, as I told this fine gentleman, I’d probably be willing to move it as a favor if asked properly.”

Woman: “Move your d*** car.”

Me: “I’m sorry, I’m really trying to be considerate here, but that was not remotely polite. All I asked is to be treated with basic human decency if you want a favor from me.”

Woman: “It’s not a favor. It’s in my spot.”

Man: “Really, it’s not a problem. He already said he’d move it; just say ‘please’.”

The woman spoke in the most sarcastic and insincere voice possible.

Woman: “Okay, fine. Please get out of my spot already.”

Me: “Sorry, but no. As I’ve regularly had to tell my godchildren, the word ‘please’ doesn’t magically make a sentence polite. I was happy to help if you had just asked, but if you’re incapable of basic decency, then I’m not rewarding your poor behavior by doing you any favors.”

Woman: “F*** you, then! I’m towing it!”

Me: “You are more than welcome to try. I don’t think you will have much luck convincing anyone to do so, though.”

Woman: “Fine, but don’t blame me if your car is damaged tomorrow.”

I should mention that we had attracted a small crowd by now.

Me: “If that’s a threat, I’ll point out that I have numerous witnesses to it here and that the people across the street have a security camera set up. So, yes, I’d blame you, take you to civil court, and report you to the police. I would strongly advise against that course of action.”

Woman: “Just move your d*** car.”

Me: “No. And this grass does belong to me, so I’m going to ask you to get off of it since you are trespassing. I’m headed inside. Next time, just try being polite.”

The woman shouted at my door for a while after that.

As soon as I was inside, I called the police and asked if they could have an officer swing by to speak to her about trespassing and her threat to damage my car. They were shockingly responsive; they must have had a car already nearby because someone showed up nearly immediately.

The officer spoke to the woman. I didn’t come out to listen, but I spoke to the officer afterward. He had convinced her to leave and made sure to make it clear how bad an idea damaging my car after making a threat like that would be. I didn’t really want to press charges or anything; I honestly wasn’t sure if I could, since the yard actually belonged to my landlord, not me. I just thanked the officer for convincing the woman it was wise for her to leave me alone.

My car was fine when I left for work the subsequent day, and I parked in a closer spot when I got home, so presumably, the crazy lady got her spot back. Still, she could have saved herself so much trouble with a simple, sincere “please”.

When I was in high school, my family moved from a suburban area to a very rural one. Instead of having a school bus stop right in front of our house, it was now at the end of our quarter-mile driveway. We were the first stop, and the second was another quarter-mile or so down the dead-end road.

On the first really cold day with ice and snow on the ground, my two brothers and I trudged out to the bus stop. The road was unplowed, but several vehicles had been over the inch or so of snow and ice. So, we waited. And waited. Etc. 

About a half-hour after our pickup time, we trudged back to the house and told Mom. She got dressed, got our youngest brother and us into the station wagon, and drove us the mile and a half to school. While we checked in and went off to class, she complained about the missing bus before driving our youngest brother to his school. 

It turned out that since the kids at the next stop were known to not bother with school on really cold or foul days, the driver had a habit of skipping our road on those days so she didn’t have to drive almost a mile on a one-lane road and execute a turnaround at the top of their farm road.

I guess she thought we were of the same mindset. If so, she guessed wrong.

Years ago, I made the mistake of coming up with a game where I let my niece ride on my shoulders and “drive” me by turning my head wherever she wanted me to turn. She enjoyed this a bit too much. Years later, she still begs to do this all the time, despite getting big enough that shoulder rides aren’t that easy to give anymore.

Because she is so big, her legs now start falling asleep if she stays on my shoulders for too long, so I try to make sure she takes walking breaks. This is solely because I’m a good uncle who doesn’t want her legs to hurt and not at all that my shoulders need a break — honest!

Me: “I think this car is running out of gas. Are you ready to get down?”

Niece: “Just a little more.”

Me: “Sorry, kiddo, you know how this works. I need you to take a break and walk a little.”

I get her down, despite her protests. She sort of starts walking on her own but slowly and acting a little odd.

Me: “You okay? Are your legs hurting already?”

Niece: “No, but I’m so tiny now.”

Me: “Huh?”

Niece: “You made me get down. Now I’m small.”

I suppose dropping to less than a third of your previous height would be an odd experience.

We lived in the same house for over a decade when I was a child, and I’d long since memorized the layout well enough that I could have run the hall blindfolded, which I sort of did. My father was quite insistent on not wasting electricity on extra lights, so when I decided to head upstairs for the night through darkened hallways, rather than having to turn on and then back off a half-dozen lights along my way, I’d generally trust to my memory — and a protective raised hand in case I misjudged the distance — to make it upstairs without the lights.

I was headed up to my bedroom one evening when I was an older teen. There was enough light still filtering in from the windows to sort of make out the halls downstairs, but the light didn’t quite reach up the full length of the stairs to the hallway above. This time, as I approached said hallway, I suddenly had an overwhelming sense that there was some looming presence waiting for me in the darkness above.

Logically, I figured it had to be my imagination, so I wasn’t really scared. After all, it wasn’t as if someone could have snuck upstairs to wait in ambush without my noticing. Still, it could do no harm to humor my instincts; it might even provide a mildly amusing distraction to do so. So, even though, I was certain there was nothing to worry about, I still played along. I moved cautiously forward in a sort of lazy bastardization of a defensive fighting stance, not quite being willing to risk feeling stupid by taking on a full combat stance over something I was sure I was imagining. I even moved toward where my instincts told me the presence was, instead of going the opposite direction to my bedroom, to figure out what had been negligently left in the hallway that could have triggered my instincts.

It seems my subconscious must have detected some signs too subtle for my conscious mind to process because it turned out there was a looming presence, which suddenly charged at me as I approached it! With my body already primed and ready, my instincts took over, shifting my weight into a proper stance even as I started to launch a punch. While I’ll never claim to be a master martial artist, years of training had at least taught me how to throw a proper punch.

It was only after my instincts had taken over that my brain caught up. I realized the only people who could have reasonably made it upstairs without alarming me were the ones that were supposed to be there, and come to think of it, didn’t that dark figure charging at me have roughly the right size and bulk to be my father? With this realization, I tried to pull my punch, fighting against the momentum my punch had already built by then. I managed to slow it just enough that it was little more than a tap on my father’s stomach, light enough that he apparently brushed it off without realizing what it was as he started laughing and gloating that he had surprised me.

In actuality, between my first instinctual response and then my distracted attempt to stop it, I hadn’t had time to really register any fear. Instead, I told my father he nearly got punched, but my dad seem to think this was just me saving face and didn’t realize how serious I was about the warning. Realizing there was no way for me to prove how close my father had come to a solid punch to the gut, I gave up and went to my bedroom, letting my father have his undeserved sense of triumph at his ambush.

Yet the memory has still stuck with me, even decades later. There’s just something that amuses me about how undeserved his excitement was and just how close he was to regretting his ill-planned ambush. But sure, Dad, go ahead and think you won that round.

Several years ago, I was a referee for a First Lego League (now known as FLL Challenge) competition. This is a competition where middle-schoolers build and program Lego robots to run on a board completing various challenges for points.

This year, one of my teams had some adorable homemade outfits fitting this year’s theme. They also had a large banner that they dragged in and excitedly waved, and in general, they were full of energy and excitement.

I always encourage the kids to cheer as loud as possible when their team name is called by the announcer. That’s part of the general goal of making competitions fun and enjoyable for the kids regardless of how well they do on the table. Despite this, I usually get rather lackluster responses when team names are called. Not [Team], though. I got by far the most enthusiastic full-energy cheer I’d heard in a long time from this team.

They were at my table for their first official match. I’d watched them during their practice round and knew that their robot was decent — a bit better than the average — but was still not going to come close to the score of the best few bots.

After [Team]’s robot successfully completed its first two runs, it came back to the home base so they could swap out parts for another run. The boy starting the robot up apparently ran the wrong program. This resulted in the robot running amok over the board as it tried to run a program designed for a very different section of the board, knocking pieces out of place and losing the team points.

Then came the confusion of the kids trying to decide whether to take the bot back to home base, therefore getting a touch penalty, or leave it as it was. They ended up deciding on the penalty, but they hesitated too long making the decision, meaning they didn’t have time to complete the next run before time ran out. The net result was a rather abysmal score compared to what they should have managed.

Luckily, they would get to do three runs and only the highest score of the three counted, so they still had a chance for a better score, but having your first run go so terribly can be quite discouraging to kids.

But as I listened, rather than hearing frustration or scolding directed at the kid who messed up, I heard more cheering, proclamations that they would do better next time, and multiple teammates encouraging the child who messed up. I couldn’t help but be impressed by their relentless optimism and so resolved to keep an eye on them.

As I watched, I saw not just excitement for their own team, but compliments and cheering for the other teams. At one point, I even saw one girl from [Team] offer her help to another team when their robot wasn’t starting up right. The other team was one of the top teams, and they didn’t really need her help, but still, I was impressed by her trying to aid her greatest competition.

The final score on the tables was only one of the four areas we looked at. Separate groups of judges assessed their Robot Design, their Projects, and their Core Values. Since I usually judged, I knew all three categories well.

Core Values included inspiration (team spirit), teamwork, and “gracious professionalism”, which basically means being professional and a good sport to the other teams. I deemed [Team] to have demonstrated all three of those areas far in excess of the average team.

Not able to give up on my inner judge, I couldn’t stand the idea of [Team] not getting recognition for living up to these values on the field — and not just when they were being actively judged. Thus, I took a free moment to run down to the Core Values room and let the judges there know what I’d seen.

As it turned out, [Team] had already been ranked the top team for Core Values, even before they got my recognition. However, there were other steps for deciding what trophies to hand out beyond the ranking of the teams, and one of them was picking who got the Champion award for excelling in all four areas — the score on the table plus the three judged categories.

Usually, the Champion award tended to go to one of the teams that had a high score on the table, as they usually also had a high score in Robot Design, giving them high scores in half the areas we measured even before we considered that these teams also tended to put a bit more work into their Projects.

Still, we always stressed that all categories were weighted evenly; if anything, Core Values was usually used as the tiebreaker for otherwise even teams. In this case, they had three teams with high table and Robot Design scores, but those teams either had an abysmal Project score, in one case, or decent but not exceptional Project scores and mediocre Core Values. Competing with these three teams was [Team], with a perfect Core Values score, a good Project score, and decent, if not exceptional, Design and table scores.

The judges were split between multiple potential winners. It was apparently my confirmation that [Team]’s values continued to be demonstrated at the table that pushed them over the edge to win the Champion award.

[Team] was clearly shocked when their name was announced for Champion.

Personally, I think they earned it. I gave it my all applauding for them.