(I am at the high school for my sixteen-year-old son’s parent-teacher conference. I am about to meet his English teacher. My son has warned me that she is not an incredibly nice person nor a good teacher, but I have until this point thought he was exaggerating.)

Teacher: “Okay. Just before we start, I wanted to let you know that your son is kind of a loser nerd.”

(My son is a big nerd, but I’m not sure he’s a “loser,” as he has many friends and is good at making more. Besides, he seems happy with his situation.)

Teacher: *continuing* “Also, he’s good friends with some girls.”

(He has a group of about six or seven good friends, of whom two are girls.)

Me: “Why would that matter?”

Teacher: “Oh, nothing. It’s just that he might be gay and some parents don’t like that.”

(I do not believe my son to be gay, not in the least because he has a girlfriend. But even if he was, it wouldn’t really make a difference for us. Also, I’m pretty sure that if the parents were not okay with it, the last thing you would want to do would be to tell the parents.)

Me: “I believe that we were here to talk about my son’s performance in class.”

Teacher: “Right. Well, your son seems to have trouble making friends in class; he only talks to his friends when given the option to. In group projects, he would prefer to work with his friends over other students.”

Me: “I feel this is how most teenagers act.”

Teacher: “Oh, just a side note: do you think your son is unathletic? All the other boys in the class are on sports teams, and they always come in wearing their jerseys except for your son and his friend. Do you think you could convince him to join the track team or something? I’d like the seating chart to be symmetrical, and with two boys not on any teams it’s a bit harder.”

(My son is not too fat nor too thin, not terribly weak — though not very strong, either — and I see no point in making him join a sports team that he won’t want to participate in.)

Me: “Could we continue talking about him in class?”

(She gives actual important information about how he’s struggling in something and recommends some tutor or something. Then, I’m about to leave.)

Teacher: “I saw him talking to a crippled girl once.”

(The “crippled girl” is a freshman with one leg, who is my son’s friend’s sister and my daughter’s good friend, and I do believe he was comforting her about something — she has low self-esteem and my daughter brought up something about an interaction between the girl and my son. Luckily, this teacher retired from teaching at the end of that school year.)

(One Friday, I come home in the late afternoon to find a flyer in my mailbox and several posted on the windshields of the parked cars. The flyer reads to the effect of:)

Flyer: “On Wednesday, [date five days from today], road work will be done on [My Street] between the hours of 7:00 am and 3:00 pm. Any cars parked curbside on [My Street] during this time will be ticketed and towed.”

(I shrug and think nothing of it. I work from home, my wife’s hours and commute means she’ll never encounter the workers, and we have our own parking spaces on our property, anyway. The worst this entails for us is that I’ll need to do the shopping on Tuesday or let her deal with it on the way home Wednesday. At roughly two o’clock Monday morning, our dog decides she needs to go out. I take her out in the front yard and sit on the porch like I always do. As I’m doing this, a car comes barreling down the road, stops in front of my house, and two people come running out of the car. One of them starts securing signs to the existing parking signs — the ones that outline the street sweeping schedule — while the other hastily pin flyers to the windshields of every parked car. No matter how many times I try to question them, they ignore me. Once they’re back in their car and have sped off down the road again, I go out and read what they broke the speed limit for.)

Signs and Flyers: “Starting Monday, [today’s date], road work will be done on [My Street] from 7:00 am to 3:00 pm and will continue during these hours until Friday, [Friday’s date]. Any cars parked curbside on [My Street] during this time will be ticketed and towed.”

(Already seeing this is going to be a nightmare, I go back inside, grab my wife’s keys, and move our cars down to the intersection and onto the next road. And I most definitely did the right thing. A few hours later, the road is completely blocked off. No cars are getting in or out, and not just because of their decision to tie off the street from sidewalk to sidewalk. No, as if that wasn’t enough, the work they are doing also factors in. What is the work? Digging a gigantic hole in the exact middle of the street just shy of the intersecting roads. Yes, roads. They have decided to assign two crews, start at both ends of the street, and meet in the middle. Within the first hour, both holes are large enough to bury an elephant. I, of course, call City Hall. Once the complaints about our inability to drive are voiced, the conversation goes as follows:)

Secretary: “Well, the crew was supposed to post signs saying the road was going to be closed until the work was done.”

Me: “They posted signs saying we weren’t allowed to park on the road. They said nothing about driving. I have copies of both flyers if you’re interested.”

Secretary: “‘Both flyers’? What do you mean, ‘both flyers’?”

Me: “Well, there’s the one they posted Friday afternoon that only says they’re working on Wednesday, and the one they posted this morning around two that says they’re working the whole week. Both of them only talk about parking.”

Secretary: “‘This morning around two’?!”

Me: “That’s right.”

Secretary: “I… don’t know how to respond to that.”

Me: “Well, then, maybe you can answer this: if any of us on [My Street] need emergency services, how are the fire trucks and ambulances supposed to get to us?”

Secretary: “Well, I’m sure the cop there will help with that.”

Me: “What police officer would that be?”

Secretary: “Isn’t there a cop out there with them?”

Me: “The only people out here are the road workers.”

(Thankfully, she gets the message and sends an officer immediately. He arrives in five minutes, and I ask him the same thing.)

Police Officer: *shrugs* “I don’t know what City Hall wants me to do at this point. The hole’s too big to get around now. And they shouldn’t have started today in the first place. The forecast is saying nothing but rain all week. All their work will be undone with the first rainfall. Your whole street’s f***ed already. But these contractors don’t give a s*** as long as they get paid.”

(At present, I’m trying to band together what little of the neighborhood I can to prove we can, in fact, fight City Hall. Wish me luck.)

(Our friend let my roommate and I borrow a boxed set of his favorite anime. This is the conversation we have afterward.)

Me: “I can see why you like this show. It’s very you.”

Friend: “It’s one of my favorites for a reason! It may be a bit dated, but it was the first anime I watched with a story and characters I cared about.”

Me: “We thought the story was okay, but—“

Roommate: “We were talking about the nudity and swearing.”

Friend: “What?! There isn’t any nudity or swearing!”

Me: “Yes. Yes, there is. There is a hot springs episode with full-frontal nudity!”

Friend: “WHAT?!”

(It turned out that he’d watched a censored version of the show on television, and since he hadn’t gotten around to rewatching it on DVD, he didn’t realize that the show had been so heavily censored that it turned a mature-rated harem anime into a program that’s remarkably tame in comparison, aimed at young teens! For those curious, the anime in question was “Tenchi Muyo.”)

Though my kindergarten was part of an entire elementary school, the kindergarten was held in a separate building across the street from the main school with its own parking lot. This was originally done to ensure the children could see and point out whoever was picking them up without the clutter of other grades — also why the first graders had their own hall with its own exit in the main building. It also forced the school to teach us road safety at a young age since we’d have to go to the main school building to have library, PE, music, art, computers, and lunch. However, it wound up proving to have one more bonus after this incident.

Our last activity before recess was acting out Three Billy Goats Gruff, complete with masks for all four characters. After I, the third goat for this group, rammed the final troll, someone noticed my goat mask didn’t look the same and asked the teacher about it. She started by examining the mask, and then the kid playing the troll and me. Our troll was wearing makeup. Everywhere. While asking him why, the teacher started rubbing it away before stepping back, horrified.

The troll had chickenpox.

While I don’t remember this for sure, I believe that at the time vaccination was only required for entry into middle school, so not only was it quite likely that none of the students in the kindergarten were vaccinated against chickenpox, but it was just as likely many of the students in the main school weren’t, either. And this child’s mother decided it would be better to send him to school. How do I know it was his mother? Well…

The very first thing my teacher did was get the neighboring teacher to watch us, and then drag our troll right out of the classroom. When I took a restroom break later, I passed by the kindergarten’s office and heard a woman yelling about how this was no big deal, that she shouldn’t have had to come down for this, and more. The troll student didn’t come back that day, or any other day.

Once she got back, we were locked in the building the rest of the day. The teachers had to go get our lunches, and we lost our main building class for the day. Throughout the day, others were getting picked up unexpectedly. Evidently, the school called all of our parents to let them know a mother sent her child in with chickenpox, and many decided to get their kids out immediately.

The school was closed for the next two weeks, which means we lost two weeks of our summer vacation and our parents had to find sitters. Once the incubation period ended and symptoms would be appearing in anyone infected, the school reopened, but attendance was incredibly low; on the very first day back, I was the only one who came to class. Part of it was that some parents didn’t feel safe leaving their kids with the school any longer and transferred them out, but most of it was because the school had an outbreak which left most of the children sick, and the parents of the remaining healthy children were concerned another parent would do the same thing. After some assurances, the healthy students finally came back. I had bragging rights, however.

Since I was the only one who came in on the first day, the teachers called my parents again. With their permission, my teacher took me bowling for the day — out of her own pocket if my mother is to be believed — and even drove me home while everyone else stayed to close the kindergarten early. It was my first and only improvised field trip, and I absolutely loved it.

In the course of my education, I encountered almost my entire kindergarten class again. While a couple of them have scars, everyone I’ve found was just fine. The only mystery left in this case is the student who caused it. I’ve yet to encounter him again.

To the troll’s mother, while I hate that you delayed my summer vacation and cost me time with my friends, thank you for enabling a wonderful day of bowling with my teacher. I hope your stupidity hasn’t killed your son or anyone else.

Customer: “Can you tell me if this clock is really loud? I hate clocks that tick really loudly.”

Me: “Ma’am, this is a digital clock.”

Customer: “Yes. So? Is it a loud one?”

Me: “Digital clocks don’t make any noise at all, ma’am. You should be fine.”

Customer: “Okay, well, I’ll get it, but if it ticks too loudly, I’m going to bring it back and find you and tell you that you were wrong.”

Me: “Ma’am, it’s digital. Like your cell phone. Do you ever hear your cell phone ticking?”

(She still didn’t get it. I heard her asking the cashier about our return policy, just in case the “ticking” was too loud for her.)