One day, when I am little, my mom misplaces her keys to the house. This is pretty bad because she doesn’t realize this until we get there, and the taxi has already left. This is the age before cellphones, so we can’t call a locksmith, nor my dad, who is currently on the other side of the city with our only car.

There is no public transport nor open shops nearby, and since it’s getting dark, my mom is scared. It’s just her and her daughter on the streets at night.

She decides to go with her raised-Catholic instincts and carries me to a church. There’s no one there but the Sunday school teacher, who’s just finished tidying up, and her husband, who’s come to help her. My mom explains our situation to them and, as it turns out, they live a mere block away from us! They invite us to their house to use their phone, call my dad, and wait there until he arrives.

Everything turns out all right. I only vaguely remember this incident, but my mom still gets choked up thinking about the couple who helped her when she was a scared young mom in need of help.

(I go to the restroom between classes. Thanks to the humidity, my hair is a mess, and I say so out loud without thinking in front of the mirror. Suddenly, someone speaks up from an occupied stall.)

Random Girl: “Aw, don’t say that! I’m sure it looks lovely!”

(Guerrilla compliments seem to be a thing now. Nice.)

(Growing up, I am as far from athletic as one can be, not that I care much. I also am completely unable to know when to stop talking. One day in seventh grade, a classmate has been bugging me the whole day, and continues while we are at recess. I ask him to stop it. This guy isn’t the sharpest tool in the shed and is quite aggressive.)

Classmate: “What, you wanna fight? I’m sure I can beat you!”

Me: “Well, of course you can! You have at least six kilos and ten centimetres on me. I’m not sure you should be proud about beating me.”

Classmate: “What?”

Me: “You’re far stronger than me. Being proud about beating me up would be as if I bragged about getting a better grade in a seventh-grade maths test than a first-grader.”

(This is where I should have stopped talking, but instead…)

Me: “…or said first-grader bragging about getting a better grade in a first-grade maths test than you.”

(This is the moment I realised I’d f***** up. I began to move away from him, knowing that when he understood what I said, he would be furious. After a couple of seconds, he realised what I meant and tried to hit me, and I began to run away from him. Thankfully he never caught up with me and got tired before I did. I learnt two things that day. The most important was to keep my mouth shut. The second was that although I couldn’t run very fast, I had nice stamina and could run a little longer than most of my classmates.)

(My family has gathered to celebrate a birthday, and I go with my fifteen-year-old cousin to buy a cake. Since it’s quite busy, I tell my cousin to get in line for the registers while I go and pick the cake. Just as I’m getting in line with her, a middle-aged woman cuts the line right in front. My cousin speaks up but the woman just tells her to get out of her way. I tell my cousin to just let it go, and when she asks why, I say, loudly:)

Me: “Well… it’s clear that she’s in such a hurry, she can’t wait any longer and felt it necessary to be rude to other people and cut the line. If we let her go before us, we get to be the kind young people who let an older lady who’s in a hurry go first, while she ends up as the one who shouted and almost pushed a fifteen-year-old girl.”

(The woman, as was my intention, heard me and began to shout at me and my cousin. The manager approached her and asked her to leave, because she had cut the line and was annoying the other customers.)

(It is the late 90s. My grandparents have just moved into a new apartment and we are all hanging out when the telephone rings.)

Caller: *in a strong Argentinian accent* “Alo? I’m looking for Charlie.”

Uncle: “You must have the wrong number; there’s no Charlie here.”

Caller: “Okay. Thank you.”

(We think nothing of that… until 2006. We are all hanging out one last time in the apartment, since the next day my grandparents will move to a new house. The phone rings.)

Caller: *with a strong Argentinian accent* “Alo? I’m looking for Charlie.”

Uncle: “You must have the wrong number; there’s no Charlie here.”

Caller: *suddenly remembering the last phone call* “Che… do you guys still live there?!” *hangs up*

(After all these years, the same guy called the same wrong number while looking for the same person and the same uncle answered him using the exact same words.)