My younger sister is fifteen and I’m twenty when this story takes place. Due to certain circumstances, we’re both living with our grandma — sixty-three — and her mother — eighty-four. My great-grandma has always been a bit high strung, but usually, she lets us handle ourselves. Usually.

My sister has gone out to a holiday party with a local LGBT youth group and it’s getting on in the evening. She’s supposed to call us when she’s ready and I’ll drive to pick her up with my great-grandma in the car. I’ve had my license for three years and she generally considers me a good driver, which is what makes part of this so baffling.

It’s about seven-thirty at night when the worrying starts.

Great-Grandmother: “Do you think she’s okay? It’s getting awful late.”

Me: “It’s not anywhere near late enough to end a party.”

Great-Grandmother: “I’m just worried she’s out walking the streets with all those kids. [Street] has some crime, you know.”

Me: “Grandma, it’s a supervised party. They won’t just let the kids wander around no matter how late it gets.”

Great-Grandmother: “I just worry she’s out and about in the cold. You know she only brought a thin jacket? I worry about her in the cold.”

Me: “Grandma, [Sister] hates the cold. She’s not going to be out and about in it if she doesn’t have to, and she’s old enough to make her own decisions regarding jackets.”

Great-Grandmother: “It’s just awful late.”

Variations on these concerns repeat periodically for the next two and a half hours.

Me: “Grandma! If you don’t quit fussin’, I’m gonna send you to bed! She’ll call us when she’s ready and she can handle herself.”

Great-Grandmother: “Okay, okay!”

Sure enough, my sister calls soon after and we’re on our way. And then, further worrying starts.

Great-Grandmother: “Be careful of those parked cars.”

Great-Grandmother: “Look both ways here; it’s a bit of a blind turn.”

Great-Grandmother: “You can turn now.”

Finally, there’s the comment that breaks me. My great grandmother sees a cop car parked along the side of the road. 

Great-Grandmother: “Remember to stop at this red light!”

Me: “Grandma! I did not, in fact, get my license out of a cereal box!”

She only fretted one more time that journey, about backing out in an empty parking lot, and she apologized to me the next morning!

My senior year of high school, I have two study hall periods. About a week into the school year, one of the guidance counselors approaches me during study hall.

Counselor: “[My Name], why haven’t you been attending cooking class?”

Me: “Because I’m not taking cooking class?”

Counselor: “You’re on the class roster and you’ve been marked absent every day.”

Me: “That’s weird. It’s not on my course schedule.”

Counselor: “Huh. Did you sign up for it?”

Me: “No. I signed up freshman year, but I switched classes a couple of weeks in, and I definitely didn’t sign up for it this year.”

Counselor: “Do you want to take it?”

Me: “No.”

Counselor: “Okay, I guess we’ll remove you from the class, then.”

It was admittedly unusual for a student to have two Study Halls, and I initially assumed that the cooking class took place during one of my two study halls, but I later learned that it actually shared the same time block as my AP Calculus class. Apparently, I was supposed to be in two places at once. Very strange.

My daughter needs a diaper change so I take her into the men’s room of the mall bookstore. When I pull down the changing table, a couple of soft-core adult magazines fall out. I shove them aside, lay down a mat, and change her. As we’re leaving, a bookstore employee enters the bathroom.

Employee: “Sir! You forgot your magazines.”

Me: “Those aren’t mine!”

I shudder to think what he thought I’d been doing back there.

I work at the front desk at a fairly nice hotel for the overnight shift. It’s not five-star fancy, but it is significantly nicer than most of the hotels in my area, and our guests tend to be wealthier individuals. 

One night, I’m working and I get a group of very loud young adults. I hit a few snags during check-in, as they want to split the payment with cash, and we don’t take cash payments after 10:00 pm. They don’t want to put the room charge on one card, because the leader of the group states that she needs enough money on her card for rent.

After some negotiating, they agree to leave a cash deposit, one member leaves a piece of ID, and I put one card on file, just for incidental purposes. In the morning, my manager can split their payment four ways and refund the card on file. The leader of the group tries to give me an EBT card.

Me: “We can’t accept EBT.”

When I finally get a valid debit card, I go over my spiel on quiet hours and some of the services we provide. One of the boys asks about room service, but I state that room service ends at 9:00 pm — it’s now after midnight — but that we do have a pantry where they can buy food. The group heads for the pantry, grabs armloads of food, and dumps them on the counter. The total comes up to fifty dollars, for which they try to use EBT AGAIN. 

Me: “Sorry, folks, but we don’t accept EBTs even for food. Do you have another form of payment?” 

Guest: “Yeah, but it’s food! you have to accept it.” 

Me: “My system literally has no way to process EBT. That’s why I can’t accept it.”

They begrudgingly agree to go to a convenience store that’s right next door. 

I think that’s the end of it when they come back and go up to their room. But nope. The guy who tried to pay with EBT keeps on coming down to the front desk. I’m supposed to greet guests every time they come to front desk, but he never wants anything. He just stands around and tries to make conversation, mostly wanting to complain about his fiancée and her friends.

The first time, I humor him for a couple of minutes, but when it’s apparent he’s at the front desk just to chat and not for any reason regarding his stay, I tell him I have work to do.

After conversation attempt number four, he starts going to the pantry and buying random snacks, and of course, I have to be at the front desk to accept payment, and he’ll stand there and just talk. 

A few of my duties involve me having to leave the front desk occasionally — to water plants, sweep, mop, make coffee, and keep the coffee bar stocked. I leave the desk once to water the plants, but the entire time, he follows me around. So, after that, I stay firmly behind the desk — locking the employee-only door — and sitting in the office, staring at security cameras. The entire time, he either sits in the lobby or goes outside for a smoke. 

My shift ends, but I have a second job to head over to, about one block away. Once the front desk girl arrives, I give her a brief update about the night and tell her I wasn’t able to tend to the coffee or sweep because of this guy following me around, and then, I head for the door. 

Almost immediately, he breaks away from his group and makes a beeline for the door, starting to walk out the same time I do. I turn around and go back to the office, telling my coworker that now he’s following me outside and I don’t feel comfortable about him and I’m worried that he’ll find out I work a second job. She goes out and distracts him whilst I escape out the side entrance and run down the block, entering my other job from the back entrance for good measure. 

After my shift, I saw a text from my manager, stating that a guy claimed to know me and wanted to know my name and when I would be back at work. My morning coworker had thankfully alerted the other employees and the manager about a creepy guest following me around, so the manager told him nothing about me. The manager left a note for all employees to never give out information about any fellow employee. 

I haven’t seen him since, but his fiancée left us a lovely review.

My parked car is hit hard enough that it has to be towed to a body shop for an insurance estimate; the body shop calls me a few days later.

Manager: “Well, sir, I haven’t even finished with the estimate, but we’re already at over $16,000 in damages. The back end is totally destroyed, your front axle is broken, the transmission is damaged, the— Wait a minute, I just have to ask: are you okay?”

Me: *Laughing* “Oh, yeah. Here’s the deal: do you know Kansas City very well?”

Manager: “Sort of; I live in [Suburb on the southern side] but I’ve managed this shop for about twenty years up here.”

Me: “Okay, so, you know how the neighborhood streets are twenty mph and most people park on the street? I was parked out front of my house, and this lady hit me either fast enough, strong enough, or for enough time to force my car off of the street and into a tree. In the neighbor’s yard. Two houses down.”

Manager: *Now laughing as well* “Wow! I’d actually started my report by wondering how you could damage all those different parts of the vehicle that badly and still walk away from the accident! Pardon my French, but in my professional opinion, that lady f***ed up royally!”