My sister and I are watching some classic “Doctor Who.” In the scene we’re watching, the Doctor refers to another character as “Brigadier.”

Sister: “Brigadier! That’s such an awesome name! I’d like my name to be Brigadier!”

Me: “[Sister]… it’s a military rank.”

In the early aughts, I worked at directory enquiries for the entire country. There were several offices taking calls in several different cities. However, during the night, there were only two offices open to take calls, and on weekday nights, we were maybe ten people in total to service all the callers. For people who knew the system, it was pretty easy to keep calling until you reached the operator you wanted to talk to.

The movie “The Grudge” had just premiered in the theatre. I watched it with a friend and was scared senseless by it. On the way home, he kept joking about how scary it would be to hear the ghost noise out of nowhere. I agreed and didn’t think more about it. 

A few days later, it was my turn to work a night shift, and just after midnight, I got this call.

Me: “Welcome to Directory Enquiries. How can I help you?”

There was silence on the other end.

Me: “Hello? You’ve reached Directory Enquiries. I’m [My Name]. How can I help you?”

Caller: “Aaaaarrrrrrggggghhhhhh….”

Me: “God d*** it, [Friend]!”

In college, a friend asks me to be a part of his film project. In the project, we follow a woman (me) and her husband as he goes down the path of addiction and back through recovery. We set up in an alley and start filming my husband drinking from a bottle in a paper bag. 

Me: “I thought I’d find you here.”

Husband: “F*** off.”

Me: “Why don’t you go get help?”

A woman walking by sees us and comes over.

Woman: “Hey! Leave him alone!”

Me: “What? Oh, no, no—”

Woman: “I said leave him alone! I’ll smack the stupid right outta you!”

Husband: “Ma’am, it’s fine. We—”

Woman: “You do not have to put up with these… fake-do-good b****es.”

Our friend, who has been standing nearby filming, finally steps in.

Friend: “Ma’am, please listen, he’s not—”

Woman: “He’s clearly a man in distress and you’re filming him!”

Friend: “No, he’s fine. He—”

Woman: “He ain’t fine!” *To my homeless “husband”* “Come on, sweetie. Let’s get you something to eat.”

Husband: “Um… this is a class project.”

The woman stands there, silent, looking at all of us. 

Woman: “A class project for what?”

Friend: “For [College]. I’m a film major.”

The woman seems at a loss, but then she rallies.

Woman: “Well… You can’t just go up to homeless people and put them in your—”

Husband: “I’m acting!”

Woman: “Oh. Well… you… are doing a fine job. Just don’t be out here long. Other folks won’t be so nice about you bothering the homeless.”

Friend: “Right. Thanks.”

We finished within an hour, and while other people did stop and ask what we were doing, nobody else was quite like that woman.

In university, my minor is in Translation. At the start of the first seminar of one of the courses, the teacher has us fill out a questionnaire. Some of the questions are straightforward and their purpose is clear, like, “Why are you interested in translation?” or, “What are your source and target languages?” (These are, respectively, the language you’ll be translating from and the one you’ll be translating into — in my case, English and Dutch.)

Other questions are less straightforward, like, “What is your favorite word in your source language?” (For the record, it’s “defenestrate”.) And then there’s this question:

Question: “Which words from your source language do you think native speakers would find hard to spell?”

Um… what? How am I supposed to know what words native English speakers find hard to spell, not being a native speaker of English myself? I ponder this question a bit, and all I can come up with is “knowledge” because it is spelled differently from its pronunciation, but again, I don’t know! The questionnaire is asking for multiple words, though, so I continue thinking, but I’m stuck.

All that’s going through my mind is the commercial I saw right before I went to class, for “Mary Poppins,” the musical. I start tapping along to “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious,” trying to think of difficult English words. And then it hits me. THAT is a word that would be difficult to spell! Feeling a little mischievous, thoroughly done with this weird question, and also wondering what my teacher will make of it, I write Mary Poppins’ magical word down and hand in my questionnaire.

At the next seminar, the teacher returns our questionnaires with feedback. Next to my musically inspired answer is a question mark.

Teacher: “If you have any questions about my feedback, please ask them now.”

Me: “I have one, ma’am. What does this question mark next to question fourteen mean?”

Teacher: “Oh, yes, that. You know, you weren’t supposed to make up words for that question, [My Name].”

I’m puzzled that the teacher, who has kids, is apparently unfamiliar with this movie.

Me: “I didn’t? It’s from Mary Poppins.”

Before the teacher can respond, one of my classmates groans.

Classmate #1: “Did you seriously write down ‘Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious’?”

Me: “Yep!”

Now the teacher is the puzzled one.

Teacher: “This is really a word?”

Classmate #2: “It’s a song, ma’am.” *Starts singing* “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious…”

I and several other classmates fall in and sing the chorus and others start laughing and clapping along, until most of the class ends up singing,

Class: “Supercalifragilisticexpialidocious!”

We’re all laughing, while the teacher is looking at us like we’ve all turned purple.

Teacher: *Bewildered* “Okay, I guess it’s a word. You can ignore that question mark, [My Name].”

It’s the first day of classes, so we’re going over the syllabus.

Professor: “Now, here are my rules on using technology in class. I don’t mind y’all taking notes or whatever digitally as long as that’s actually what you’re doing and you aren’t being a distraction. A couple of years back, I caught one guy on his phone during an exam. The weird part was that he wasn’t even cheating. He was watching Family Guy! Good lord, can you imagine watching a TV show on your phone during an exam?! Or sitting next to someone that is?! Don’t be that guy, please.”