When my kids were pretty young — the oldest was four, the middle three, and the youngest six months — I transferred jobs, and my husband and I purchased a used twenty-four-foot travel trailer to live in until we could financially afford to get into an apartment or house in the town near my work.

It was about a week before December, we had been living in the trailer since the beginning of October, and we had already found an apartment to move to but were waiting for December 1st to move in.

My sister (who I always thought had similar views on children and what they should and shouldn’t watch as I did) had allowed my kids to watch the movie “Tremors” while they were at her house, and my kids loved the movie. It made them afraid to go to sleep at night, but that is a different issue we had to work through.

On this particular day, the children couldn’t really play outside much since it was snowing for the first time that season and it had been very cold recently. To entertain themselves, my two oldest children were playing inside on the bed. Their favorite game at the time was one they called “dirt monsters”, which was their phrase for the creatures from the “Tremors” movies. The game consisted of one of the kids being on the bed and the other falling off it and clinging to the side calling the other for help to save them from the dirt monster. The child on the bed would then pull them to safety. Sometimes imaginary guns were involved to shoot the dirt monsters.

After they had played this for quite a while, we ate dinner and then got them ready for bed. We used to sing songs with the kids at bedtime. One song the kids always loved was “Jingle Bells”, but for my sanity, my rule was that we would only sing “Jingle Bells” when there was snow on the ground; otherwise, we would be singing it in the summertime, and that was always kind of weird. So, since there was snow that particular day, we sang a very, very rousing rendition of “Jingle Bells”, practically shouting the last part.

As we sang the very last bit there was a knock on our door. I thought perhaps we were bothering the neighbors with our singing and someone was there to complain. But it was much different. When we opened the door, there were two police officers standing outside. I then thought that we must have really annoyed our neighbors for them to call the police on us with a noise complaint, even though it wasn’t that late — only about 8:00 pm.

The officer was very polite but what he said kind of shocked us. Our neighbors in the RV park had called them, yes, not to report noise, but to report possible child endangerment.

One of our neighbors — we never knew who — heard our children playing dirt monsters and calling for help so they called and informed the police that they heard a child calling for help and that they sounded distressed.

We explained the kids’ game to the officers. I can’t remember all the questions they asked as this was about seventeen years ago now, but I remember that we explained to them that our living situation was temporary and that we were moving in around a week. The kids, who were thrilled that uniformed police officers were there, were crowded around them asking them questions and very much not looking like abused children. The officers then said that they didn’t see any problems and eventually left.

I don’t blame the neighbors that called, especially if they really thought that one of our kids was in danger, but I was confused about how they could hear the kids’ cries for help but not hear their laughter or excited squeals when they were playing. Mainly, I was just so embarrassed because we had five people at the time living in a twenty-four-foot trailer, so it was crowded, cluttered, and chaotic, not to mention that we had just eaten dinner so there were dishes still on the counter. Also, I knew the town newspaper had a police blotter section where they listed all the police calls of the week. It was a small town, and I wasn’t quite sure how extensively they reported the calls and whether our names would be mentioned. (They weren’t.)

It definitely made for a story we had to tell for years about when we got the police called on us. Thankfully, they didn’t decide we were unfit due to the clutter and mess.

I work in a music store. A customer comes in with some questions.

Customer: “My kid’s gonna be in band this year. Which instruments are in the band?”

Me: “Well, there’s flute, oboe, clarinet, saxophone—”

Customer: “Saxophone? Isn’t that a computer program?”

Me: “…no. It’s a woodwind instrument.”

Customer: *Laughs* “I always thought it was computerized. You mean Kenny G was actually blowing into something?”

Me: “…yes.”

I work at a record store. (Yes, they still exist.) A customer comes in, and I can only describe her as a stereotypical Sunday church Black woman. 

Customer: “I’m looking for that song — it goes like, ‘Jeeeeeeesus, Jeeeeeesus!'”

She sings with no specific melody or any other lyrics. 

Me: “That could be a lot of different gospel songs, ma’am.”

Customer: “Yeah, but it goes like, ‘Jeeeeeeesus, Jeeeeeesus!'”

Me: “I’m afraid I can’t find the song based on that… snippet, ma’am.”

Customer: “Big store like this?! Lord knows you should have it!”

Me: “Maybe you could try asking Him?”

I thought I would get into trouble, but she actually nodded and started walking around the gospel section saying, “Jeeeeeesus, Jeeeeeesus,” like a game of hide-and-seek.

I was a customer some twenty years ago hanging out in the electronic music section of my local music store when another customer approached me.

Customer: “Hey, I am looking for a particular song. Can you help me?”

Me: “Uh, yeah, sure?”

Customer: “It goes kind of like this: ‘dee doo dee doo dee doo’. And there is this baseline that goes ‘boom, chuck, boom, chuck’ and some vocals that sound like ‘lekketekke vaseline’. Do you know what I mean?”

I did… not.

Customer: “I want to return this CD.”

She hands me a Carrie Underwood album.

Me: “What’s wrong with it?”

Customer: “One of the songs doesn’t make sense.”

Me: “Does the CD have trouble playing when it gets to that track?”

Customer: “No, it’s just the lyrics. I don’t get them.”

Me: “Have you tried looking up the meaning online?”

Customer: “I shouldn’t have to do that! Do you have a version of the song that makes sense?”

Me: “We do not.”

Customer: “Well, can you order it?”

Me: “We cannot.”

Customer: “Ugh. I knew I shouldn’t have voted for her on American Idol!”