(My husband and I have a ten-year-old son and a six-year-old daughter. Our daughter is at the age where she is borderline-obsessed with Barbies, and our son loves to tease her. I come home one Saturday afternoon to find my husband fuming and see that our daughter has been crying. My husband announces that our son will be in his room for the rest of the day, and possibly “the rest of his life.” Confused, I ask what happened.)

Husband: “Last night when we were in bed, [Son] sneaked downstairs and watched Seven.”

Me: “It’s inappropriate for his age, but I’d cut him some slack. A lot of kids do that. I did it. You probably did it.”

Husband: “Oh, no, it gets worse. This morning he went into [Daughter]’s room while she was playing and gave her a box and told her it was for Ken.”

Me: “Oh, my God, don’t tell me…”

Husband: “She thought he was playing and had ‘Ken’ open up the box…”

Me: “It was, of course…”

Husband: “Barbie’s head.”

Me: “Well, that’s not right at all!” *pause* “Ken’s not supposed to look inside the box. He should have had another doll open it. I’ll have a talk with him about respecting the classics.”

(My daughter and my husband both gave me the stink-eye for the rest of the day. I guess I deserved it, but I still think it was hilarious. I’m a rotten parent.)

(My friends and I are driving back from a trip. It is getting late, and I don’t slow down as much as I should going through a little “blink and you’ll miss it” village. The town cop pulls me over — wearing jeans and a polo shirt with his badge embroidered on — and I compliantly hand over my license and paperwork. Less than a minute later, he walks back to the car and hands my stuff back.)

Cop: “I’m letting you off with a warning. I didn’t feel like trying to write your name on a speeding ticket.”

(My full name as printed runs 26 characters, including two first names, a middle initial, and the last name.)

(My father and cat both like to sit in the same spot on our couch. One day, I come downstairs to get a glass of water and see my father moving the cat.)

Dad: “Come on, [Cat].”

(He nudges the cat who stands up but doesn’t move. It takes another solid minute to get the cat all the way out of the spot so my dad can sit. Thirty minutes later, I’ve come downstairs again to put my glass away and see the cat in the spot and my father on the loveseat.)

Me: “Hey, Dad…”

Dad: “I got up to get a new book, he jumped back into the spot, and it didn’t seem worth it to move him.”

Me: “So, not only did you and the cat get into a fight over the spot, but the cat won?”

I am working a short shift. This woman and her daughter come through the drive-thru and order a triple brownie sundae and five drinks. The brownie doesn’t take long to make, but the drinks take a while. We only have two blenders so we have to do three sets of drinks. We give her the brownie while she waits for the drinks.

Minutes later, I open the window to give her the carriers that her drinks are on, and she throws the plastic dish her brownie came in at me and says that we forgot the whipped cream — we didn’t — and that we are to remake it. All the while, her daughter is shoving her stupid iPhone in my face with a picture of the brownie on it, saying, “My momma right, b****”.

Obviously, I am done with these people, so I turn to go get the manager, but she has been standing behind me the whole time. She tells me that she will take care of the rest. She opens the window and says, “I made your brownie, and there was whipped cream on it. Want to argue? Call a lawyer.”

She proceeds to put each individual drink on the roof of this woman’s minivan and shuts the window. The woman repeatedly beats the window to get our attention, but the store owner then gets on the intercom system and says that this woman is on video, and that she is banned and barred from the establishment.

Still one of my all-time favorite managers.

Right now, the state of Nebraska and many other parts of the Midwest are being hammered by flooding. The town I live in is mid-sized — about 20,000 people — and currently inaccessible except for by air. We have been lucky that the airport was not flooded and at least a dozen pilots from both the city and surrounding cities like Lincoln and Omaha are donating their time and fuel to fly people both into and out of Fremont to reunite families and bring in supplies. Regular access is still several days away due to bridges not just being flooded but gone altogether in several areas, so this is very much appreciated.

I ran into a woman at a store whose mother wanted to spend $1000 to help, but didn’t know what to buy. She told her mother that people were donating things for the people but the displaced dogs and cats would need supplies. She was buying dog and cat food and tons of different toys to help relieve the stress of these animals.

Thank you for all the help and support that everyone is showing the area.