I have biked over to the next town, some twenty miles, so when I arrive, I am quite tired and hungry. I go to a small hot dog stand while pondering if I should get a hot dog in a bun or a hot dog with mashed potatoes, which basically is what is offered.
The guy looks at me strangely as I order and scratches his head a little about payment.
When I get it, I say, “I did order this, didn’t I?” while looking at my bun with mashed potatoes.
My cousin learned to speak French at an early age and developed a great interest in French culture. In her mid-twenties, she moved to France, fell in love with a French man, and married him.
A couple of years later, the two of them came back to Canada to visit, and a few of us went to the pub. My cousin perked up visibly as soon as the first pint of beer arrived in front of her, and she was obviously distracted from the conversation by the hockey game on the TV in the corner. Her husband, meanwhile, began to wilt more and more until he was almost pouting. When my cousin looked around and noticed this, she leaned over and the two of them had a brief conversation in French. After this, he didn’t look happy exactly but more resigned than miserable.
Later, I asked her, “Hey, what was all of that about?”
She shrugged. “Oh, you know, when you’re married to an immigrant, you’re always worried that they miss their home country and they’ll never feel like their adopted culture is really home,” she explained. “When he saw me having fun at the pub in that really Canadian way, it sort of poked him in the insecurity, that’s all.”
“Okay, but what did you say to him?”
“Oh, something like, ‘My darling, I love you, and I love France. I wouldn’t be there with you if I didn’t. But no matter how true that is, I was still born in Canada, and the day that I don’t also love hockey and beer is the day you can put me in the ground.'”
This story has been included in our June 2020 roundup as one of that month’s most memorable stories!
While in college, I work from 5:00 pm to 1:00 am at a 24/7 gas station by myself. The person that works the shift following mine is supposed to come in at 12:30 am to take over the register while I count out my drawer and complete shift paperwork before clocking out.
Unfortunately, the person that most frequently works that shift tends to be fifteen to forty-five minutes late. This isn’t a major issue because, on average, it only takes me ten to fifteen minutes to complete my drawer count and paperwork, and if there aren’t any customers around, I can pull my drawer while I wait for my coworker to get in.
One night, she calls me around 12:30 to let me know she is running late. She either overslept or had to mediate some argument between her daughter and husband; these were the usual excuses and I can’t remember which happened this time. At this point, she has to shower and get dressed before leaving her house and ends up not getting in until almost 3:00 am. This is annoying, of course, as I have homework to do and classes to get up for the next day. It also ends up causing panic for my roommate.
The store I work for has a strict no-cell-phones policy; if the cameras catch me with my phone I will be fired on the spot. I can use the store phone, but I don’t have my roommate’s number memorized so I have no way of notifying him that I am running late. I assume he’ll either be asleep or realize it is a case of my usual coworker issues. I am wrong.
Not long before my coworker finally arrives, my roommate realizes I am unusually late and attempts to call my cell phone several times. When I don’t answer, instead of looking up my store number, he looks up the number for the police department in town and calls there to have someone check on me. In his worry, that makes sense, but it causes an escalation of events.
I have established a friendship with several of the officers in town that work the night shift. As I am a young woman working alone at night, they make an effort to check on me at least once per night, more often if they have time, sometimes opting to take their breaks at my store to keep an eye on things.
This relationship, combined with the fact that my roommate didn’t think to mention he’d only called my cell phone and the officer that responded assuming the store was called, results in an officer I know well speeding into the parking lot with lights flashing just after 3:00 am. He parks in front of the door, runs into the store, not even closing his car door behind him, sees me safe behind the counter, and starts shouting at me, “Answer your g**d*** phone! Your roommate is worried! I have four squad cars on the way; what the h*** are you doing here?!”
He promptly runs to his car to call off his backup while my recently arrived coworker and I share confused looks.
It is nice to know people are looking out for me, but it certainly makes for a startling end to my very long shift. Moving forward, I have made sure to have my roommate’s number readily available and I have given him my store number for emergencies.
During my senior year of high school, my school managed to raise money to visit an amusement park. After being pursued by dinosaurs through a particular ride, I escaped alive and decided to go get lunch.
It was a hot day — 80F, 27C — and everyone was packed inside. The balcony was largely unoccupied, as it was outside in the sun. Luckily, I managed to find a table with some shade. I sat down to eat with my tray, and a short time later, a strange older man sat down across the picnic-style table across from me.
“Um, excuse me,” I asked him. “Could you please sit somewhere else?”
He didn’t answer; he just stared at me with a creepy smile and said something in a language I didn’t understand.
“Sir, I don’t know you,” I said firmly, “and I don’t feel comfortable with sharing my table with you.”
Instead of answering, he picked up a single french fry with ketchup on it, stuck it halfway into his mouth, and started sucking the ketchup off in a disgustingly suggestive manner, never breaking eye contact.
I no longer felt obligated to be nice, so I grabbed my tray, called him a filthy creep, and stormed inside, trying to find a security officer. He followed me inside, came up behind me, put his hands on my shoulders, and said something else in his language.
I slapped his hands off of me, but before I could spew a stream of profanity at him, a woman rushed over and started berating the man in their language before dragging him away.
As he was walking away, he said, in perfect English, “But American women are supposed to be easy!” which got him a burst of rapid-fire scolding in his language.
I gave a full-body shudder and finally found a security officer to complain to. Unfortunately, by then, the man was gone and I couldn’t point him out. They promised to check the security video, look for him, and remove him from the park, before wishing me a better rest of the day.
Maybe I should have stayed and pushed harder or pressed charges or something, but in the end, I just ended up finishing my lunch and enjoying the rest of my trip. I never did see him again.
I can only wonder why he thought he could pick up… that kind of woman… in a family-friendly park.
My brother used to have an excruciatingly awful PE teacher. She was absurdly strict and demanding, hated boys, often humiliated students for bad performances, and enjoyed hunting in her free time.
Then, my parents got a puppy. It was not their first one, but this one was special. Imagine a hyperactive, overly curious, excitable, enthusiastically friendly, and loving little furball Hell-bent on becoming his new pack’s alpha. He was the sweetest little doggo you could ever meet but incredibly difficult to train. He tried to be a good boy so hard, he really did, but he couldn’t sit still if his life depended on it.
My parents took him to an obedience school. The trainer there lasted three lessons and then told them to try somewhere else because he couldn’t handle him. The next one threw in the towel after two lessons. The third school was specialized in training gun dogs, but at this point, my parents didn’t really care as long as someone could make the little guy sit.
When my father and Good Boy arrived at the school, guess who greeted them? My brother’s PE teacher! She was a friend of the trainer and learned to train gun dogs in her free time; she had owned dogs all her life, in fact. Seeing how my dad struggled with his dog, she assumed he just didn’t know what he was doing.
“Give him to me,” she said. “I’ll show you how it’s done.” Seeing how she was strict but friendly toward the other dogs, my dad handed over our puppy.
Long story short: the puppy won. By the end of the lesson, he was jumping in circles around his new best friend, madly wagging his tail, and the PE teacher was nearly crying. She apologized to my dad. They started talking and he revealed that my brother was in one of her classes; she was mysteriously friendly for him for the rest of his time with her.
The puppy eventually became a fantastic gun dog. He did calm down a bit when he got older, but even when he was ten years old and started getting grey, people would still ask if he was a puppy — “He’s so energetic!” He died of renal failure last year. We decided not to get another dog since none of us can imagine that any other could live up to him.
This story has been included in our June 2020 roundup as one of that month’s most memorable stories!
