I was a senior in high school in 1999. My school failed to close in time after a freezing rain started. They first thought they’d just send us all home at 1:00 pm. Half an hour later, they changed it to 11:00 am. Fifteen minutes later, it was, “It’s 10:00 am. Get the kids out now!“

The ice was already an inch thick outside. Those who made it to private vehicles got home. Those who chose to get on the buses got to stay put for five hours!

Parents threatened to sue, and the school now closes at the first sign of bad weather. We used to make fun of another school district for doing the same. Of course, they’d gotten snowed in for three days back in the 1980s. The teasing stopped after the ice storm.

A few months later, the ice dam that had formed upriver finally thawed and broke, flooding downtown. Cue three more weeks of no school. (The high school was a town shelter.)

We had been set to graduate in early June. We ended up graduating on the twenty-first. That was the seventh year in a row that, despite all best-laid plans, school ended on the twenty-first. (My birthday is one week later; I never did get to celebrate it in school.)

I work on a cruise ship. Our pay is put onto prepaid debit cards specifically designed for seafaring crews. Right after the global health crisis, I tried ordering a laptop from eBay using my work card, but the card was declined. I tried making the same order on the computer company’s website, but I got the same result.

When I contacted the company that runs the card, they claimed that sites like eBay, [Computer Company], etc., are “shady” and “fraudulent” sites. They also claimed that for [Major Lingerie/Underwear Brand], so my colleague couldn’t order anything from them, either.

If there was any other way for me to get my pay, I’d drop them in a heartbeat.

Our elementary campus had, for the most part, a majority of middle- to upper-middle-class homeowners, with some children from lower socioeconomic groups. (Schools are zoned this way on purpose.)

I had a student whose father identified as White Rapper with his failing musician business (mom’s educational job, ironically, paid the bills). They were homeowners in the subdivision but limped along. Their child was absent for a week before a long break. Her parents had emailed me asking for extra materials for [Child] to bring up her grade in one subject. I sent home a packet of materials, etc. 

[Child] returned to school wearing a Disney jacket and boldly displaying her Disney swag art materials on her desk. Other students told me that she had bragged about going to Disney before she left. 

Guess who ended up in truancy court? And then tried to throw me under the bus saying I knew they were going and so had condoned the absences? I won because I am meticulous about documentation. 

I know some people feel strongly about “making memories”, etc., and saving money. Just don’t expect me to make up a week of in-person instruction or get your child to finish all of their graded assignments on time when they return. Some children can handle it, but very few. 

Another family also chose to take a week at a resort, but the child made up the work easily and without their parents throwing me under the bus. Apparently, they and [Child] said to each other, “Hey, saw you in truancy court.” 

The family paid in truancy fines whatever they saved on the trip.

I recently read this story about a thief. Back in the olden days, thieves were less sophisticated but still successful.

I knew of a guy who would go to home improvement stores and pick a large, inexpensive item that came in a box and put it in his cart. He would ditch that item, keeping the box, and then get busy filling that box with power tools and expensive merchandise. He even carried a roll of clear packing tape to seal it back up.

He’d just roll his cart to the checkout with the barcode facing up, and he knew which cashiers were lazy and would just scan it without checking. He could easily get over a thousand dollars of product for thirty or forty bucks.

Related:
He Was Clearly Hoping No One Could Put A Finger On The Problem

My time in Tokyo had come to an end. My buddy was helping me bring my luggage to the airport, going through various train stations along the way. At one point, we were near the top floor of a station and needed to get to the ground level, so we headed to the elevator.

The elevator had just let a group of people off and we could clearly see the interior. It had an extra set of buttons in the back corner and was otherwise empty save for an old lady on the opposite side. As she saw us approaching this woman promptly lunged toward the buttons in the back and mashed the “door close” button.

She was long gone from our sight after we had to wait for the elevator to make an extra round. I feel like I should’ve been offended by her action, but honestly, seeing how rapidly she moved to close the door on us was a sight to behold.