I’m about 12, on a field trip with my summer camp to an amusement park a few hours away from home. Like many kids in the early 2000s, I have a backpack monogrammed with my first name on it, which I am currently using to haul my lunch and swim gear. My first name is not unusual, but fairly uncommon in my area.

While waiting in line for a ride with my group, I hear someone shout my name. I don’t recognize the voice, but it’s instinctual to turn when you hear your name and mine is uncommon where I live, so I do. I don’t see anyone I know, so I assume the shout wasn’t meant for me and turn back around. I don’t leave the group, I don’t spend more than five seconds looking for the source, nor do I even respond verbally.

In a split second, a middle-aged, matronly figure full of self-righteous indignation comes barreling towards us. She begins to berate my camp counselors, lecturing them on how it’s unsafe for children to have their names on their backpacks, that they could easily be kidnapped because a stranger knows their name, and my turning around just proves her point. My counselors basically ignore her until she runs out of steam, at which she flounces back to whence she came. What she expected my 20-something camp counselors — all wearing bright yellow t-shirts with our camp logo on them and clearly herding a group of about 15 pre-teens — to do about a backpack my family had purchased for me in the middle of an amusement park is anyone’s guess. Or why she felt the need to prove her point with a 12-year-old who clearly knew not to walk off with strangers because they knew my first name. 

Almost 20 years later, I still have that backpack and use it regularly. Despite that women’s worst fears, I managed to avoid being kidnapped because of my backpack. And the number of people who even notice it has my name on it are far fewer than the people who don’t notice unless I point it out.

When I was six years old, I, like most six-year-olds, was in the process of losing my baby teeth. And like many families, my family was invested in the myth of the Tooth Fairy. And, also like many families, particularly ones with multiple children, the execution of the Tooth Fairy was… not always spot on. On one such occasion, I had lost a tooth but woke up disappointed to find that my tooth was still under my pillow and no change had been left behind. I wasn’t devastated, but you get your money where you can when you’re six and it never feels good to be left out of something all your friends talk about.

My parents clearly felt guilty, because they decided to rectify the situation. Instead of doing the usual Tooth Fairy routine that night, they decided to be a bit more creative. That afternoon, there was a knock at the door. I was told to go upstairs and play in my room, since the guest was probably a friend of my parents’ and they wanted to hang out alone. This was the usual routine, so I didn’t think anything of it. A few minutes later, I was called back downstairs. My parents explained that the guest was actually the Tooth Fairy, who felt awful about skipping our house the previous night. She just had so many houses to visit. She took the tooth from my parents and exchanged it for a pocket made of construction paper. It had my name on the outside and was filled with change. Luckily for my parents, I did not question the logic of why the Tooth Fairy would knock or why they were just carrying around my lost tooth on their persons. 

But what they didn’t know, or didn’t think of, was that in my first-grade class, we had a spelling test every Friday afternoon. If you did well on the test, you were rewarded with candy… which was handed to you in a construction paper pocket with your name written on the outside. I spent the rest of the year in that class 100% convinced my first-grade teacher moonlighted as the Tooth Fairy. And given that I wasn’t very fond of her to begin with, she suddenly went up a few notches in my esteem!

It’s Saturday and I’m headed to a one-time class in a city I rarely visit. I notice the on-street coin-operated parking meters have all been removed and instead there is a large computer kiosk halfway down the block with “METER” posted above it.

I park my car and head over to the kiosk to figure out how to pay, but there are lots of different options, including screens for if you have an app, if you’re a resident of the city, if you’re an on-the-clock public servant for the city, etc. The screen keeps timing out as I try to find the correct options. 

A woman walking down the street gets closer to me and I say good morning and ask if she knows how to work the machine.

She walks me through the process of selecting that I’m a visitor, paying by credit card, what my license plate number is, and that I’ll be paying for two hours of parking.

As the machine spits out my receipt, I thank the woman for helping and she starts to continue on her way. When she’s about half a street away from me she turns and calls out to me, “Hey!” I look up. “By the way, street parking is free on the weekends.” She then smiles broadly, turns on her heel, and continues on her way.

I work in a public library. A man approaches the counter to check out some movies. At the time, anyone who owes $5 or more is blocked from checking out, and this fellow owes $6. I inform him of this and tell him if he can bring his bill down to $4.99, he can check out. I’ve found this an effective way to get people to pay most or all of their fine, even our most stubborn “I shouldn’t have late fees at all” patrons.

The man is perfectly pleasant and agrees to pay. He then proceeds to not only pull the waistband of his shorts away from his body, but the waistband of his boxer shorts underneath, as well. He then rifles around in his underwear a bit and proceeds to give me six damp dollar bills.

I can’t refuse the money, so I reluctantly take it and check his items out to him. As soon as he’s gone, I get a can of disinfectant spray, hit “NO SALE” on the cash register, and take out his boxer-short money to spray down, informing a confused coworker what just happened. I also use a LOT of hand sanitizer and make sure the dollar bills are kept separate from the others.

Honestly, I’ll take boob money over ball-sack money any day! Unless she’s lactating, of course.

For various reasons, I prefer to park in the back of parking lots, even when it’s not very crowded. One day, after leaving the grocery store, I got into my car, turned on the AC, and took a moment to check my phone. A minute later, I heard honking and looked up to see a pissed-off woman gesticulating at me and mouthing, “MOVE!”

So, I shrugged, put the phone down, pulled out, and drove off past dozens of empty spots closer to the store while the lady took my old spot. Some people aren’t happy unless they’re unhappy, I guess.