This happened in the post-war years after the second World War when food was still rationed. Especially in the border regions, there was a lot of smuggling going on and police and customs were on the lookout. A common practice was to make people suspected of smuggling butter comfortable next to the stove… until the butter melted.

My grandparents took a trip to visit old friends when the bus was boarded by officials on the search of contraband. There was a heavy-set farmer’s wife on the bus and she was asked — rather rudely — what she was sitting on.

Defiantly, and in the local slang, she pointedly replied, “My two hams.” The bus erupted in laughter, and police and customs exited the bus without much further poking around. When they left, she sighed, said, “Finally,” and retrieved… two hams from under her buttocks.

More laughter ensued.

I am babysitting my two-year-old niece one morning while her parents are at work. While we’re sitting there, watching cartoons, my phone rings with a number I don’t recognize, but it says it’s local. I rarely answer the phone for numbers I don’t recognize, but as I’ve been putting out a lot of job applications lately, I decide to risk it.

I answer and am greeted with a robot saying that I’m being contacted about my tremendous credit card debt, and how legal action is being prepared against me. They ask if I would like to talk to a collections officer about it. I select to talk to a real person and get a man on the line.

I proceed to ask him to remove my number from his list, because I don’t have a credit card, and I have never had a credit card.

He responds with “Hey, how about you come down here, and I’ll give you $20 to suck my d**k?”

I freeze up in a case of “Is this really happening?” and stare at my phone. After a moment, I finally manage to come up with a response of “Only if you suck mine first, sweetie.”

Never had someone hang up so fast in my life. I went back to watching Peppa Pig with my niece.

I was a pre-teen when I was sent to the local hospital with what started as pneumonia, but we quickly discovered I had a host of heart problems. My doctors were debating putting me on the transplant list, or waiting until I could do open heart surgery. I spent about two months in the hospital the first time.

Many of my family and friends were incredibly supportive. They sent get-well cards, comic books, food, and gift cards for the family, and some even came across the country to help with the house. But one cousin, in her 30s, was a bit clueless on the wonderful world of cardiac diseases.

A month into my stay, I received a gift basket from my cousin and her husband. In it, there were Pringles, pretzels, chips, pop, and a note asking us to visit her if we were ever in her state. We don’t know if it was a clerical error or her thinking a preteen loves these foods — which I did, when they didn’t almost kill me.

We laugh about it now, and whenever someone is sick in the family, I always think of the “deliberate cardiac arrest” gift basket.

My dad owns two properties right next door to each other: one which we live in, and one which he rents out to my great uncle, who is deaf and communicates via sign language. For the sake of simplicity, they’ll be referred to as 121 and 127, respectively. 121 has a long, winding driveway while 127 has a straight driveway. The driveway on 127 is located just enough between the two houses that it could be interpreted as a shared driveway. This is compounded by the fact that, for some reason, the mailboxes for 121 and 127 are both located on 127’s driveway. This has resulted in many deliveries intended for 121 instead being delivered to 127. It’s not much of an issue until the delivery day of a particularly important package.

The driver delivering this package is by far the biggest offender in mixing up addresses. Today is no exception; he attempts to deliver the package to 127 instead of 121 while I’m at work. I return home to find no package. Upon checking the tracking, I notice that the package’s status is listed as “could not be delivered.” I ask my sister if anyone came, but she tells me that nobody did, so I go over to my great uncle. He tells me that someone tried to deliver the package to 127. He tried to tell them that it had to go to 121, but apparently, the driver did not understand sign language, so he put the package back in the van and left.

Annoyed, I call the company and explain the situation to the rep on the other end. They tell me that the driver claimed the package was refused and that it was actually getting ready to go back! I tell them to try delivering it again and they agree. I go into painstaking detail about which house it needs to be delivered to, and that the driveway for 121 is winding, not straight. The representative tells me that they will inform the driver about the details.

I have the following day off, so I stay home to make sure it will be delivered to the correct house. I also ask my great uncle to accept my package and hold it for me in case the company tries to deliver it to him again. Incredibly, even with the specific instructions, they once again attempt to deliver it to 127! After collecting the package from my great uncle, I call the delivery company again and file a complaint against the driver. They tell me that they will put notes for all future deliveries to 121 that the driveway is not shared.

Unfortunately, that specific driver wasn’t fired, and he still insists on delivering packages addressed as 121 to 127 to this very day. I’ve tried everything: having notes added to packages, putting very clear numbers on each house’s respective driveways, and even getting permission from the post office to put 121’s mailbox on 121’s driveway. None of it has gotten through to that specific driver. At this point, it’s honestly a miracle that he’s still working for the delivery company.

I work for a hotel in Las Vegas. While working security one night, I am sent up to a guest’s room who is having an allergic reaction. I arrive and the man is in a pretty bad way. He has his shirt off, his chest is covered with hives, and his throat is closing so fast he can’t speak and soon may not even be able to breathe.

I call for the paramedics and they arrive fairly quickly. They give the man a shot, and his allergy symptoms quickly begin to get better. When he can finally speak, one paramedic asks if the man is allergic to any kind of food. The man admits he’s severely allergic to shellfish. The paramedic then asks if the man has eaten any shellfish lately. The man then says, “I just came back from a seafood buffet and ate a lot of it because it doesn’t count when you’re in Vegas.”

So many people see the city slogan, “What happens in Vegas stays in Vegas,” and think Las Vegas is some kind of negative zone where anything you do doesn’t affect real life.