My son, husband, and I are traveling home after visiting family. Thanks to a delay in our first flight we have 15 minutes to get from one part of the airport to another, which means that we have to run with the hopes of catching it. This also means that my husband has one of my son’s hands, and I have the other. Keep in mind that my son is only four years old.
We are running along when we both notice the four-year-old is suddenly not moving as fast and is yelling about his pants. Turning to look, we both burst out laughing as we realize his pants have managed to fall down to his ankles. The poor little guy is waddling in an attempt to keep up with us even though his pants have fallen down.
Everybody around us just burst out laughing and now I have yet another story I can embarrass him with when he is older. Thankfully it didn’t happen again. We did miss our flight and had to wait another hour and a half in order to catch our next one. The lesson is to make sure the child has better fitting pants next time we have to make a mad dash through the airport.
This story is part of the Sons And Daughters roundup!
I work at a big chain store and we have been having problems with 24-hour challenges (where people stay inside a store for a whole 24 hours and post about it on YouTube), but my manager refuses to do anything about it since us staying later would result in overtime and he’s cheap. I have suggested scheduling us later and on my own time I check bathrooms and janitor closets before closing but when I’m not there the manager just wants us to get out quickly. I am on break one shift when my little sister bursts into the room, holding her smartphone.
I look and it’s some teenager, between 16-17, staying 24 hours in OUR LOCATION not once but twice! I make my sister show it to our boss who claims it isn’t our location. I can tell because they filmed in the parking lot in the beginning and I can see the surrounding stores. The boss then starts being really picky with me during my shifts to the point where I almost want to quit.
My manager just got promoted. He is terrified of getting fired so he wants the supervisors to think everything is OK.
I decide to take this to my supervisor. When I show the supervisor the video and point out the obvious clues that it was from our store he goes to the security footages which prove that indeed it was our store and the MANAGER was on duty then. Even better, in places with audio, we can hear the manager telling staff to not bother with bathroom checks because he needs to get home quickly.
My manager was called in for an inquiry and was put on probation AND the supervisor helped make the schedule so that for the next few months I wasn’t working when the manager was.
Even better, someone snuck in again and the manager was fired! HA!
This happens when I am 18. I work the night shift at an airport. I am one of the people who gets off at 2:30 am and often walks out to my car on my own, despite my shift manager asking one of the guys to walk me out. He hates the younger female employees walking by themselves at night. I often listen to music on my way out.
I am heading to my car one night and am waved at by an older male employee cleaning the floors. I politely wave back, but see his mouth moving. I took out an earbud and say, “Sorry, I didn’t catch that?”
He repeats himself. He is asking me if I have just started, says he has never seen me around, etc.
I politely make small talk, though my gut is screaming at me to get out of there. It is late at night, no one else is around, and I am only 18 and being suckered into a rather awkward conversation by someone old enough to be my dad.
The conversation turns personal. He starts asking if I have a boyfriend. I immediately shake my head no. He asks what kind of men I like. I say, “Actually, I– um, I’m not looking for a relationship.”
He looks disappointed but asks if I want to be friends with him. As I try to answer, he steps closer to me and says, “You know, I would really like to be your friend.”
I quickly stutter out an “um, I guess?” and make up an excuse as to why I have to high-tail it out of there.
As I walk away, I spare a glance over my shoulder. He is staring at me as I leave.
The second I knew he couldn’t see me, I sprinted to my car. I didn’t see him around work after that incident, but I can’t say I was too upset to have never seen him again!
My mom had a black lab as a kid in the 1980s. This being the 1980s, people don’t know what we know now about pet care, so it is perfectly acceptable to leave a dog chained up in the yard unsupervised for long periods of time. My mom’s parents are no exception in spite of the dog being a master escape artist, and they find a moderately sized, sturdy tree to tie the dog to every afternoon that seems to keep the dog from escaping.
My mom’s neighbor is also no exception, with their purebred golden retriever. Since the neighbors like to participate in dog shows, they aren’t allowed to get the dog fixed and so have to contend with heat (which is essentially dog mating periods and very messy, painful, and loud). Not wanting a big mess in the house, they just chain the dog up outside until heat ends.
This catches the attention of pretty much every male dog in the neighborhood, but due to being kept chained up, they aren’t able to act on desire. That is, until my mom’s lab figures out how to use the friction from moving the chain up and down to saw down the tree and escape. He comes back home after a few hours.
And that’s the story of how the purebred show golden retriever gave birth to a litter of black puppies. The neighbors refuse to speak with my mom’s family after that, but apparently take a lesson and keep the dog indoors when she is in heat. So do my grandparents, who chain the dog to an anchor fit for a barge.
That’s not the end of it. A few months after the incident, my grandmother wakes up to find the outside door open and screen door torn to pieces. She initially assumes a robbery occurred and calls my grandfather in a panic. Upon realizing that nothing has been stolen, they figure out that the lab escaped. So, my grandfather goes out to search for the dog.
He eventually found the lab outside the neighbor’s house. It turns out the neighbor’s golden was once again in heat, and gave doggy encouragement throughout as the lab tried to claw through the wall shingle by shingle, in a manner that was slow but effective without injuring him or even damaging the shingles that much. Horrified, my grandfather grabbed him, took him home, and hastily tried to stick the lost shingles back on the house to the best of his ability. In all likelihood, though, the neighbors knew and any hope of reconciliation was lost.
This story is part of our Golden Retriever roundup!
I tend to be rather flexible on late work. I get the purpose of not taking late work to teach kids responsibility about deadlines and procrastination, but I also teach in a school where many of our kids are involved in several extracurricular activities, including jobs and church activities, so I’m willing to be flexible and work around their schedule as long as they’re willing to meet me halfway and make classwork a priority.
Unfortunately, that leads to abuse. Today is the last day of the grading period. I’ve had several students come up to me. “If I don’t turn anything in today, what will my grade be?” And when the answer comes back “68”, they’re not happy — 70 is the minimum to pass. “Well, that sucks. Now I actually have to do my work, and I only have today to do it!”
Read the next Sons And Daughters roundup story!
