My dog Rosie is a mix of black lab and Nova Scotia duck-tolling retriever. Both are supposed to be good in the water.

We have an in-ground pool at our house, and this dog absolutely hates it. Whenever we are in it, she freaks out, barking at us and running around the concrete surrounding it. She never gets close enough to the water to risk falling in, though. The only thing that makes her get close to the water is when my young twin nieces (age five) and nephew (less than a year old) are in the pool with us. Then, she will come up to the edge and bark at us. She is a very protective dog, especially of the youngest ones around.

We were in the pool one day, and Rosie was near the edge, very concerned because we had the little ones in the pool. She turned around to go bark at my husband to let him know this was not okay, but she misjudged just how close she was to the edge, and her back legs fell in.

The look on her face of sheer terror was hilarious, only because I know she can swim; she just doesn’t like to. When she realized that no one was going to push her back up onto the side of the pool because we had the small children she was freaking out about in our arms, she resigned herself to swimming five feet over to the stairs to get herself out.

After she got out, she decided that the adults were protecting the small ones well enough and went to lay down in a sunny patch to dry off.

My husband is supposed to go to a conference in a big American city. However, a hurricane has just come through our home province in Canada. We have no power, and there’s some damage to our property. I’d have trouble dealing with all of this alone, especially as we have small kids, so my husband decides to cancel his travel plans. He calls the hotel.

Husband: “Hi, I’m supposed to arrive tomorrow, but I need to cancel my reservation because we’ve just had a hurricane come through here.”

Hotel Staff: “Sir, we require seventy-two hours of notice to cancel, or you will have to pay a reservation fee.”

Husband: “I understand. But I didn’t know in advance that I wouldn’t be able to travel.”

Hotel Staff: “But we will have to charge you a cancellation fee.”

Husband: “Okay. It is what it is, I guess.”

Hotel Staff: “If you cancel with less than seventy-two hours of notice, you have to pay the cancellation fee.”

Husband: “Yes. I understand.”

Hotel Staff: “Please hold. I have to get my manager.”

He’s put on hold for several minutes before the manager comes on. 

Manager: “Sir, if you cancel your reservation with less than seventy-two hours of notice, you will have to pay a cancellation fee.”

Husband: “Yes, I got that.”

Manager: “If you give us seventy-two hours of notice, we can waive the fee.”

Husband: “Okay. I’ll keep that in mind next hurricane, I guess.”

I’m working in a very small kitchenware store. It’s small enough that I know every single product, where it is, and probably how many are left.

Woman: “Do you have any baking sheets for toaster ovens?”

Me: “No, sorry. We don’t have anything for toaster ovens.”

The woman scoffs at me and looks around the store. Suddenly, she yanks an item off the shelf and shoves it in my face.

Woman: “Then what is this?!”

Me: *Pauses* “That’s a cheese grater, ma’am.”

She turns bright red and shoves the grater back on the shelf.

Woman: “Well, it would fit inside a toaster oven!”

She then promptly left the store. Just because it can physically fit inside a toaster oven doesn’t mean it should. That cheese grater wasn’t oven-safe.

Years ago, I taught in a public school which had just received a new photocopier for the teachers’ staff room. I am interested in technological gadgets and quickly learned how to clear jams, change paper and toner, and generally keep the machine running.

One of the other teachers worked mornings at another school in our district and afternoons in our school. She would often have photocopying to be done over her lunch hour for her afternoon classes, but she had a reputation of having problems with our photocopier.

One lunch hour, she came in to prepare for her classes and looked at me.

Teacher: “[My Name], would you please come over to the copier with me?”

Me: “Sure, but you haven’t had any problems yet; you haven’t even used it!”

Teacher: “No, but I want you here so you can intimidate it for me!”

For the record, it worked perfectly when I stood beside her.

While in high school I worked part-time at a local gas station that was open 24/7. Being that I live in a fairly small town – pop 10,000 people, we were the only store open after the local bar closed at 2 am.

I worked the overnight shift on the weekends often and around the Thanksgiving holiday, we sold apple and pumpkin pies. I know, who wants to buy a pie at a gas station? We also had an extensive convenience store as well. One Saturday night after the bar closed we are filled with a ton of drunks wanting snacks, smokes, or to wait for the cabs that will show up way too long after we call every available cab in the town to come and take them all away.

One of these lovely drunks decides he wants a delicious pie. He buys it, already armed with a plastic fork from our very small “deli” section, really just a microwave and some plastic utensils and condiments to slather on the disgusting hotdogs that have turned green from being “steamed” for too many hours to count.

He proceeds to take two bites out of the pie before he then drops it all over the floor in front of my cash register. I just looked at him and asked if he was going to clean it up. He bends down, scrapes the now dirty floor pie back into the tin, and continues to eat it.

I asked him if it tasted good and the man looked at me and said “Mmmm, tastes like floor!” He ate the whole pie and did a pretty good job of scraping it back into the tin as well.

This story is part of our Thanksgiving 2023 roundup!

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