We somehow chose a name for our second daughter that was close in spelling to her cousin’s name. I swear, my sister-in-law never told me it was her dream name for her child. Our child was born two years before and named Macy; our niece was Maiizelen, nicknamed Maizie. 

My child’s earliest memories were showing up at the two or so family events, and one of the cousins saying, “Did you know there are two Maizie [Our Last Name]s? I like the other one better.” There’s a back story about teen marriage and ugly divorce with the cousins’ parents, but it’s not important.

We brought up this behavior with the family (again, another back story).

Sister-In-Law: “They’re just children!”

Me: “You’re in your twenties; you know better.”

The cousins also used to lock the child of their father’s second wife in the closet at Grandma’s house.

Fast forward to Macy being twenty-three. It’s Christmas morning. The cousins have been pregaming for the 10:00 am brunch at Grandma’s, and they’ve brought along their red Solo cups. One cousin turns his cup away when Macy walks up to him, but not before she sees “#RealMaizie[Our Last Name]”. He’s embarrassed. So, the cousins have been pregaming by making fun of Macy once again.  

No surprise, Maizie was not invited to Macy’s wedding at the extremely nice venue — a thirty-fifth-floor private club in a major city with a live band, an open bar, and a flower wall for Instragam photos. But she did comment on Macy’s Instagram photo, which [Sister-In-Law] shared. 

Maizie: “Must be nice to be invited to a family event.”

Macy responded with a request for her aunt to take down the image, as well as:

Macy: “I don’t know why you would ever expect to be invited since my earliest memories of you were being bullied.”

I was assisting in an online Dungeons And Dragons class for autistic and similarly challenged teenagers and adults, all of whom were high-functioning and intelligent. The Dungeon Master was describing the area and mentioned that there were iron bars covering an opening when one of the students blurted out this gem.

Student: “What are the iron bars made out of?”

We have not let him live it down since.

An old acquaintance scammed me out of $250 in 2016. I had no idea he was a drug addict, or I would have been a lot more wary. Hindsight is always twenty-twenty. I also know I wasn’t the only person he got money out of, and I’m glad it was only that much.

I thought I’d never see that money again. I gave up bothering him years ago, figuring it was pointless. I kept him as a friend on Facebook and saw periodically that he would post how long he’d been clean for, and it’s been a few years now.

Just recently, he messaged me out of the blue to tell me that he was ready to give me back what he stole all those years ago! I know he’s not making bank by any means, and it’s hard going these days, so it really meant a lot that he wanted to make it right. I know he’s not the same person he was back then, and though we’re not friends, I’m still proud of him.

If there’s anyone in your life that’s struggling with addiction, I hope they can turn it around, too.

I sell a T-shirt on eBay. After the buyer’s payment clears, I ship the product the next day. I let her know I have shipped it and provide her with a tracking number.

A week later, I get a message.

Customer: “I haven’t received the shirt.”

Me: “I’m checking the tracking number and see that it was delivered a few days ago. Can I confirm that your address is [address]?”

Customer: “Yes, it is.”

Me: “Can you double-check your front porch or around your garage if you have one, or check with your neighbors to see if the post office maybe delivered it there? If not, you should go to your local post office with the tracking number to see what happened. The package hasn’t been returned to me as of today.”

Customer: “No, that’s too much trouble. I need you to find my shirt today and overnight it to me.”

Me: “Your best option would be to go to the post office and talk to them there.”

Customer: “No, you can do all that for me.”

I’m a little annoyed. I don’t have possession of her shirt, so I can’t overnight it to her. I can’t travel to her post office or check with her neighbors to see if the package was there, so I write to her again.

Me: “I’m very sorry that your package didn’t get delivered correctly, and I understand your frustration, but I simply can’t travel to find this package as I live nine hours away. Can I offer you a refund?”

Customer: “No, I need it tomorrow, and I don’t care what it takes. Find it!”

I was frustrated, too. Did the buyer really expect me to travel nine hours to find her package?

At that point, I wrote the buyer back and let her know that I had issued her a refund. I wasn’t going to keep going around and around with her because she didn’t want to put any effort into finding the package.

The shirt she bought was $7 including shipping.

Many years back on social media, an acquaintance was referred to by another name by those in close contact with them, but only they were allowed to call them that. Let’s say their name was Alexander, and friends called them Lex.

Another person — I’ll call them Charlie — popped up out of the blue and immediately took to calling my acquaintance Lex. No matter how many times Alexander said that they didn’t like being called that by a stranger, Charlie persisted until blocked — and until that point, they used it increasingly frequently, up to multiple times per sentence.

It was pretty clear that Charlie thought that by using the friends-only name, Alexander would take Charlie in as a friend. When it didn’t work, the strategy was to try harder.

To this day, I have never been sure whether Charlie actually cared or not about the acquaintance. I just knew that Charlie’s parents didn’t raise them very well, in a “leave me alone” style, and basically just gave Charlie a social media account so they wouldn’t bother their parents so much.