It’s a tradition in my family that when a child graduates from high school, their parents get them a nice used car to replace the hand-me-down they drove once they got their license. The complication happened when my sister and I graduated high school: because we are twins and my family was going through move, my parents didn’t get us a car. My sister and I were going to the same college, so we just kept using the same old Jeep. It was a typical first car; the air conditioning sucked and it was pretty old, but it got us from point A to point B so we didn’t complain. My father, though, felt guilty that he wasn’t able to keep up the tradition with us, especially since six years earlier he’d gotten my brother his own car.

We went through college with this Jeep, and every year my father promised that “this will be the year you get your own car.” It didn’t happen, so we kind of just ignored it; the Jeep worked well enough. Still, he constantly tried to figure out the kind of cars we would want, and the color.

My sister and I went to a famous SEC school that had a huge football team in the 90s. Their school colors are orange and white, and I’m his football child. So, when he asked me what color car I wanted, I said, “Believe it or not, I really like that kind of dark orange color.” My dad laughed and said, “Trust me, I’ll never find one in that color.” I laughed, agreed, and said I’d be happy with any color or even just keeping the Jeep. I didn’t care that much.

My sister and I were in our last year of college and I was preparing to apply to masters programs. My father was determined to get us the promised cars, but we honestly didn’t believe him. He had a make and model that he thought I would like, and was looking through used car listings when he saw a picture of one and couldn’t believe it. It was the exact car he wanted to get me in the same dark orange color I’d wanted but didn’t think anyone would find.

He went straight to that dealership, determined to get that very car. He started talking to the salesman and he brought up the color, noting that it probably wasn’t a very popular color, especially in Georgia, where my father was.

The dealer agreed and kept talking about how it was possible to get it repainted, trying to make the color not that big of a deal. My dad kept saying things like, “I really like it; I just don’t know about this color. Orange? In Georgia? I don’t know.”

He wound up getting the sales guy to lower the price a bit more. My dad signed on the dotted line, got into the car, and was ready to drive off. But he couldn’t resist.

He lowered the window to talk to the salesman one last time. “By the way, the car is for my daughter. She goes to [University]. She’s going to love this color.”

He drove away laughing; the sales guy laughed, too. He knew he’d been out negotiated in the funniest way.

I still drive that orange car every day; I love it to death. Thanks, Dad!

I work third shift for a medium-sized hotel. Around three am, while doing security rounds, I find a guest room door open. From the doorway I can see one of the lamps and the phone are broken and strewn about the room, and there is no guest in the room.

The room also appears to have been ransacked, clothes and personal belongings thrown all over. I call the desk and have them call local police, and stand by until a officer arrives.

Ten minutes later the officer and I enter the room. He finds pills and marijuana on the table. While the officer is investigating, a guy eating a powdered doughnut and wearing nothing but underwear comes to the door. The officer asks him if he is the occupant of the room and the guy just grunts at the officer, enters the room, puts on a pair of pants, and crawls into the bed.

He refuses to follow the officer’s directions and is detained. The guy starts yelling and swearing while in the meantime, a second officer arrives, as well as the guy’s girlfriend and father. The father explains that they are at the hotel for his daughter’s wedding and I need to make the officers go away.

After being screamed at that I am destroying his daughter’s wedding, he wants to know how much it is going to cost to get the officers to go away while pulling his wallet out. One of the officers informs him that what he is planning to do could land him right next to his son at the jail. The father then wants to speak to the general manager who I have already called and is on his way in.

Normally, we would have filed a police report and that would have been the end, but both the son and the father had caused such a ruckus that the son was trespassed and the police charged him with obstruction and possession of more than a pound of pot. The father was removed from property the next night because he got drunk at his daughter’s wedding and became abusive with not only hotel staff but also his family members. His excuse for his actions was that the hotel was working with the government to ruin his daughter’s wedding because he knows too much.

My parents recently divorced and my mom moved out as a consequence. Both of my parents were pretty down about it and relatively hostile towards each other, which put a lot of strain on me and my siblings.

One day my mom was visiting us children, eating a small snack with us at the table, while my dad was sitting on the sofa a few metres away. I went to the calendar hung on the wall to check for an appointment and realised that my dad had reassigned the row showing my mom’s appointments to instead show when each kind of trash was emptied by the city; however, the top row with her name was written in non-erasable pen.

That seemed like such a typical thing that a divorced couple would do out of spite that I broke down laughing hard, because my dad absolutely didn’t intend it to be malicious; he put it there simply because my mom used to take care of the trash and there was space. Of course my mom came to look at what was so funny and broke down laughing, too.

When my dad walked over, too, she joked about how insulted she was about being used as a trash reminder and he joked back that she deserved it. Consequently, my whole family spent a quarter hour laughing and wheezing on the floor. I think that moment saved our relationship as a family; that day was the first time they had talked with each other in person, not over text or asking us to relay messages. In the following days and weeks they started handling each other with a lot less tension and apologized for putting us between them. I’m very glad for that silly little coincidence.

(It’s my wedding day, and my dad is driving me insane. Literally.)

Dad: “I’ll drive you to your hairdresser appointment.”

Me: “Thanks, but I can drive myself, Dad.”

Dad: “No! It’s your wedding day, and I know how you brides get. You’ll probably crash your car because you’re hysterical. Better to let me do it.”

Me: *giving up* “Fine. I need to go to [Salon]. Because the timing is a bit tight, I’ll need to take my dress with me and change after my hair is done, so don’t drive off with my dress still in the car, okay?”

Dad: “Leave everything to me.”

(We get in the car and start driving… in the wrong direction.)

Me: “Dad?”

Dad: *ignores me*

Me: “DAD!”

Dad: “WHAT?”

Me: “Where are we going?”

Dad: “To [Wrong Location], just like you told me!”

Me: “No, I told you [Salon]!”

Dad: “Ugh.” *turns around*

(We arrive at the correct location.)

Me: “Okay, Dad, just let me grab my dress—”

Dad: *starts to drive away*

Me: “DAD!” *bangs on car*

Dad: “Now what?”

Me: “My dress!”

Dad: “Oh, for Pete’s sake.” *opens trunk*

(The rest of the day goes fairly smoothly, but then we get to the reception. I am happily chatting with some of my guests when Dad walks up to me with a scowl.)

Dad: “Hey, I need to talk to you.”

Me: “Sure, what’s up?”

Dad: “Your grandmother needs a cup of tea.” *looks at me expectantly*

Me: “Okay?”

Dad: “Well? Talk to one of these people!” *gestures at the staff*

Me: “Why me?”

Dad: “You’re the bride! They’ll listen to you!”

Me: “Dad, you’re the father of the bride, and you’re a guest. They’ll listen to you.”

Dad: “Hmph.” *stomps away*

(The irony is that, after his insistence that brides get “hysterical,” the only thing making me even close to hysterical that day was HIM. I still love him, though.)

(A customer comes in with her baby in a carrier. She sets the carrier down by her feet as she approaches my cash register.)

Customer: “Where are your flash drives?”

Me: “Over in aisle six.”

Customer: “Great. Can you just watch my baby for me? He’s just right there.” *points to her feet and quickly walks away*

Me: “Um…”

(I lean over the counter so I can see the baby, and he’s there sitting in his carrier. I keep watch on him, afraid that another customer will come and pull me away from him, or not see him on the floor and kick the carrier. The customer comes back about two minutes later.)

Customer: “Thanks for watching him.”

Me: “Um… Okay.”

(A few weeks later, I leave my cash to take some baskets back to the front door, and when I return, I gasp to see a baby in a carrier on the floor, unattended.)

Me: “Um! There’s a baby over here!”

(I turned around and recognized the same woman from a few weeks before, WAY at the FARTHEST till away, checking out! She didn’t even hear me call that there was an unattended baby. When she was done checking out she just slowly walked back over to get her baby.)