I am a teacher and just have come to the realization that I have some form of anxiety. A side effect of this is that I constantly go through moments where I believe no one likes me, or I constantly berate myself for not being “good enough”. Even though I’m often praised for my work, or my friends reach out to help me, I often feel like I don’t matter. I’m usually really good at talking myself out of it, but it gets hard sometimes. I am also really good at putting on a good face, so people don’t normally see this.

One day, I was stressing over a busy work day and getting things together for my afternoon classes. A fellow teacher, who doesn’t have a car, had already asked if I could drive her to an appointment during the second half of lunch. I agreed, thinking I would eat during the first half, when another coworker came up to ask for a favour. She had something happen with a student and needed to help him, but she had supervision during the first half of lunch. I agreed to take over her supervision, even though I now wouldn’t get a lunch, because I knew a student’s safety was more important. After the first half of lunch, I raced back into the classroom to grab my car keys, when my kids jumped out of nowhere and yelled:

“SURPRISE!”

I stood there confused for a moment, until I saw “Happy Birthday [My Name]” written on the board and a dozen treats and goodies laid out. It was February and my birthday wasn’t until July, and my students had worked with another coworker to arrange a surprise party so I could celebrate my birthday “in school”. I was completely touched and happily surprised with what my students planned, and even more surprised when I found out the whole staff was in on it, too. Both of my coworkers who had needed my help that lunch period were just keeping me away from the classroom so the students could set up.

This meant more than they realized, because I used to always believe I wasn’t special enough for someone to plan a surprise party for me. To have it happen on an already stressful day, and for it to be completely unexpected, helped me in ways I can’t describe. Thank you to my class and everyone involved for making me see something I didn’t!

Some friends and I are at a party over Halloween weekend. One of them is dressed as the Good Fairy and carries a wand which is handmade of pretty thick wood, painted, with a star and glitter. She’s also a bit of a goody two-shoes, and every time someone swears she’ll tap them on the head with her wand and say, “The Good Fairy doesn’t like that!”

As the night goes on, people get progressively drunker, and a guy none of us knows has been bugging her for a while. We’re trying to get away from him when he grabs her breasts from behind. She swings around and smacks him in the face with the wand so hard she breaks it in half. “THE GOOD FAIRY DOESN’T LIKE THAT!”

He got kicked out.

(I work at a bowling alley, hosting children’s birthday parties. The parents of this party have come up to pay and are separating the party package into each part, rather than buying the full package.)

Cashier: “The total cost of your party, including the shoe hire, one game of bowling, five tokens per guest, and party host comes to [total].”

Mum: “What was that last part?”

Cashier: “The party host, [My Name], is part of the package. They help organise the party, and part of each package goes towards their pay.”

(The mum grumbles but pays, but later returns to her husband and explains the payment.)

Mum: “And we had to pay for the party host, too!”

Dad: “Why would we pay for her?”

(The kicker? A party host costs $10 out of a $200+ package. Parents, if you would like to take care of your kids for $10, please, be my guest.)

This story is part of our Birthday Party Roundup!

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(My story involves a party game called “Bag of Nouns.” Everyone puts five nouns on five strips of paper and all the papers go into a bag. Teams are optional. The game has three rounds: the first round, you say whatever you can to get your group to guess the noun you drew from the bag and get through as many nouns as you can in a minute. At the end of each turn, all the strips of paper go back into the bag, so very quickly certain nouns become familiar through repetition. The second round is same idea, except you get ONE WORD to describe what’s on the paper, so you’d better hope the nouns you draw on your turn are familiar ones, or that someone in your group will figure out one of their nouns that hasn’t been drawn yet. If you screw up and say, “um,” then you’ve used your one word for that noun, and you’d better hope your team can guess from nothing. The third round is charades. We are on the second round, and a friend’s guest gets to go first.)

Friend: *to guest in question* “Okay, second round. You get just one word per noun that you draw. You can say that word over and over, but you cannot say any other words, not even ‘uh’ or ‘um.'”

Guest: “Okay.” *draws from bag, looks at it* “Right, so, this is a thing where—”

Friend: “—no. One word.” *everyone agrees to give her another shot, since she clearly missed something* “Okay, so if the noun you drew was, say, ‘car,’ you could say, ‘drive,’ or maybe, ‘traffic,’ but nothing else. If the noun you drew came up a lot in the previous round, try to pick a word from those turns to describe it that your team would recognize. Okay?”

Guest: “Yeah, got it.”

Friend: “Great. Draw again.”

Guest: *draws, looks* “Um, so, these are given when—”

Friend: “—no. Stop. Okay. So, for example, the one you drew that time was ‘Finals.’ You could say, ‘test,’ or, ‘college,’ and when that word came up in the first round, ‘stress’ was focused on a lot, so you could use ‘stress’ or something. But no other words. No sentences. No descriptions. One word for the noun you drew, and then your team has to guess based on that one word.”

Guest: *pauses* “Sure.” *draws again, looks at paper* “This is something that—”

Friend: “—yeah, okay, your turn’s over. Next person!”

(She never seemed to really understand the rule, but she also never seemed to understand that she was missing anything.)

While planning my wedding, I have neglected to plan, or get a family member to plan a bridal shower. I don’t particularly mind, but my aunt very graciously offers to throw a bridal shower for me. I give her a guest list based off of my previous baby shower for my son, and she starts planning away.

One day after handing out the invitations, my future mother-in-law calls saying that I forgot to invite two of my fiancé’s cousins. I don’t know them well, but I feel bad for neglecting them, so, after asking my aunt, I tell my mother-in-law to invite them, but to make sure to let them know that this isn’t a children-friendly event.

A week before the shower, my aunt calls me, confused, as several people not on the guest list have RSVP’d, and specified that they are bringing their kids. I call my mother-in-law to make sure there wasn’t a miscommunication. She not only invited four of my fiancé’s cousins, most of whom I don’t know, or my fiancé doesn’t talk to anymore, but she also told them to invite their kids, too. This adds up to about eight more people than previously expected, and my aunt’s house can’t accommodate this.

After hanging up with my mother-in-law, I call my mom, because I am not sure what to do or how to approach this situation. My mother, understandably, is mad that my mother-in-law was rude enough to invite people without at least asking me or making sure I knew the people. She decides to call my mother-in-law to figure out a solution: either have two showers to accommodate the people, or rent space so that there is room for these people and split the cost.

My mother calls, and she barely gets into the conversation before my mother-in-law loses it on her. She calls my mom all sorts of names and ends with, “Shove this party right up your a**.” My fiancé and I, after hearing this, decide not to engage with my mother-in-law’s behavior and let her calm down.

The next day, my mother-in-law texts me, telling me that her side is throwing a “Welcome to the Family” party for me, despite the fact that I gave her a grandson two years ago and have been a part of the family since then. I bluntly tell her that I will not attend any event until she apologizes to my mom for her outburst. After much foot-stomping and whining and, “You don’t care about my feelings,” she finally relents and gives my mother a half-baked apology.

When it comes time to attend her party, every person there ignores me. It is, in theory, a party for me, but not one person really talks to me the entire time. It is bad enough that even my maid of honour, who came with me, notices.

I did marry into the family, in the end. But honestly, if I didn’t know my now-husband so well, I would have taken off running as far away from that family as possible!