I’m waitstaff at a relatively high-end restaurant. I am taking a mandated break near the kitchen area and see one of my coworkers rush in and start comically start bashing her head against a fridge door.

Me: “What happened?”

Coworker: “I can’t go back out there! I need to crawl into a hole and just die!”

Me: “What happened?!“

Coworker: “I asked a family of nine if they were celebrating anything special tonight and they said it’s their dad’s birthday.”

Me: “Okay?”

Coworker: “And it was a ten-top, and I couldn’t see the dad, so I assumed he was on his way. I got out one of the birthday table centerpieces we have and brought it out to them, hoping it would be a nice surprise for the birthday boy.”

Me: “That’s nice of you.”

Coworker: “And only then did they tell me that he’s not coming… because he’s dead.”

Me: “Oh.”

I finished my break and took over that table for the rest of the night.

When I worked for a navy contractor, my immediate boss invited several people from work to his home in Maryland for a BBQ party. Upon arriving, there were about a dozen other friends of his that he’d met either in the military or working for the government in the DC area. I was chatting with one of his friends when the topic of work came up.

Me: “I work with Steve at [Navy contractor] in Virginia.”

Friend: *Pointing to the northeast, towards Fort Meade.* “I work up that way, for the government.”

I figured he would’ve said whether he was either in the US Army or worked for a military contractor. However, the National Security Agency is also located on Fort Meade.

Me: *Quizzically.* “NSA?”

Friend: *Nodding yes, but saying…* “No.”

I used to date a guy from my same course canal at university. We were together for five years, but toward the end of the relationship, whether because he felt he “had it in the bag” and could go mask-off or genuinely got worse in his ideas, he started making off-putting remarks and puerile sexist jokes. I thought it was a phase, so I didn’t ignore it outright, but eventually, I broke up with him over a specific incident.

I attend a graduation party for a coursemate, and he (the coursemate) has invited basically everyone he knows, including a guy nicknamed “Mr. Troglodyte” because of his clumsy mannerisms, his being a pop cultural alien, and his alleged general lack of class. 

At some point during the party, while a few lady friends and I go out for a smoke, Mr. Troglodyte, henceforth called “Dude”, comes to chat us up about our careers. At first, we try to hold our eye-rolls back, but after a while, my friends and I find ourselves actually talking nicely with him.

While we’re talking, my boyfriend walks by and waves theatrically at [Dude].

Boyfriend: “Oh, hey, [Dude]! How’s it going?”

Dude: “Oh, hi, [Boyfriend]. Is the party going all right in there?”

Boyfriend: *Shrugging* “Eh, it’s going smoothly, nothing much. By the way, which of these girls do you like best?”

I wish I were kidding.

Dude: “Uh… I think I like [My Name] the most.”

Boyfriend: *Goes wide-eyed* “No way, bro! That’s my girl! I can get really jealous, y’know that?”

Dude: “Mate, you’d need to be at rock bottom to lose your girlfriend to me of all people.”

My friends and I laugh, though I admit it’s mostly out of awkwardness than anything else.

Boyfriend: “Nah, bro, what’ve other dudes got that you haven’t got?” *Mimes a pinching and slapping motion* “All you need to do to get a girl is to slap their a** good and pinch their t*ts while they aren’t looking. All ya need is confidence!”

I stare, horrified.

Friend: “No, don’t listen to him. That’ll just get you punched!” 

Boyfriend: “Ah, c’mon. Women are pretty much all sluts anyway.”

Dude: “Seriously? You’re going to say that in front of your girlfriend?”

Boyfriend: *Acting nonchalant* “Anyway, wouldn’t you prefer having [Friend] in your bed?”

I excuse myself to go to the bathroom and splash my face several times to calm down, expensive makeup be d***ed. The rest of the party goes well; my soon-to-be ex is still pestering [Dude] or drinking several glasses with the graduating coursemate’s relatives. As soon as the desserts are served and things have quieted down, I decide to confront my boyfriend.

Me: “Okay, now that you are done with drinking, can you please tell me what has gotten into you?”

Boyfriend: *Confused* “What has gotten into me when?”

Me: *Sighing* “When you called me and my friends sluts in front of [Dude]. How could you, [Boyfriend]? How dare you?”

Boyfriend: “Aw, but c’mon, honey! I was just ridding myself of competition. Besides, I don’t think you were enjoying his talk anyway.”

Me: “Just because he isn’t the most interesting person on Earth, or the most suave, doesn’t mean he’s bad at talking. Also, what competition?!”

Boyfriend: “Do you know how hard it is to find a girl these days? I can’t let you slip past me like that, especially not to somebody who looks and acts like a caveman in a fancy suit.”

Speechless and irate, I went and congratulated the graduate, took the customary bomboniera (a traditional party favor), and then looked for somebody able to give me a ride back home, as I had no intention of going back home in my ex-boyfriend’s car.

I broke up officially over a text and have been looking since. No luck so far, and the aftermath was devastating on the face of it, but at least I grew wiser from it.

I agreed to bartend for a special event: a fiftieth wedding anniversary. It was a dinner, an open bar, and dancing with a DJ. We agreed to $250 per bartender for five or six hours of work, including prep and cleanup.

At the venue, there was a tip jar already on the bar top, which we decided to use. From experience, even at open bar events, guests like to leave tips for their bartender(s). Throughout the night, guests frequently left gratuities, often indicating they were for crafting their cocktails.

When the party began to wind down, the other bartender and I began breaking the bar down and cleaning up. We even helped clear tables and put away chairs.

At one point, we were both in the kitchen cleaning our supplies, and we left the bar unattended for maybe five minutes. When we came out to count our tips, we discovered that the jar was missing!

I went to ask the party coordinator about the missing jar and met her coming out of the supply room.

Coordinator: “Oh, I just counted the tips! I’ve divided them three ways between the two of you and the DJ.”

I was given $70; the other bartender got $60. We talked to the DJ the next day and he said he received $90 “in a wad of fives”.

I texted the coordinator telling her it was extremely inappropriate to take, count, or distribute bar tips without the consent of the bartenders. At first, she was apologetic and thanked us for all the extra help we gave. She gave us $80 via a mobile app to “make it up”. I said thanks and figured it was over.

Then, she began to text me telling me it was “their tip jar they provided and, therefore, the tips were theirs to do what they wanted with”. She called me petty and greedy, and she said she and her partner had talked to multiple bartenders who had defended their actions. 

I just blocked the coordinator and her partner, after having them send me essay-length texts explaining how unhappy they were with my attitude and that they “didn’t have to tip us in the first place”.

This story is about someone who straddled the line between being a friend and being a friend of a friend. I knew her and her family, liked them, and wouldn’t have minded calling her a friend, but there is no doubt that I knew her mostly through a shared friend. As such, much of this story is hearsay coming indirectly from third parties, but I’ll do my best to retell it accurately.

[Friend] and her husband already had a teenager and a younger child, but they decided to become foster parents, as well. They put in a lot of work, going to training classes, getting their home inspected, and otherwise getting approved to foster. Their first foster child was supposed to be a baby girl with some extra health needs, but at the last minute, they found out they were getting her twin brother, as well.

Then, practically the moment the twins showed up at their door, [Husband] suddenly had something come up that had to be handled out of state. I don’t want to go into details as I suspect I’d get them wrong if I did, but all that matters was that it was completely unexpected, vitally important for him to address, and would keep him away for at least a couple of weeks and potentially longer. Meanwhile, [Friend] had some less severe life issues of her own come up to further distract her.

With the foster kids suddenly becoming a significantly larger strain on the poor foster mother than originally planned, there was serious talk of surrendering the twins back to the foster system, though apparently this region — possibly all regions out there — had a significant shortage of qualified foster parents, so the couple was worried about where the twins would end up.

Then, the couple’s fifteen-year-old son heard they were considering giving up on their first-ever foster assignment, and he wouldn’t hear of it. He begged his mother not to give the twins back and insisted he would step up and use his remaining summer vacation to fill in for the missing husband caring for the twins if his mother would keep them.

Everyone I spoke to agreed on a few things here. First, this was [Son]’s sincere desire, not something forced on him by his parents; in fact, they were the ones hesitant to ask their son to take on such a responsibility. Second, despite his youth, [Son] was great with the twins and really was putting a significant amount of effort into helping his mother to care for them.

Eventually, the foster family was at an event I attended. I’d already been talking [Friend], who was currently burping and trying to put the foster son to sleep. I then found [Son] trying hard to get a fussy and unhappy baby girl to accept her bottle. The kid looked tired in a way that suggested he had not gotten enough sleep last night, likely thanks to the tiny tyrant who was currently refusing her bottle.

Me: *To [Son]* “How are things going helping with the foster kids?”

His response was in a jovial tone but with a bit of strain behind the words that suggested to me that there might be a bit more honesty in them than he was letting on.

Son: “I found out a week ago that I was going to have to play father to two babies without warning, and they haven’t let me sleep yet. I’m still a virgin; I’m supposed to at least get to have sex before I have to deal with babies!”

Seeing he was tired and having heard how well he was helping out, I offered to take the girl from him to give him a bit of a break to enjoy the event. He pulled the little bundle into his body as if to protect her from me.

Son: *Hastily* “She’s fussy about strangers; it’s best for me to care for her.”

He was completely unwilling to give his burden up and acted quite paternal regardless of his complaints. In fact, he quite masterfully managed to get the finicky child to accept her meal and finally go back to sleep without needing anyone’s help.

In the end, the husband came back after about three weeks, and [Son] happily gave some of his duties back to his father — but not all of them. He still played a very active role in helping care for the twins until the day they had to surrender them back to their birth mother as toddlers, and he continued to be a significant help with all the other foster kids to follow until he had to leave for college.

The last I heard, [Son]’s post-college plans include becoming a foster father in his own right. I have every confidence he will be a terrific one!