We parents are dropping off our kids (four to five years old) at preschool. I’m with my husband, as we’re all on the same route to work, so it works out nicely that we both can drop off our son.

Husband: “Bye, [Son]! Love you! Have a good day!”

Son: “Bye, fat-a**!”

My husband looks shocked; other parents are staring, but I’m just laughing.

Husband: “Why are you laughing?!”

Me: “Because I know he didn’t get that from me! I told you a million times to watch what you say in front of him, so this is perfect! This is a conversation for you to have after school.”

It took our kid finally going to school and being around other kids and adults for my husband to finally watch his mouth and to realize that kids are sponges. Now he says fudge, bullzit, and other equally off-brand swears…

When I was a teenager, my family got a dog. For privacy’s sake, we’ll call him Rascal (because heaven knows he is one). Rascal is a mixed breed my parents got from the shelter as a puppy. He can be hyperactive and gets bad separation anxiety (though it was fairly manageable when he was younger). I have quite a few stories about his antics, but this one is by far my favorite.

When I was fifteen (Rascal was about two at the time), my parents scored tickets for the family to go see a U of L volleyball game on Friday night (my sisters both played volleyball and were obsessed with it throughout their teens; I wasn’t that big of a fan, but I was promised nachos, so I went anyway). The game was to start at four-thirty in the afternoon. Since our school let out at three forty-five, we basically had to rush home, dump our school supplies wherever we could, grab what we wanted to take to the game, and go. My sisters were smart and put their school stuff in their rooms. I, being in a hurry, just tossed my school bag (containing my five-year-old cell phone, my notebooks, and my library book) and decided to take it to my room when we got home.

Rascal was let out to pee and given his dinner before we left, so we thought he’d be fine for the two-and-a-half hours we’d be at the game. This turned out to be a mistake.

We went to the game and had fun (U of L won and I got my nachos, so a good time was had by all) and got home at around seven. That was when we saw what Rascal had done.

Turns out, he did NOT take kindly to being left on his own all evening after spending the day alone (my parents both worked). So he’d decided to take out his anger on the first thing he could: my bag.

The bag itself was miraculously fine, as were most of my notebooks containing over a month’s worth of class notes. But he’d chewed up my phone (we’re still amazed he didn’t get electrocuted) and ate the cover off of my library book.

Thus, that following Monday, I had to go into the school library before class, look the librarian in the eye, and say “The dog ate my library book.” When it looked like she didn’t believe me (or wondered why I was using that age-old excuse of all things), I held up the book. We both burst out laughing.

I had to pay for the damage to the book, but thankfully it was only five bucks. I wasn’t that mad about my phone either: it wasn’t a smartphone (I don’t know phone models, but it had buttons on it) and I’d had it since the sixth grade. Turns out, my parents had bought me a smartphone for my upcoming birthday, and gave it to me early since my old phone got destroyed.

Rascal’s had quite a few escapades in his life (including eating an entire package of corned beef, burying himself in a neighbor’s snow pile, getting skunked, etc), but I will never forget that antic.

Ironically, the one thing in my bag he didn’t touch was my homework!

The Friday before my wife’s and my 30th anniversary, she had planned to visit an old friend across the country. She would be flying back on Monday, in time for us to have a dinner out before going home.

I had a staff meeting Friday morning. I dropped my wife off at the airport, then drove to work for the meeting. At the beginning of our staff meeting, my boss asked if anyone had good news. I thought I’d share my upcoming anniversary like this:

Me: “This morning, my wife left me…”

Cue shocked expressions from many in the meeting.

Me: “…to visit a friend in DC. But she’ll be flying back on Monday to celebrate our 30th anniversary.”

I got a few good laughs out of that.

I work in a school as support staff; I’m not a teacher.

I generally get to work at 8:15 AM. Start time is 8:30 AM. I arrive and go to the staff room, make a coffee, and take it to my workstation. My manager doesn’t bother with small talk; she’s straight into discussing work, asking me questions, etc. Often before I even put my handbag away and fire up my laptop.

I get a forty-five-minute unpaid lunch break, which is a bit long. I’m usually back at my desk within thirty to thirty-five minutes.

A couple of months ago I arrived at my workstation at 8:33 AM with my coffee. My manager made a big production of lifting her arm up and reading her watch (which she can’t read without glasses on anyway, and she wasn’t wearing them, so it was for theatrical purposes) and remarked about me making my coffee after my start time.

I made the three minutes up at lunchtime by coming back sooner than my forty-five-minute break.

I take my lunch during the students’ lunch. Their lunch is 1 PM – 1:40 PM.

The following day, I arrive back from lunch at 1:45 PM, and my manager is hopping from foot to foot because we needed to start class. I said my lunch is forty-five minutes. Maybe I should take lunch before 1 PM to ensure I’m here at 1:40 PM.

She looked at the timetable and said that doesn’t work, as we have classes that go until then, so you can’t take lunch until 1 PM. I firmly stated my lunch is forty-five minutes, so that means I come back five minutes into lessons.

She then stated that doesn’t work and that she’ll get the school to pay me for those five minutes. I’m the union representative for my workplace. I said they can’t; my forty-five-minute break is in the award (and in fact, if we don’t get our breaks, those minutes are paid at overtime rates).

I now take my entire forty-five-minute break. Even though I’m done with eating and smoking, I’ll fill in the fifteen minutes checking Instagram.

I also still generally arrive at 8:15 AM, and I now have my pre-work coffee in the staff room and don’t ever arrive at my desk until 8:28 AM.

In the 1970s, when I was very young (I’m thinking eight years old), my school arranged for everyone in my grade to attend swimming lessons at the local pool once a week. I wasn’t a particularly good swimmer, but I listened carefully to the instructor, did my best, and had fun.

The lessons came to an end, and the instructor informed us that we’d all passed and could therefore take the more advanced class next time. We were all proud and happy (plus we got cloth badges we could show off to our friends and families, which was kind of cool).

As I was about to leave the pool area to shower and get changed, the instructor called my name. I turned, smiling, thinking she was going to say something nice like “Good luck in the next class.”

Instead, she leaned down and said:

Instructor: “You were the worst swimmer of the bunch. I was going to fail you, but I changed my mind, because I wanted to have a full class of passing students.”

I could feel my face fall. She nodded at me, evidently satisfied, and went back to what she’d been doing.

I don’t know why she told me that. If her goal was “crush a little kid’s spirit and make her cry”, mission accomplished.