(I work in a very “gothic” shop inside a theme park; as such, I’m supposed to theme as semi-creepy. One day, a guest comes up to buy something with his family – his wife and three kids of varying ages.)

Me: “—and the total is [total].”

Customer: *while looking for payment inside wallet* “Can I give you an IOU? Pay you tomorrow, or Tuesday, or next week, maybe?”

Me: “I don’t think I can accept that, but I’ll consider a first-born sacrifice.”

(Without missing a beat, the man points to his oldest child.)

Customer: “You! Over there!” *indicates my side of counter*

(I am with my parents in a cheap hotel. I am six and my parents are sleeping because of jet lag. I am still awake and decide to look under the bed. I find handcuffs! I decide to handcuff my parents together. When they wake up I am asleep in the next bed. Their panic wakes me up but I still look asleep. I know I am in trouble. I don’t remember what really happens, but they eventually get the handcuffs off and are about to talk to the hotel people.)

Me: “You got the handcuffs off!”

Parents: “…?”

Me: “…”

Parents: “What do you know about this?”

Me: “I found them under the bed.”

Parents: “You are lucky that those were just magic trick handcuffs so we got out of them easily!”

(It wasn’t until much later that I found out what those handcuffs were probably really used for despite the innocent manufacturer.)

(A lady walks into up to the return counter. It’s about mid-August. She is carrying a red and green holiday bag.)

Customer: “I want to return this.” *dumps out a toddler onesie that is printed like a Santa suit*

(I check the receipt. It’s from December of last year.)

Me: “Ma’am, this is from Christmas of last year. It’s not in our system. If you don’t want it anymore, I’d suggest donating it because we can’t take it back. Sorry.”

Customer: “My daughter told me to return this. No wonder she gave it to me; she was too ashamed to go herself! I can’t believe she did that to me. Sorry I wasted your time.”

(She wadded up the suit and the bag and stormed out. I would not want to be her daughter when she gets home.)

I work as a sysadmin in a lawyer’s firm. There’s a department for civil law and a department for handling business law. I don’t know a thing about law; all I need to do is make sure no one has access to documents they don’t need.

I have set up a scheme of permissions to various folders and the owner has tested and approved it. Anyone working in the Business Law department has no access to files in the Civil Law folder and vice versa.

The son of the department manager of civil laws is having an internship for his IT training and his father thinks I can help him. I don’t think that this is a good idea given the confidentiality of the data on the servers, but I am overruled because the owner is okay with it – or at least that’s what I am told.

So, stuck with an intern, I try to put him to work installing PCs and laptops, but the boy isn’t really interested in working. He sits and plays with his phone until it’s time to go home. After two days, I’ve had enough of it. The next morning, I call him into my office and tell him that if he doesn’t intend to do anything there’s no reason for him to stay here.

So, he leaves. Half an hour later, his father calls me to his office. There I find the son sitting at his dad’s computer browsing through confidential folders and files like it’s his daily job. The dad starts complaining about how I’m not taking care of my intern. I explain that it isn’t my intern but his son and that his son simply refused to do anything I ordered him.

According to the father, I shouldn’t have ordered the boy to some work; I should have asked him. I see the boy smirking in the background, still browsing on the server and reading confidential and sensitive information about our clients. It is my job to prevent unauthorized persons from viewing this information, so I must take action.

I walk over to the computer, shut it off, and take the wireless mouse and keyboard with me.

Next, I’m off to the owner’s office, informing him that an unauthorized person has been reading confidential documents on our server.

The dad comes in and starts berating me, but he’s silenced by the owner. I’m told to go back to my office and find out what files the boy has been tampering with. I find out that he deleted files and folders and has been changing several documents. He did this mostly by typing some vulgarity in the documents, and in some documents he has changed dates and replaced names with lots of four-letter words. I print the changed documents, recover the deleted documents, and decide to restore yesterday’s backup. But this means that everybody most close the documents they are working on and that, in some cases, everything they did today will be lost. Also, they can’t work during the time I’m restoring files.

The owner calls me, asking for a “damage report.” I bring him the printouts of the changed documents and tell him what I have to do. The owner agrees and tells me to go ahead.

Sometime later, everything is as it was before. I call the owner to tell him that everyone can start working again. The owner tells me that the intern won’t be coming anymore and that I have to disable the computer account and the mail account of the civil law department manager.

The next day, I find out the owner made a deal with the department manager that if he’d resign no one would ever know the real reason why he left the firm. The owner later told me that he didn’t even know about the internship and that he never would have allowed it.

There is a scenic overlook close enough to our house that we generally take the drive every fall and spring. There are breathtaking vistas about every three miles. My middle child has disabilities and can get overwhelmed by things. She doesn’t particularly like heights but will look out the window each time we pull over to take pictures. She is content, though, to stay in the van with the door open.

At one stop, I was taking pictures when I heard a large group of motorcycles roll in. I knew what would happen next.

Sure enough, when I turned around, my child had unbuckled, jumped out of the van, and run over to the bikers. She loves motorcycles and those who ride them. She doesn’t talk much but can say, “Oooh! Nice!” clearly.

I walked over and listened to the bikers telling my daughter about their bikes and asking her what she thought of each.

I asked if I could take a picture of them all and they all smiled and posed. My very short daughter, clad in pink, was surrounded by men and women in black leather. They all smiled brightly for the shot.

Then, each handed me their cell phones so they could get a picture of their own.

We chatted on that vista for another fifteen minutes or so. My daughter sat on one man’s bike while he and I discussed the best lunch destinations nearby.

My daughter was disappointed that she didn’t get to ride off with her new friends, but she was happy enough to get hugs and high-fives before we went our separate ways.