So the story goes, I was born in the middle of a pivotal football game. The nurse came out to my dad in the waiting room and said:

Nurse: “Mr. [Family Name], would you like to see the baby?”

Dad: “One second, they’re going to kick…”

Mom: *Shouting from the other room.* “So you don’t want to meet the twins, then?!”

Expecting only the one baby, my dad runs into the room panicked, ignoring the game finally. When he sees that he’s been pranked.

Dad: “That’s mean! The footy was the only thing stopping me from fainting!”

Mom: “Those blokes are passing footballs with their legs. I just passed something the same size through my legs! And you’re the one at risk of fainting?”

They got over it quickly because of how CUTE I was. When my dad tried to name me after his favorite footballer, my mum had none of it.

I’m the oldest of four children, and we all have VERY different personalities and interests.

[Brother] is two years younger than I am and is entering high school for the first time. He signs up for the cross-country team, and the coach starts some get-to-know-you activities, asking everyone to share their name and whether they have any siblings in [High School].

Brother: “I’m [Brother], and I have an older sister named [My Name].”

Teammate #1: “Wait, [My Name]? Short, brown hair, glasses, always has a book?”

Brother: “Yeah, that’s her.”

All the teammates stare at my tall, athletic, sandy-blond brother, who has already shown a disdain for everything academic.

Teammate #2: “…And you’re doing this?“

Not only were his teammates shocked that we were related, but apparently, several of his friends didn’t believe him until I attended his high school graduation four years later!

I’ve had a strong lazy eye and really bad eyesight since I was a very small kid. In middle school, I think my glasses were a +12 and +8 — really, really bad. I also have pretty poor depth perception, especially without my glasses on.

In middle school, I had a really strict gym teacher. She thought that girls were always trying to make excuses to get out of doing hard work, and it was her duty to whip us all into shape. She loved to pick on me. 

We had an archery unit. Her instructions for archery involved taking off any glasses and closing one eye. I tried telling her it was dangerous for me to do that. She started going off on her lecture about how girls today were too soft. (Even the boys in the class were tired of hearing this.) She had me fire, closing my bad eye, my glasses off.

My arrow hit the bullseye… two targets away from me.

The rest of the class complained about how unsafe I was, and I was allowed to sit out of archery that semester.

I’m an American who moved to the UK. As part of learning the culture, my friends took me to a soccer game, which they call football. The amount of jeering from the spectators was way more creative than what I was used to in the US.

Angry Spectator #1: “Check your answering machine, ref; you missed a couple of calls!”

Angry Spectator #2: “Hey, ref, how can you sleep with all these lights on?”

Angry Spectator #3: “Get off your knees, ref; you’re blowing the game!”

Angry Spectator #4: “Ref! If you had one more eye, you’d be a cyclops!”

It was beautiful.

CONTENT WARNING: Stalking, Robbery, Violence

I’m a (female) landlord responsible for an apartment complex. The father of one of our tenants called to inform me that his son would not be able to continue his lease due to being jailed past the end of said lease.

I admit, I’m a bit nosy.

Me: “I… see. May I ask why he was jailed?”

The father went on to tell this story — not verbatim, but pretty close.

Father: “My son has been stalking and robbing women to support himself financially. He was arrested for pulling a knife on three ladies walking to a football game. It turned out that there was also a women’s boxing tournament that weekend. The ladies he attempted to rob were competing. They beat the stuffing out of him and detained him until the police arrived. He’s doing a lot of rethinking.” 

I don’t like violence, but Karma was on tap with this one, especially since I could have potentially been one of his victims.