When I was a teenager, I sometimes drank alcohol, and though it is illegal to give or sell alcohol to teenagers, technically, it is not illegal for teenagers to drink here in Sweden, though many think of it as equivalent.

Two friends and I were having some drinks on a very small pier by a lake one evening. We also brought some food, like sandwiches and fruit; it was like a picnic, with alcohol involved.

The beach was a very small one; however, if you continued along the lake, there was a big beach not far from this one. There were no houses nearby and, as such, the empty beach felt like a very isolated place, so we talked and had a lot of fun.

At one point, one of my friends was peeing up by the woods, and we saw two flashlights approaching the beach. She came running down to us, still putting her skirt in place.

Friend #1: “It’s the police!”

Both my friends started to panic. I told them to calm down, having been taught that the police are just doing their jobs and are not out to get us like some people seem to think.

As the police arrived, I smiled at them. I couldn’t really see their faces seeing as it was dark, and they were behind flashlights, but I could see enough to see that they were in uniforms.

Me: “Good evening.”

Police: “Good evening. We’ve gotten a call about a disturbance. Apparently, a bunch of teenagers are drinking, screaming, and having a big, loud party. Do you know anything about that?”

Me: “No, we are just having a picnic, and it is just the three of us. If there is a party, I hear it is usually over by the big beach.”

Police: “Oh, we see. But you are drinking.”

Me: “Yes, we are.”

My friends were pale; they didn’t say a word.

Police: “Is everyone all right? Does anyone need to go to the hospital?”

Me: “No, I don’t think so.”

I looked at my friends. They still didn’t say anything, but frankly, I didn’t think any one of us was beyond tipsy.

Me: “We’re fine.”

Police: “All right, well, be careful. Here by the water, you can fall in, and if you do, you might not get out; it is cold at this time of night, and your body might go into shock. You are quite far away from the road, so it would take time for help to get here.”

Me: “Yes, thank you. We’ll be careful.”

Police: “All right, well, have a good evening, and don’t hesitate to call if you need any help.”

Me: “Have a good evening!”

Then, they left, and my friends looked at me.

Friend #2: “Wow! You were so calm!”

Me: “Well, there was no reason to worry. Worst case scenario, they would’ve taken our drinks.”

Then, we started wondering what disturbance they had come for. We would’ve noticed a big party, seeing as some people would’ve most likely gone past our beach to get there. Also, we should’ve heard it.

Looking out at the lake, we saw the lights of the houses which were basically on the other side of it. We concluded that someone probably heard the echo of three girls laughing over the water and felt that it disturbed their evening.

I work for the Stockholm transportation service for elderly and/or disabled people who can’t use public transportation. It’s a relatively easy job; customers call, order a taxi or sick transport, I enter it into the system, the customer is billed at the end of the month, and that’s that. To our aid, we have an extensive database of all the nooks and crannies of Metropolitan Stockholm, so you’d think there’d be zero ways to mess up a booking, right? Wrong.

One late evening, close to midnight, a customer calls in asking where her taxi is. 

Me: “Could you please confirm to me which address you were going from?”

Customer: “From [Street] in [County #1] — and I specifically told the booking agent that it was [County #1] — for 2325 hours [11:25 pm]. But now the taxi driver has called me asking where I am. Turns out you guys sent my taxi to [Street] in [County #2]!”

I look in horror at the booking; the customer is absolutely right. The exact same street name is to be found in several counties of the Stockholm region, which is why we have our database to avoid screw-ups like these. Plus, we are told to double-check with the customer if there’s the slightest ambiguity.

But the calamity doesn’t end there. The customer has three more identical bookings, each scheduled for thirty minutes later than the initial booking. She’s adamant that she’s only spoken to the initial booking agent and then me, and while I wonder where the cloned extra bookings have come from, this is not the time to start loudly debating their source of origin.

Me: “Well, I apologise profusely for the mishap, madam. Let me just order a new taxi for you, to the right address. And to confirm, it will be from [Street] in [County #1].”

Customer: “Sounds great! And when will it be here?”

Usually, during the wee hours, we can get a taxi fairly quickly. However, the cloned trips had already been distributed to various taxi companies, meaning I could no longer cancel or delete them. And because we have an archaic booking system, to put it mildly — think 1980s Telnet data terminal and only keyboard commands — the system won’t let us place another booking if there’s already a trip booked for that time frame. (Again, this made me ponder where the clones had come from; there should have been one, tops!). I ended up having to deliberately push the real booking by twenty-five minutes just to make the system shut up.

And the icing on the cake? The customer will have to call our customer service in the morning to have these four erroneous bookings refunded; it’s not something that we mortal phone monkeys can do. All this shambles is just because some moron of a coworker couldn’t be bothered double-checking a simple county name with the customer!

My biological father was a bit absent when I was a child (and not in the picture at all from my mid-teenage years, but that’s a different story) and therefore, he did not spend as much time with us as my older brother and I would have liked. This meant he was sometimes a bit oblivious about things regarding my brother and me, which we, of course, found a bit distressing.

We were visiting a zoo, and the following conversation took place at the entrance. It’s worth noting that it was free admission for children younger than four. I was five at the time.

Entrance Host: “And how many tickets would you like?”

Father: “One grown-up and one child. My youngest is only three.”

I was a bit annoyed at my father for forgetting such an important thing as my age.

Me: “But Dad! You’re forgetting that I’m five years old!”

The entrance host shared a look with my dad, who paid for my ticket, as well, without another word.

It was only when I got older that I realised that my age was probably NOT one of the things he was oblivious to.

This is about when I was that stupid customer calling the IT helpdesk. I had a new computer, which I had done a lot of research on before purchasing to get good quality for an affordable price. I was a teenager, still living at home.

Since my mom was against Wi-Fi, we did not have that, and I asked her to bring the network cable. As she came with it, I showed her where it should be plugged in, as she wanted to help.

However, the Internet didn’t work, I restarted the computer, I restarted the modem, and I checked that she had put the cable in properly. It still didn’t work. After troubleshooting and repeating the steps a few times, I called for help.

IT Guy: “This is [IT Guy]; how can I help you?”

Me: “Hi. My Internet is not working.”

IT Guy: “All right, have you checked that the modem is plugged in?”

Me: “Yes.”

IT Guy: “Try to reboot it.”

Me: “I’ve done that, but I’ll try again.”

This went on for a while, redoing all the steps I’d done, and even together, we couldn’t seem to find the problem.

IT Guy: “What kind of cable do you have between your modem and your computer?”

Me: “A network cable.”

IT Guy: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Yes, I’ve checked that it is in a few times.”

IT Guy: “Can you describe it to me?”

I sighed and got in behind the computer again, this time pulling it out enough to see it properly, and guess what? It was not as wide as it should have been!

Me: “It looks like a telephone cable.”

I could hear the IT guy trying really hard not to laugh, and I got really embarrassed.

Me: “All right, thank you. I’ve found the problem.”

IT Guy: “No, it is all right. I’ll wait and see that you get it all up and running.”

Me: “All right, hang on. MOM! I NEED A NETWORK CABLE!”

Mom: “Another one?”

Me: “This is a telephone cable.”

Mom: “Isn’t that the same thing?”

I was actually quite happy that she couldn’t hear the laughs on my phone as she already had an embarrassed and annoyed teenage girl on her hands. It cannot have been easy for her.

Anyway, my Internet worked perfectly once I had gone through her network and phone cables to find the right kind, my mom got to learn the difference between them, and the IT guy got a good laugh. So, all in all, it worked out well for all of us.

I’m going to sell some kittens that my cat had. I do my research, I have them vaccinated and put out an ad with cute pictures and a small video of one of them going up to sniff the camera.

I am quite sure it will go well, even though the people advising me, think my price of 1000SEK (about $110 USD) is crazy. Personally, I feel whoever is going to take the kittens, should care enough to pay for them.

I get an email that my ad is approved and within a minute I get my first call; the next hour is crazy! I have people calling, emailing, texting, all at the same time. I start writing some down on a waiting list in case the first takers won’t take the cats after meeting them but quickly resort to letting them know there is already a long list, that I can write their name if they want but that they probably won’t hear from me.

 Then this lady calls:

Lady: “Hello, I saw your ad and I want the girl.”

Me: “Oh, I’m sorry but there are already many people wanting the kittens…”

Lady: “Yes well, I only want the girl.”

Me: “Yes, most people want the girl; there is already a very long queue.”

Lady: “I’ll pay double.”

Me: “That is very nice of you, but I’ve already promised the first caller they can come and see her and it wouldn’t feel fair to them, if she backs down I might be able to—”

Lady: “No, you give me the girl. I need a cat for my summer house so she’ll be out on the island; it will be very nice for her. I want the girl; I’ll pay four times the amount.”

A cold chill immediately goes down my spine, having heard of summer cats, left to fend for themselves over winter, most of them dying, and being willing to pay that much seems excessive unless it is something weird about it. I couldn’t be sure that was her plan, but I told myself not to sell the cats to anyone who gave me a bad feeling.

Me: “No, I’m sorry, there are a lot of people before you in queue, so she is already taken.”

Lady: “Alright, well can you put me in second place at least?”

Me: “No, you’re not getting on the list.”

Lady: “You’re very unprofessional!” *Hangs up.*

I sigh and take the next call to tell them the cats have been sold.

Me: “Hello, how can I help you?”

Woman: “Yes, I’m interested in your kittens.”

Me: “Yeah, they are booked and there is a long queue…”

Woman: “Then why haven’t you taken the ad down?”

In my head, I instantly wonder the same.

Me: “Well, honestly, I haven’t really had time, it only went live an hour ago.”

Woman: “Well, you should!”

Me: “Yes, thank you!”

It took a while to log in and take it down, but showing the list to those who doubted me did make me feel a bit better about the ordeal, especially knowing I kept to my principles through the whole thing.