Around eleven at night, a car started honking in our parking lot. I thought it was just someone honking at someone for cutting them off or something, but then it just didn’t stop, going on and on. It wasn’t regular enough to be a car alarm, and finally, my roommate got fed up enough to go out and see what was happening.

He went out to see that there was a car, idling in the middle of the lot, with the driver honking her horn repeatedly at apparently nothing. There were a couple of people nearby watching her, and one was apparently talking, or really shouting with her through the window.

“You need to let people sleep!” The guy by the window was saying. The woman shouted something back, and the guy pointed towards the back row of the parking lot. “There are plenty of spaces over there.”

At that point, my roommate had gotten close enough to hear what she said in response: “I don’t wanna walk that far.”

The guy who had been talking to her turned to my roommate. “She’s honking to get someone to move their car so she can park.”

The lady started honking again, and my roommate slapped his hand down on her roof, getting her to jump. Something to know about my roommate is that he has very little tolerance for bulls***, especially when he is tired. The lady stopped honking, and he full-on roared at her. “Shut the f*** up and park your car, or I’m gonna start breaking s*** and shut it up myself.”

That got her moving, all the way out of the parking lot entirely. We didn’t hear another peep that night or since. Here’s hoping she’s learned her lesson from that.

In college in the late 1980s, I had my own private phone line set up in my dorm room. However, I guess the number was close to a couple of others because I kept getting phone calls for Mark, Rick, and Mike.

They were always on my answering machine, but that meant they weren’t actually listening to my message because it was, “Hello, you’ve reached [My Name] at [Phone Number]. I’m sorry I’m not here…”

I eventually got tired of the wrong numbers and changed my message:

“Hello, you’ve reached [My Name] at [Phone Number]. This isn’t Mark. This isn’t Rick. And I’m sorry, Melissa, but this isn’t Mike. If you wish to speak to one of them, please hang up and dial again. If you wish to leave a message for [My Name], please do so after the tone.”

Melissa called. It seems she had finally paid attention to the outgoing message, as she left me one, and I could hear her trying to keep from laughing the entire time.

“I’m sorry, [My Name]. I didn’t realize I had been leaving all those wrong messages. Maybe one of these days, I’ll get on out to California and I can finally meet the wrong number.”

However, finals week was upon us, so I changed my answering machine message to indicate that I was going to always be studying, so people should leave a message and maybe I’d get back to them sometime.

Melissa called again. It seemed she liked being called out on someone’s answering machine and I guess she called so she could show it to someone. Again, she was trying to keep it together on the phone:

“[My Name]! It’s Melissa. What happened? Don’t you love me anymore?”

I think I still have that cassette tape somewhere.

(This happens in the virtual world of Second Life. I work in Second Life, organizing shopping events where many merchants sell their virtual products, and it’s very common to send notices to customer groups so that the info about the event reaches everybody, i.e. address, flyers, number of participants, and so on.

Usually, store owners have time until the day before the opening to set up, so the location is closed to the public; otherwise, the flux of incoming people would make it almost impossible to decorate, etc. A random person sends me a message out of the blue:)

Customer: “Hello, [My Misspelled Name]. Is there any reason why you would send out the info about your event today—” *the seventh* “—when you state that it started on the second?”

Me: “Because it’s still going on until the tenth. It’s a fair.”

Customer: “Why wasn’t it sent out before the second?”

Me: “Because before the second it was not open.”

Customer: “But you knew it was going to happen.”

Me: “Guilty as charged.”

Customer: “Bloody ridiculous.”

Me: “It was an interesting conversation; thank you for your feedback!”

Customer: “Your attitude is appalling.”

(Seriously, I thought she was trolling me and sooner or later she would say something like, “Gotcha!” but sadly, she was serious! Entitled much?)

I’m in my mid-forties. My beloved hamster started to have blood in his urine at about the worst possible time, during the start of a widespread illness. I got a same-day emergency appointment and took him to my local vet who, thankfully, was open.

There was a large sign on their door asking patients not to enter if they showed any signs of the illness, but rather to call for further instructions. I stopped, read the sign, and then carefully entered, stopping at the tape marker before the receptionist’s desk. The receptionist was a woman in her sixties wearing gloves and other protective equipment.

I noted after greeting her that I had read the sign and had no symptoms. The vet, the receptionist, and I were all careful to keep separation as much as possible during the visit.

The visit went well and my hamster was prescribed antibiotics. As I was waiting to check out and pay, a woman in her sixties walked in the door with no pet and stood right next to me, despite the fact that the place had no other clients and she could easily have moved further away.

I moved away as far as I could get and still conduct my transaction.

The receptionist told the woman, “I need to ask you if you have read the sign.”

“What sign?” the woman asked.

“Please go outside and read the sign.”

The woman stepped out, huffing, and read the sign while the receptionist and I looked at each other in horror like, “Duh? There is a flipping world-wide crisis going on.” The receptionist actually smacked her forehead and I shook my head in sheer disbelief.

The woman stepped back in and said, “I read the sign. I’m fine,” and then flopped down in a chair as close to me as she could possibly get.

I looked at the receptionist like, “Help!” and she got me checked out and on my way as fast as possible. I fled out the door with my sweet boy — the receptionist was kind enough to hold the door for us — and I hear the woman asking her if she could buy a commonly available brand of dog food you can get at nearly any store.

I still can’t believe she’d risk her life in an international health crisis for dog food she could have ordered online or had delivered to her car at the nearest pet store, and then further do so by standing right next to someone.

If I get this illness, I have a pretty good chance of making it. People her age are dying at a rate of one out of three. If the CDC and WHO and everyone else tell you to separate as much as possible, do it!

Much as I am annoyed by young people partying on the beach during this, it’s not just them that are acting foolishly.

My hamster, by the way, is doing fine.

Years ago, I used to make a regular run between two cities for the company I worked for. I frequently picked up hitchhikers.

Hitchhiker: “Where are you headed?”

Me: “[City].”

Hitchhiker: “Great! The [Bus Company] driver knows me and he was being an a**hole and stranded me here. When do you expect to get to [City]?”

Me: “[Time].”

Hitchhiker: “Are you sure?”

Me: “Oh, yeah. I know my route pretty well.”

Hitchhiker: *Laughing* “We’ll beat the bus back. I’ll go talk to the station master when we arrive and I’ll tell him what the jerk did. The proof will be my luggage on the bus.”

I used to drive like a bat out of h***, so I beat the bus by about an hour. My return trip was 225 miles and we passed the bus on the highway before reaching town. I don’t know how it turned out as I dropped him off at the depot when we got in.