I signed up for a still life painting course. In discussion with the organiser, I explained that I was looking to gain some experience and learn to paint different things. They seemed to say all the right words and convinced me that this was for me.

In the first class, I noticed two things straight away. One was that I was the only man, and the second was that the room was full of paintings of flowers.

I didn’t really register anything into either, but I wasn’t surprised that the first thing we painted was a vase of flowers.

The next thing was a different bunch of flowers and then another bunch of flowers.

After a while, I started to want something new. I enjoyed it, but I wasn’t going to paint flowers at home. This wasn’t teaching me much.

After being presented with another bunch of flowers:

Me: “Sorry, but will we be painting anything else?”

Instructor: “You don’t like these flowers?”

Me: “They’re fine, but I was expecting something different at some point. I don’t know, fruit, people, or something.”

Instructor: “Don’t worry, your masculinity won’t be hurt by flowers.”

Me: “I didn’t say that. I don’t mind painting flowers, but that’s all we’ve done. I was hoping for variety.”

Instructor: “Well, I’m sorry but that’s all I prepared.”

I went with it for now, but when the next painting was of flowers again, I had to say something.

Me: “Sorry, but are we going to do anything different at all?”

Instructor: “The subjects will be chosen by me.”

Me: “Fine, just wanted to know. Excuse me; I have a phone call to make.”

I called the company and ask to cancel, explaining my reasons. They begged me to try one more class and said that they would talk to the instructor.

I went to the next class.

Instructor: “Thanks to somebody, we will have to not finish last week’s painting. Instead, we have a new model.”

She pulled off the cloth to reveal the still life: instead of a vase of flowers, it was… flowers on a plate. I got up and left, got some of my money back, and found a new instructor.

I wasn’t shocked to see some of the people from the last course in the new one.

When I was still a teen, I helped at the nursery of our church and then “graduated” to an assistant for the new daycare program they started for kids three to six years old.

One little girl that I remember fondly was an extrovert who truly loved being in our class and getting to spend time with the other little kids. Unfortunately, she also suffered from a severe case of separation anxiety. Back when I had her in the nursery, she could cry through the entire sermon until her mother came back to get her. This led to an odd dichotomy: a child that loved to be in our classroom and yet cried as if she was being tortured whenever she was first dropped off.

I had one game I liked playing with a few of the kids during snack time where I would go up to the child and dare them not to smile, then just stay in their face reminding them not to smile and commenting if they were starting to smile, etc. The absurdity of trying not to smile always makes one smile, and most kids would end up smiling within a few minutes. Since the aforementioned girl happened to have the most beautiful smile, capable of lighting up a room, she was almost always one of the kids I’d do this game with just to see that smile.

Eventually, like some sort of Pavlovian response, she got to the point that just telling her not to smile would lead to a giant smile. Not wanting to lose, she would cover her face with her hands, so now the game was to see if I could “find” the smile she was hiding.

This was so reliable that I started to use the trick on her whenever she was dropped off. She would always be handed to me bawling her eyes out. I’d find some way to distract her for a split second so she would listen to me — I’d even pretend to bump her or trip just to get her attention if I had to — then, once she was listening, I would tell her not to smile. Her hands would immediately go to cover up a big smile, and after a brief game of “hunting” for the smile, she would give up, beam at me with her smile for a second, and then get put down to happily run off to find some kids to play with, having forgotten all about her crying and separation anxiety.

Then, one day, my family was out for a vacation and I wasn’t there to help with the class on Sunday. The girl’s mother came down to drop her off as usual, but when she learned I wasn’t there to take the girl from her mother, she asked if she should just keep her daughter with her in church so her daughter wouldn’t distract the rest of the class. Apparently, she had decided I was a miracle worker and the only one capable of stopping her daughter from crying and was worried the girl would cry through the entire class, like she used to do in the nursery without me.

Of course, as much as I’d like to claim I was a miracle worker, mostly the girl had simply been growing up over the year between when I first saw her in the nursery and then, and she had better control of her separation anxiety. So, while I’m told she did have a harder time adjusting to the classroom without me to comfort her, she managed to calm herself on her own enough to enjoy the class within ten minutes or so. Still, I did feel touched that her mother had such faith in me.

I still have fond memories of that sweet little girl, her beautiful smiles, and her convincing her mother I was a miracle worker.

I am about twenty-two years old, female, and an undergraduate student worker in administration at my university. We have an open-door policy in the office, i.e. the door is always at least ajar.

I’m in the office on the computer, logging class times in the system, when a male lecturer (teacher) walks in with this line.

Lecturer: “Hey! Has anyone told you you look beautiful today?”

I’m stunned and just stare at this man for a good ten seconds before I manage to speak.

Me: “Excuse me?”

Lecturer: “I need help with [issue].”

I sit him down and help him out. All the time, my heart is beating like mad. After all is sorted, I gather my courage and speak out.

Me: “If that’s all, could I just say that when you came in and the first words out of your mouth were that I ‘looked beautiful,’ that really made me very uncomfortable.”

Lecturer: “Oh, I always do that. I always compliment people before I ask them for a favour; I think that softens the blow.” *Laughs*

Me: “Well, helping you is literally my job, so it was completely unnecessary.”

Lecturer: “Oh. I see. I’m sorry.”

Me: “Thank you for your apology.”

He leaves and I go on my lunch break. While I’m still wondering how (and if) I should inform my boss of this incident, she forwards me an email from the lecturer.

Lecturer: *After something unrelated* “I managed to offend your worker, [My Name]. I told her she was beautiful and she didn’t appreciate it.”

Yeah, thanks for that non-apology, you p***k. I clarified the incident to my boss and she took my side. Sexual harassment was, at the time, a club I had not yet been admitted to, and it’s not one I like being in.

In sixth form, I volunteered to be a classroom assistant for the lower years during some of my free periods. One of the lessons I assisted with was for year-sevens (eleven- and twelve-year-olds) who needed some additional support with maths. In one lesson, we were covering probability, and the teacher finished up with some revision.

Teacher: “What is the chance that a tossed coin will fall showing heads?”

Students: *Chorusing* “One in two!”

Teacher: “What is the chance of a dice rolling a four?”

Students: “One in six!”

The questions continued like this for a little while longer, until…

Teacher: “What’s the chance that [Other Teacher] will run into the classroom right now in a sarong and a rainbow wig?”

Students: *Giggling and uncertain* “Zero?!”

Right on cue, the other teacher burst into the classroom in the described outfit and chaos descended. I’m not sure if they ever did that again, but it definitely made probabilities memorable!

This happened some years ago. I was one of the leaders at a scout camp for around twenty scouts, age ten to fourteen or so. One of the activities that we always have on any scout camps is a “night run”. This means we let the scouts go to sleep for an hour or two, and then after midnight, we wake them up with some kind of noise, ask them to hurry out, and then give them a task to do in the dark.

This camp was during the wintertime. Anyone unfamiliar with the weather on the Faroe Islands should just know that you do not want to sleep in a tent during this time of the year unless you are absolutely sure you want to catch a nasty flu. It’s just wet and miserable. All the scouts were sleeping in a long low-rise building with loads of rooms on either side of a long hallway.

This year, we wanted to make the night run about a murder mystery. The leaders responsible for waking up the scouts had borrowed a smoke machine because they wanted to fill up the hall with smoke. After it was full enough, they would make a huge amount of noise as if there was a fire and then chase all the half-awake scouts up.

The next part I was told afterward since my task was further away from this building.

The leaders had started to fill up the hallway with smoke, which turned out to smell like bananas. After just a tiny amount of smoke had come into the hall, the real fire alarm went off! The leaders got very surprised since they either had forgotten these alarms or they for some reason didn’t think this smoke would set it off.

But even more surprised were they when non of the scouts came running out. Not one! After opening some doors, they found out, that all of the scouts were still sound asleep, while the alarm was blaring away in the hallway.

The leaders had to personally bang on each and every door to wake up the scouts, who came out in a daze and acted like there wasn’t a fire alarm going. Even after they got out, the leaders found out that three or four scouts had just gone back to sleep! The leaders weren’t too happy about that.

Now, as I said, this happened some years ago, and the building was already at that point a bit old and needed an update. This update has since come for the whole campsite, and the fire alarm has also been changed for a better one. But I am very, very glad that this was discovered during a night run and not during an actual fire!