My girlfriend and I are coming home after double-dating with one of our friends and we’re commenting on their relationship. The friends had a pretty big fight about when their anniversary was. We joke about the fact that we never remember when we met all the time and would never fly off the handle like that.

Me: “Babe, when is our anniversary?”

My girlfriend gives me a deer-in-headlights look.

Girlfriend: “Sometime in… May?”

Me: “Really? I thought it was sometime in September.”

Girlfriend: “Crap. There has to be a way to figure this out, right?”

Me: “What movie did we see before we started dating? That will help.”

Girlfriend: “Were we together when The Avengers came out, or was it The Hobbit?”

Me: “Uhh, we saw the last Hobbit together, right?”

Girlfriend: “But we were together before that, so November?”

Me: “That doesn’t sound right.”

Girlfriend: “I know… Shoot, I know your birthday and you know mine. You know what? I know how to solve this.”

She walks into our spare room and comes out with our year calendar and the darts from the dartboard.

Girlfriend: “All right, I’m going to throw a dart and whatever day it lands on is our anniversary.”

Me: “Sounds fair enough.”

She throws a dart and then goes and looks at it and starts cracking up.

Me: “What date did it land on?”

Girlfriend: “TODAY!”

I work at a major hardware store, specifically dealing with lawn equipment. I approach a young couple looking at some leaf blowers and ask if they have any questions. The ones they are examining double as vacuums.

Me: “Good afternoon, folks! Do you have any questions about any of these leaf blowers?” 

The woman says nothing, but the guy…

Guy: “So these things suck and blow? Blow and suck?”

He chuckles at his own jokes. I don’t really have a problem with these jokes if they’re done well enough, but I find most of them to just be low-hanging fruit.

Me: “Yes, yes, very mature. But yes, they do indeed double as a vacuum to save you the trouble of picking up leaves yourself.”

Guy: “So they do suck and blow! Kinda like that old joke.”

At this point, his girlfriend rolls her eyes. He prods me with his elbow and chuckles.

Guy: “She doesn’t get it.” 

Me: *Unable to help myself* “Does that mean you don’t, either?” 

He shut up and grabbed the one he was looking at off the shelf. His girlfriend was laughing at him the whole way down the aisle.

My niece is around three.

Me: “I love you, [Niece].”

Niece: “I know. Everyone loves me.”

Me: “Oh? Everyone does?”

Niece: “Uh-huh. Mommy is always telling me she love me, and [Grandmother] does, and my teachers all love me.”

Me: “I understand why they would all love you. You’re smart, kind, and one of the best-behaved kids I’ve ever known. What’s not to love?”

I still smile when I remember her confidence in declaring everyone loved her. I hope she can keep up that self-esteem as she gets older!

This story is part of our Feel Good roundup for April 2021!

Read the next Feel Good roundup for April 2021 story!

Read the Feel Good roundup for April 2021!

Our flight was delayed, so we end up missing our connecting flight; it’s annoying, but things happen. I go to the check-in desk to get booked on the next DC flight. There’s a man in front of me who’s in the same predicament but is far more upset than I am. He’s shouting, red-faced, at the woman at the check-in desk, demanding he get on the flight we were originally booked for.

I want to be sure I get on the next available flight, so when he pauses for breath, I interject:

Me: “Hey, do you think she can turn the plane around?”

The man stops, turns, and stares at me.

Me: “The flight’s gone. She can put you on the next one, and I want to get on it, too. Let her do her job. She can’t bring back the one that already left.”

He glared at me but stopped yelling, and all of us who missed the original connection were able to get booked on the next one.

I work at a university. I worked as an administrative assistant in the physical science department for just over a year before transferring to an advising position for incoming freshmen.

My (now former) boss had a nasty habit of: 

1. spreading gossip (which I hate) about anyone and everyone to anyone and everyone, 
2. refusing to respect my boundaries and being both verbally abusive and emotionally manipulative,  
3. taking personal offense at any action they deemed “against” them, and 
4. taking those offenses and turning them into personal vendettas they tried to spread around campus by making up exorbitant lies.

I joined their vendetta list when I changed jobs without their “permission” (their words). The lies that have thus far gotten back to me include, but are not limited to:

1. I was a spy and was reporting all of their doings back to the dean so that they would get in trouble all the time.
2. Because of my excellent spy work, they are being demoted from department head to regular faculty — despite the fact they wrote an official memo requesting that they be allowed to step down.
3. I spread rumors all over campus that they hated the dean (their boss, whom they do hate) and undermined both their relationship and the dean’s position (which my former boss does all the time to anyone they talk to).

The best rumor, though, came through recently. My former boss claims that I am under investigation by both human resources and the campus police because I have been demanding/extorting money — a felony — from instructors and other staff to do work for them, despite the fact that I look like I’m eighteen and am about as intimidating as a dandelion. And apparently, I am about to be fired for it (I’m not).

All in all, it’s just free — if sometimes inconvenient — entertainment for me, though I did report that last one just in case it made its way to people who don’t know me and became a real issue. Transferring jobs was one of the best things I’ve ever done; I’m not struggling with depression as much and am doing much better emotionally overall. 

And to be honest, it makes me smile every time I remember that I’m living rent-free in their head with the rest of their vendetta collection.