I am the submitter of this story. My mum has had a bit of a redemption arc (wild, I know). My husband and I are staying with her temporarily for a few months until we can find our forever home. She has been making a significant effort to be a better person, and we’ve both noticed and are appreciative of it. 

I wake up one day to the doorbell ringing and a handyman having arrived to fix the back porch. I go to open the gate to let him through to the back. My mum, who has been working in the backyard, comes up on the other side of the gate. It’s 8:00 in the morning, I haven’t brushed my teeth or even put my glasses on, and she comes out with:

Mum: “Good morning, [Handyman]! This is my daughter. Isn’t she pretty?“

Please note, I’ve never met the guy before. I cock my head at her and give her a completely unrestrained “WTF?” look. 

Handyman: *Awkward chuckle* “Yeah, you’re pretty!”

The cringe is palpable. I hold my “WTF” look for a couple more seconds before silently walking back into the house.

Later, when it isn’t so early in the morning anymore, I bring it up.

Me: “Mum, I don’t know what was going through your head this morning, but… maybe in future… don’t ask random handymen to comment on the appearance of your married twenty-nine-year-old daughter? That was so awkward.”

Mum: *Looking embarrassed* “You’re right; I didn’t think of that. I just… I never praised or said anything nice about you or [Brother] growing up, especially around other people. I only ever said bad things. I was trying to change that.”

I blink, silent for a moment.

Me: “Okay. That’s sweet. But still, terrible way to go about it, Mum! You kinda put both of us on the spot.”

I’ve started laughing at this point. Mum is sheepishly laughing, as well.

Mum: “I’m sorry. I won’t do it again.”

Me: “A for effort.”

Baby steps, but she’s getting there.

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Can’t Face The Face-Talking

My eldest sister has always been enabled by our parents who have constantly dug her out of holes she’s gotten herself into, usually forking up cash to pay her bills, mortgage, rent, and bankruptcy. She’s a spendthrift and has taken over my father’s garage with stored furniture because she had bought more.

I am having a discussion with my parents about building a garage on the back of my small property. All I want to know is if Dad has an idea of how much it would cost.

Dad: “What do you need another garage for? What’s wrong with the one you’ve got?”

Me: “We’re thinking about moving [Husband]’s workshop into it so we can use the garage for our cars. [Son] also wants to set up a gym; he might be getting a car soon, too.”

Mum: “Oh, it would be perfect to move all of [Sister]’s stuff into!” 

Me: “No, it’s not for—”

Dad cuts me off.

Dad: “You can build it double-storey so your sister can move in!”

Me: “No, she’s not moving in.”

Dad: “Why not? She’s being evicted again.”

Me: “Because I am just trying to make space to park two cars, and she has at least six, not to mention all the rest of the junk she has. She’s not moving into my place.”

Dad: “But she’s looking at over $700 a week in rent because she needs a big property to store all of her stuff. She needs a house and at least three double garages.”

Me: “I only have one garage, and we haven’t even decided to build another one yet. All of her cars will have to be parked at your place.”

Mum: “Oh! Maybe there’s not enough room.”

I remind myself never to try to discuss things that my parents can weasel my sister into. They already know that her husband has tried to take over their house in the past, which is why they don’t want them to move in with them.

The shop where I work sells and repairs smartphones, tablets, and computers. A somewhat common type of repair is water-damaged devices. Given that the small town I live and work in is fairly close to a few beaches, phones often get dropped in the water. The usual procedure for dealing with a water-damaged phone involves completely disassembling it, cleaning all of the electronic components, and touching up the soldering under a microscope as needed.

Usually, whenever my boss (or one of the other reception staff) accepts a phone from a customer, we ask them what happened and how long the phone was wet. Then, we technicians have an idea of what to expect, and we can give the customer an idea of what the cost is likely to be and what the likelihood is of a successful repair. (Very severely water-damaged phones can’t always be repaired, or it can be cost-prohibitive, which is much more common with salt water damage.)

One day, my boss hands me a phone.

Boss: “I need you to work on this fairly urgently. It has been water damaged and the customer needs it for her work.”

Me: “Okay, no problem.”

I open up the phone, and although there is some evidence of water inside on the frame, there is very little evidence of it on any of the main components. All I can spot is a very small amount of corrosion on one corner of the main system board, which is easy to clean up and fix.

Me: “This one really doesn’t look all that bad. I’m guessing this wasn’t salt water like the last few.”

Boss: “No, this was just town water.”

Me: “So, in the sink or something?”

Boss: “Um, no, not the sink. It was actually in the toilet.”

Me: “Oh, my goodness! Seriously?! You didn’t think to tell me that before?!”

Needless to say, I went to the bathroom straight away, washed my hands, and put gloves on for the rest of the repair. I made sure to give it a good clean and sanitise it after the repair.

And now, I always make sure to clarify where the water came from before I work on water-damaged phones. Lesson learned.

I work on the receiving team of an electronics retailer. We are also who people see to collect larger items, mainly televisions. It’s not uncommon for people to underestimate how much space their TV needs and try to collect it in a vehicle much too small. It’s recommended to transport them upright to prevent potential damage to the screen in transit; some people choose to ignore this, and others choose to come back with an appropriate vehicle another time or arrange delivery.

At the end of the day, it’s their choice; they’ve paid for the item so they can do what they want with it. I’ve seen people do plenty of stupid things to avoid having to come back or pay a delivery fee, but one guy takes the cake.

As soon as my colleague and I see his vehicle, it’s doubtful the TV will fit.

Us: “Sir, shall we do some measurements of the box to check if it will fit in your car?”

Customer: “No need. It’ll definitely fit.”

His first plan is to set the television on the floor in the rear, just behind the driver and passenger seats. We get the TV to his car and then see that he has his two toddler children in their car seats in the back seat, which is not a good start as I assume there would be some safety issue at play. However, we’re fairly confident the TV won’t fit there anyway, so we decide to humour him and prove it to hopefully end the silliness.

He has to move the driver and passenger seats a long way forward to even get the TV in place and then, sure enough, it’s too long and the back doors won’t close.

Sadly, it doesn’t end there.

Customer: “I’ll just have to lay it down to get it in.”

My customer service facade drops a little as I can’t comprehend where he thinks it will go. It might get in if he didn’t have the kids in the back seat and could fold the seat down and lay it through the boot into the back seat, but that’s not an option, and it’s not his plan.

His idea is so ridiculous that it didn’t even occur to me as a possibility: he’s going to lay the TV down across the back seat, on top of the kids in their car seats!

After a moment of shock, we regain our composure and point out to him:

Us: “Sir, if it doesn’t fit lengthways across the floor, it’s still not going to fit lengthways across.”

With a more reasonable person I might have tried the tactic of how much danger he was putting his kids in, but a more reasonable person wouldn’t have had this idea in the first place.

It takes some convincing, but we’re eventually able to get him to realise that it will not fit. He briefly contemplates the idea of laying it down inside the car the other way, with one end on top of the kids in the backseat and the other end resting in the front seat headrests, but he rules this idea out as it would be hitting him in the head.

I think it’s finally over, but not quite.

He decides now that things might be easier if the kids weren’t in the car and he could fold the back seat down. But instead of deciding to take them home and come back with an empty vehicle, he comments:

Customer: “If only my wife had come with me, I could leave the kids with her, take the TV home, and come back for them.”

After this comment, he looks hopefully at us, as though he’s expecting us to offer to watch his kids for him. We do not offer, of course, and remain silent, although I really want to point out that it wouldn’t make a difference to him if he took the kids home first and came back for the TV or took the TV home first and came back for the kids; it’s the same number of trips.

After we fail to offer to babysit, he sadly has one more brilliant idea.

Customer: “I’ll take the car seats out, fold the backseat down to fit the TV in, and then drive home with the kids in their car seats, which will be sitting on the passenger side in the front.”

Us: “That will be very unsafe for the kids and, honestly, is a terrible idea.”

He’s unsure and seems to want to try it, but after we continue to tell him not to, he finally has one genuinely good idea:

Customer: “I’ll call my wife to see what she thinks.”

Fortunately, she very quickly shut down his terrible idea before he even finished telling it to her and told him to bring the kids home and go back for the TV later. I was very happy when he decided to take her advice and left with his kids safely secured in their seats. If people had to pass a test before being allowed to become parents, he would have had no chance.

I’m from the USA, but I took a position teaching at a university in Australia. On my first day in Australia, one of my new colleagues asked me if I knew anyone in Melbourne.

Me: “One of my fellow Ph.D. candidates was from here. His name is [Candidate].”

My new colleague paused for a moment.

Colleague: “We’re having [Candidate] and his wife over for dinner tomorrow. Would you like to join us?”

We shared a mutual jaw drop over that coincidence.