When my brother is in elementary school, he falls off the monkey bars and sprains his wrist pretty badly. My brother has a ridiculous pain tolerance and is screaming his head off, so there is worry that it is a break.

At the time, we only have one car, which is with my dad, who isn’t currently available. My mom calls a family friend to get my brother so they can get to the doctor and off they go. She doesn’t call my dad because she is in a rush and is planning on doing it when they get to the doctor, so my dad follows his regular routine and starts to head home. He happens to run into another family friend who knows what’s happened.

Family Friend: “Hey, have you talked to [Mom] yet?”

Dad: “Uh, I don’t think so. Why?”

Family Friend: “Oh, well, [Brother] fell and may have broken his wrist. I think she took him to [Urgent Care Office].”

Of course, my dad heads straight there and asks to be let in, but the front desk nurse won’t let him back. I’m not sure exactly why because most of the staff there know our family, so the only thing I can think of is that she is new and doesn’t know him. My mom hears the commotion and comes out and confirms he’s okay, and then they go back in to find that my brother’s wrist is not broken but sprained. The doctor splints the wrist and tells my brother to stay off the monkey bars for a few days and sends them home.

The next day, my brother comes home from school and my mom asks him about his wrist.

Brother: “It really hurts, Mom.”

He shows her his wrist and now there’s some very distinctive bruising.

Mom: “Come on. Let’s go back to the doctor.”

This time, my dad is home so they all go off to the clinic. They walk in and the nurse at the counter frowns as they come in.

Nurse: “Weren’t you just here?”

Mom: *Sigh* “Yes, but this time, it’s actually broken.”

While there isn’t any hesitation in getting things taken care of, there are other bills we are dealing with and an extra medical visit is not something we need right now.

Nurse: “Oh. Well, let me just put this in as a follow-up, okay?”

Mom: “Oh, you’re my new best friend!”

They go back and the doctor confirms that it is indeed broken this time.

Doctor: “I thought I told you to stay off the monkey bars?”

Brother: “I did! I was hanging on the single bars with my good arm and it was wet so I fell.”

Every adult in the room face-palms. I’ll give my brother one thing: he certainly is very good at not-quite malicious compliance.

Doctor: “Let’s get a cast on this, and then you need to stay away from all types of bars or hanging equipment for a while, okay?”

They splinted things and my brother got his cast. To this day, my mom thinks that the reason my brother was screaming so bad initially was that he really wanted a cast, and while he wouldn’t necessarily have gone out and purposely said, “Hey, let’s see what happens when I fall again!”, he still wanted that cast.

I work in a fabric outlet in Seattle; it’s this big warehouse building, very old, made of huge timbers and an uneven wood floor. We have tables of stuff, and we never know all of what we have because we’re an outlet and stock changes and fluctuates on a daily basis. A woman approaches me.

Customer: “What do you have here that I can’t get in Florida?”

Me: “Well, we do have some pretty unique fabrics over on this table.”

I lead her over to where we’ve set aside some pretty nifty leftover designer fabric. She barely glances at it and sniffs.

Customer: “No. I’m asking you to show me fabrics that you don’t have in the Florida stores.”

Me: “Ma’am, we are a local outlet store. We’re not a chain. We get what we get, and we don’t know what other stores may have in stock.”

Customer: “Then I suggest you do your job, get on your computer thingie, and look at their inventory!”

Me: “Ma’am, I can’t do that. Our outlet store isn’t able to search every other fabric store’s inventories.”

Customer: “So, what you’re telling me is that you’re useless?”

Me: *Coldly* “Goodbye, ma’am. Have a good day.”

I walked away.

Later, she ended up yelling at the manager about how everyone in this store was useless and that we were just too lazy to check “the computer thingies” for the inventories of fabric stores in Florida.

The manager eventually told her in professional tones to either walk through the store and look for herself or to leave. She left in a huff.

For my birthday, my husband volunteered to supervise a sleepover with our kids and my best friend’s kids so that my best friend and I could have a night away with no responsibilities. We had fun, the kids had a blast, and my husband got a funny story when he found my best friend’s five-year-old wandering the hall at one in the morning.

Husband: “Is everything okay? Do you need something?”

Five-Year-Old: “I’m just… I’m looking…”

Husband: “Can I help you find something?”

Five-Year-Old: “I’m looking for my most favorite thing in the world.”

Husband: “What is it?”

Five-Year-Old: *Wide-eyed, deadpan* “I DON’T KNOW.”

She eventually wandered back to bed, and to this day, we have no idea what her favorite thing is.

Two of my coworkers are checking and bagging respectively; the bagger, given the global health crisis, is wearing a mask with “SPACEBALLS: THE FACE MASK” in large lettering. A customer comes up through the line and begins unloading her groceries onto the belt. My coworker on the register greets her and asks if she’d like any paper bags. 

The customer, looking right at the bagger and his facemask, says: 

Customer: “Oh, yes, please! I forgot my balls at home.” 

Cue a beat of silence… after which everyone present bursts into laughter.

Customer: “Yes, I would like some bags so I can get my groceries home, seeing as how I can never come back here again now!”

One evening when I was young, the Seattle area was experiencing one of its windstorms, which can produce winds up to ninety miles an hour. My dad came home from work a bit later than usual. He explained that the road had been blocked by a tree felled by the wind. When he got to the downed tree, he was in a small line of traffic; people were honking their horns and he saw the same thing on the other side of the tree.

Dad is pragmatic. He turned on his hazard lights, shut off his engine, got out of the car, went to the driver of the stopped car in front of him, and explained a plan.

Dad: “There are at least a dozen cars blocked by this tree, meaning there are at least a dozen drivers. Surely we can lift the tree together and move it out of the way. Honking certainly isn’t going to move it, and it’s not on any power lines or anything dangerous.”

And he was right: there were enough drivers and passengers who were willing and able to pick up the tree and carry it to the side of the road. After a couple of minutes, traffic was able to pass the road as usual.

I still live in the greater Seattle area, and since getting my driver’s license, I have twice been in the same situation. Both times, I’ve done what my dad did, telling the other drivers, “A while back, this happened to my dad, and he had an idea…” And every time, we get the tree moved in a matter of minutes. Teamwork for the win!