(So I’m a pretty shy person and I don’t get out much. I met my first boyfriend on a dating site. So when I was eventually ready to get back out there I went onto another dating site. Started chatting with a cute guy and eventually we agreed to meet up for a date. I follow a strict rule when I meet people from online. Always in a public setting. So he and I decided to have a date at the mall, you know, window shop, talk and then get something to eat. When I saw him…it wasn’t that he was bad looking, because he wasn’t! But you ever just get a feel for someone that’s not quite right? I am ashamed to admit that as soon I saw him face to face…I wanted to go home and play games. But I knew that was bad and I had to give it a chance and not be a b****. So we started our date…I have never tried so hard to get someone to speak before!)
Me: “So, what’s your favorite color?”

Him: “I dunno.”

Me: “What do you think of the picture on that shirt?”

Him: “I dunno.”

Me: “What do you want to eat?”

Him: “I dunno.”

(It was like trying to pull teeth! I asked him if he had any questions for me and his answer was, you guessed it, ‘I dunno’. The date went on for a couple hours. We ate and I talked, trying to find some common ground. At the end of the date he kissed me, hard. And no, not the good kind of hard that goes with passion. He pushed my lips into my teeth, cutting them and stuck his tongue in my mouth and just let it sit there. I quickly pulled away)

Me: “Um, I’m sorry, but I don’t think this is working…”

Him: “Yeah, I kinda figured. When did you realize it?”

(I didn’t want to be mean and say ‘When I first saw you’)

Me: “When we had lunch.”

Him: “Really? It took you that long?”

Me: “Yeah…why? When did you realize it?”

Him: “When we went into [Store].”

(Which was the first shop we went into…)

Me: “Really?”

Him: “Yeah. You tried to force me to buy a Harry Potter wand.”

(I had picked up a wand and laughing said, “You know you want to buy this for $40.” I guess he didn’t get sarcasm. Also, I am a HUGE Harry Potter nerd, so I’m not dissing Harry Potter. I was just laughing because it was so expensive for a plastic stick. After the date ended and I got home I noticed I had several messages from him. He was telling me we needed to talk about our date and discuss what went wrong so we would not make those mistakes with others in the future. I tried to gently tell him that there was no need to do that. He didn’t get it. So the last message I sent to him was a little rude, I said, ‘Um, no. The date went badly so we don’t really need to talk again.’ I ended up having to delete my profile because when I banned him he kept creating new accounts to tell me that we needed to talk about it. If anyone cares, I am now in a happy and healthy relationship with a totally amazing guy who understands my Harry Potter obsession.)

(I used to work for a mobile phone company. Part of my job includes giving the prices for travel abroad. Sometimes, I make small talk about their plans.)

Customer: I’m going on holiday to Angola. How much will my phone calls cost out there?
Me: Angola? Sure. Outgoing calls are [price], Incoming calls are [price], and texts are [price]. I read recently that Angola has the highest cost of living in the world.
Customer: Yes, it’s extortionate. I used to live there when I worked in the oil industry. I had a basic, 3 bedroom apartment. How much do you think my employer paid in rent?
Me: I have no idea.
Customer: Eighteen thousand US dollars, every month, cash, two years in advance.
Me: Eighteen thous- you mean five digits?
Customer: Five digits. Every month. The corruption in government is so bad that if you want to get anything done, that is what you have to pay in bribes. A tomato is about forty bucks.
Me: Wow! I think we have it easy here.
Customer: We do. Be grateful.
(Indeed, I am.)

When I am 8 and a half, we immigrate to a new country. It takes me close to a year to become fluent in the new language. This story takes place in the first 1-2 months, when I essentially don’t understand a word yet.
To lift up my self-esteem a bit in this new intimidating alien environment, I stop wearing my hair in a plain ponytail, instead wetting and braiding it every night so I can wear it loose and wavy to school. I think it makes me look quite a bit prettier.
Within a week of me beginning wearing my hair that way, I start getting semi-regularly physically attacked by a rather creepy boy from my class. He comes up behind me seemingly out of nowhere in random places around the school, at unexpected times, grabs me and bodily holds me against him; pressing me against the floor, a wall, etc., and silently staring at me while I frantically struggle. Each time, it takes me several minutes to tear myself free and escape. Most of the time when this happens there are other students around, sometimes even a full crowded hallway. No one ever helps in any way; they just stand and watch like it’s great entertainment.
I become progressively more alarmed and frightened, but have no way to do anything like ask for help because I can’t speak their language, and I was never given any instruction by anyone at the school about what to do if I’m assaulted. The only way I can communicate with anyone at the school is via a classmate who was (unwillingly) assigned as my interpreter, but she only helps me with this strictly during lessons, when she’s forced to, and it’s clear she is aware of my being assaulted and is acting like this sort of bullying is an everyday, “business-as-normal” occurrence around here that you just have to put up with.
The last incident, after many weeks of such attacks, entails the creepy boy stalking and cornering me alone in one of the girls’ restrooms, and again bodily grabbing me to hold me tight against a wall, while pressing his whole body against me and intently staring at me nose to nose, breathing in my face. Again, it takes me a number of minutes of frantic struggling to escape his grasp and out of the bathroom. At this point I’m terrified for my life. Meanwhile, nobody at the school in any position of authority seems to have noticed anything amiss.
Finally, in desperation, I ask my mother for help. We have a poor relationship and she cares very little for my well-being as long as I still return from school more-or-less alive every day. I have to beg and plead with her for a really long time to even take me seriously, and frame the attacks I’m being subjected to as if they’re an insult against our entire family in order to get her to care enough to agree to help.
Her solution: come to school with me in the morning, have me point out the boy to her, and then proceed to grab him forcefully by the ear and scream threats at him for a good ten minutes (in a language he doesn’t understand) while yanking him around. Meanwhile a ton of kids in the hallway are standing around staring at this scene in fascination. She finally finished screaming at him to her heart’s content, and then just left.
What was the school’s response you wonder? Our class teacher and principal decided that the best way to address this problem was to berate me (through my assigned “interpreter”) about what my MOTHER did. Apparently, I “ought to have known” (god only knows *how*) that people in THIS country don’t BEHAVE THIS WAY. I suppose they meant that THEIR country and THEIR school is more “civilized” than where I came from, though even decades later I fail to see how, considering all of what happened. They declared that I ought to have known all along that the correct thing to do was to go to them to complain about the creepy boy, ignoring that no one at the school ever told me anything about this procedure before, and I was from a *very different* country and culture *and* couldn’t speak a word to them. It didn’t matter in the end anyway, as they were utterly uninterested in anything I had to say in response in any case.
The boy finally stopped attacking me and left me alone, at least. I ended up deciding to quit wearing my hair in any similarly styled way for many years afterwards. Various incidents of verbal and physical bullying & assault from many of the “civilized” students there continued for the entire rest of the six years we lived in that country.

This isn’t my story but was told to me by a friend who has sadly passed on. Any errors or misinformation about his profession are my own. My friend, let’s call him Bob, was a veterinarian in a small southern city and, while he had many stories, this one, from the years right before he retired, was my favorite.

Bob:
Now I treated most of the animals in town but my best clients came from one family. They were some of the movers-and-shakers in town and the grandmother, we’ll say her name was Mrs. Smith, was the matriarch of that large and influential brood. So when she decided I was the only one who could treat her dogs, well, everyone in the family had to agree and couldn’t take their own animals anywhere else. It was a good setup for me.

Until the day Petey entered my life.

Petey was Mrs. Smith’s latest over-bred Chihuahua and I’ve never treated a meaner cuss. I got into this business because I love animals and always thought that each dog was a good dog, deep down but Petey? He tested my faith to the core. This dog was all teeth and orneriness.

Unfortunately for the both of us, his lineage had left Petey with a chronic heart issue. I got him on the proper medicine but he was never going to have a long life. I can’t say I shed any tears but of course I did my best to make sure his years would be as good as possible.

Of course, this meant that on the regular, about every two to three weeks, I’d get a call in the middle of the night from Mrs. Smith and each time it was the same. “Oh, Dr. Smith, it’s Petey’s time, I know it is! Can you come and see if you can’t do a little something for him?”

So of course I’d get dressed and drive on over, most of the time to find a dog that was perfectly fine, all things considered, and just wanted a bit more attention or treats or a chance to take off a piece of my arm. A few times he was having an episode but was easily treated and the way that Mrs. Smith spoiled him afterwards ensured I’d get another call before long.

Now Mrs. Smith was no spring chicken herself. After one of these episodes, once I’d gotten Petey back on his tiny feet, she turned to me and said, “Now Dr. Bob, I can’t bear to be without my Petey. You know my time will come one of these days and I want you to promise that you’ll see that Petey is buried with me.” It took a bit of questioning but I came to realize that she meant she wanted me to euthanize Petey if she predeceased him.

So I had to look down at this ornery little teeth and meanness in dog form with the full knowledge that not a one of her many offspring would take him in and the shelter itself would put him down if they got him and so, if she died first, this dog would have no one except for myself willing to give him a home. And lord knows I didn’t want him in my house.

That dog will never know what it cost me to tell her that, I’m sorry Mrs. Smith, but professional ethics forbid me from euthanizing a healthy animal. I had to speak loudly, partly because she was a mite deaf but mostly because Petey never stopped growling at me.

I treated that dratted dog to the best of my professional ability for the next few years, living in constant fear that Mrs. Smith’s day would come and I’d be stuck with that pint-sized bear trap.

Finally one day his heart (helped along by the many treats Mrs. Smith swore she wasn’t giving him) had all it could take and that was the end for little Petey. Usually I mourn with the family but this time I can’t say that I felt much of anything besides a large amount of relief. Rest in peace, little Petey, heaven knows you didn’t spread any here on earth.

And then Mrs. Smith went looking for a replacement Petey.

I’ve seen a lot in my business but I’ll never forget that time my ethics were tested and realizing in that moment, as I looked at this little cuss, that I’ve never been closer to breaking my oath. I’m glad I didn’t but I’m even more glad that Mrs. Smith was too stubborn to die before that dratted dog!

(Over the weekend, I get new sunglasses with green lenses. I refuse to answer people unless they say, “calling green world.” My mom refuses or just plain forgets.
On Monday, she drops me off. I join up with my friends.)
Mom: *shouting across the playground* “Calling green world! Calling green world! [My Name]! You forgot your lunchbox!”
(I was so embarrassed, I never wore the glasses again! Good job showing me the error of my ways, mom!)