I’m Hispanic and In Texas, I look more at home on a construction site than an academic campus, so yeah a lot of stories. Waiting for the elevator in the morning going to work was an Indian guy with big beard speaking on the phone in Hindi. Two younger girls, probably new students, are waiting and one is starting to look uncomfortable and whispers to the other girl. He hangs up and we get on the elevator. The one girl is still looking nervous.

Me to the guy “hey was that ‘his daughter’ on the phone”

Him “yes, it is”

Me “tell her ‘my daughter’ is still trying to learn to hop like a bunny, and she makes me sing that song to her”

Him quietly singing “see the bunnies sleeping almost till noon”

Me following “shall we wake them with a merry tune”

Both of us “hop little bunny, hop hop hop!”

Him “I will tell her, and now I will have the song stuck in my head all day”

Me “‘my daughter’ made me learn it and sing it all week after she learned it from you!”

I have to get off on my floor.
As the doors start to close he shouts out “of the weather is nice I will try to take her to the park tomorrow, I’m sure you will you be taking ‘my daughter’ as usual”

I turn and see the first girl is bright red and the second is trying hard not to laugh. I’m sure they were not expecting two “scary looking” dudes singing nursery rhymes in the elevator.

This took place when my husband, baby and I temporarily lived with his parents. I am getting ready to leave for a doctor’s appointment. I have my baby in her infant car seat and am grabbing the last few things that we need. I go upstairs to use the bathroom and when I come back down, my mother-in-law is getting my daughter out of her car seat. She was not fussy, so I am confused.

Me: Why are you getting (Daughter) out of her seat?

MIL: I decided that I will watch her while you go to your appointment. You should get going so you’re not late.

Me: No. The appointment is for both of us. She has to come.

MIL: Oh. Are you sure? You can’t just answer all their questions?

Me: I’m sure.

She then said she’d get her coat so she can tag along but that we had to be back soon because she had other things to do that day.

I told her that I already had plans afterwards (I didn’t originally but I sure as heck did now) and would be gone for the rest of the day and hightailed it out of there. Can’t say I was overly sad when we moved out.

(My friend is an aspiring author who is on “first novel” number five. For unknown reasons he keeps trashing all his progress and starting from scratch, changing the entire story and even genre. But finally, he finished! As an avid reader he asks me to give it a look over, not worrying about grammar or spelling unless it’s unreadable, just actual story stuff. It’s just a first draft, after all.

He settled on a rather cliche-filled “cyberpunk space opera” story. Every character is a cookie-cutter archetype with “HI! My Name Is” sticker. I’m guessing the plot about a chapter and a half ahead of time. It’s complete and utter schlock, and I CANNOT stop reading it. For as incredibly trite and basic as the foundation of the story is, his actual writing is absolutely brutal, the quips are hysterical, and even when I forsee a chapter is ending on a cliffhanger I still have insane anticipation. All that said, one flaw sticks out, and it’s a DOOZY.)

Friend: So, how are you doing with checking out my story?

Me: DONE.

Friend: What, seriously!?

Me: Absolutely. I’ll admit, it’s a BIT heavy on the cliches, but for a first-time work it’s amazingly entertaining.

Friend: Haaaa, I knew I finally got it!

Me: I do have one uh, BIG question, though. Why did you throw that twist in at the end?

Friend: Oh, you liked that huh?

Me: Not really.

Friend: What?

Me: Dude, you had this guy who acted like Rebellion Grandpa for the whole book reveal that he’d actually been working for the bad guys from the start, with TWO PAGES left in the book, and then he killed basically everyone by blowing up the fleet. You made it sound like he was sent by the Big Evil Corpo to infiltrate the rebel group, but he STARTED the rebellion, and there was absolutely no indication that he was anything but an anti-establishment freedom fighter before then.

Friend: I mean, kinda? I just realized there hadn’t been any big plot twist yet, so, it needed something.

Me: You can’t just have a twist for the sake of having a twist, especially not like that.

Friend: So, you hate my story then.

Me: Dude, I love it, until the last two pages. I’m not even saying you can’t have the twist, just make it fit better.

Friend: How is it supposed to “fit better”?

Me: I dunno, the guy was an honest rebel but was given an impossible choice, or the big Megacorp uses propped-up rebellions to wipe out internal struggles but keep up their PR, or just point out in the story before hand how folks always see him as weirdly sad or hiding something. Literally anything more than what’s here.

Friend: Yeah, I get it, I’ll fix it.

(He “fixed it” by deleting the Google Doc he shared with me, and making a lot of passive-aggressive social media posts about how hard it is being an author. I think I know why he hasn’t properly finished a book yet, and I think I’ll pass on reviewing number six.)

I take the bus to work every day from a rural location, but I have to switch buses at the central bus hub downtown. The next bus is usually twenty-three minutes later so we commuters stand at a Swedish distance from each other (about two meters), read a book or scroll a phone and don’t make eye contact. Some of us have been doing this for years, so we know each other by sight but not name.

A street preacher in a sandwich board had been harassing us at the central bus hub for a couple of weeks, he ranted about the End of Days and Jesus and stuff. He didn’t cause enough offence for the cops to do anything (I tried calling them), but he made people both uncomfortable and angry. He had a formulaic spiel and generally singled out a person to try and “save” them, while staying well within the confines of the law. From my observations I pieced together a plan to try and make him go away.

One day, when I and roughly a dozen of the usual people waited for the bus the preacher decided that today was my day to be “saved”. He marched up to me, looked me square in the eye and said his opening line:

Preacher: My friend! The End of Days is coming. Have you found Jesus?
Me: Why, have you lost him?
Preacher: Quick words will not avail you on Judgement day!
Me: Yes they will. You are obviously not very well read. The example set in the Tale of the Wager clearly states that wordplay may save a man from any harm.
Preacher: There is no such tale in the Book!
Me: Yes there is. The poetic Edda clearly states that Loki once outsmarted Brokkr…
Preacher: *lays a hand on my shoulder* My friend, you have been led astray! Jesus is…
Me: *laying both hands on his shoulders, smiling like a loon* My friend, White Christ is the false prophet, but by the vigil of Heimdall I have seen the truth! This world is full of wonder and merriment, friends and drink! As Freya herself has shown, the pleasures of the flesh is a gift upon us all; our lord Thor has given us the thunderous laugh to banish the shades of sadness! Open your heart and let go of your lieful god of shame and sadness, and open it to the joy and wonder that the gods have granted us!

I poured every single ounce of skill my theater kid background hade given me into this performance, the preacher looking ever more disturbed as I started dancing around and flailing my arms in an improvised dance of hammy acting.

Preacher: You are insane! Those gods are…
Me: Older than the mountains! Stronger than the rivers! Wiser than the trees! They were here before the White Christ and his shaming of all things natural, and the Old Gods never left! And they shall remain forever and ever!

Others have gotten the gist and are chiming in with stuff like “preach it!” and “hail Thor!”. The preacher slowly backs away, looking between us in horror and then starts to run, harried by a hailstorm of laughter. We made some small talk about the absurd situation. A person self-identifying as a Christian saying that the preacher just gave religious people and Christians a bad reputation, to which we all could agree. Then we returned to the usual silence. We are Swedes after all.

The preacher was never seen again. From this I conclude that the power of the Old Gods had vanquished him (or that he just deemed us unsaveable).

Several years ago, I lived alone with my dog. At the time, my dog was about 5 or 6 years old. She is a very sweet rescue pit bull.

For the sake of this story, you need to know two things about this dog:

The first is that she wants to be everyone’s best friend – from the stranger she passes on the street on a walk, to the maintenance person she has never met before, to every vet and vet tech she has ever encountered, and of course to every friend and member of my family. Very sweet, loving, people-oriented dog.

The second is that she is an extremely quiet animal. She is currently 12, and I have owned her for 10 years. In that time, I have never heard her howl; I have never heard her whine; I have heard her yelp maybe two or three times; and I can probably count the number of times I have heard her bark on my fingers.

In short, she is friendly, quiet, and loving. I used to joke that if she met a burglar, she would show them where I keep my computer so they could steal it. This is the story of the time she proved me wrong.

It is about 3:00 in the morning, and I am dead asleep. Out of nowhere, I am awakened by the sound of my dog barking her head off and snarling.

Me: “What in the [expletive] is going on?

Dog: *Ignoring me* “[Sounds of furious barking and snarling].”

Me: *Drags myself out of bed and turns on the light in my bedroom. My dog is nowhere to be found.* “[Dog’s name], hush!”

Normally, as soon as she hears me get up, my dog is bowling me over, licking me in the face, demanding attention. Absolutely nothing, this time. So I drag my sleepy self out of my room and down the stairs, where I find my dog still growling and jumping at the door. She doesn’t even look at me as I walk over to the door.

It is at that point as I get closer that I hear something scratching near the deadbolt and see the deadbolt twisting slightly – not enough to open, but it’s definitely moving. We don’t live in an area with a lot of animals, and I can’t think of any animals in the area that would be able to reach the deadbolt, much less manipulate it, so I am immediately nervous. I gently push my dog out of the way (she lets me, but keeps barking) and flip on the porch light.

Immediately, the scratching stops and the deadbolt stops moving. I make my way through the rest of the downstairs and turn on every single light. My dog keeps barking for another minute or so, but even when she quiets down she keeps standing by the door, on alert in a way I have never seen her do before or since.

I give it another few minutes before cautiously looking out my kitchen window and eventually opening the door. Apart from some scratches on my deadbolt, there is no sign that anything is amiss.

I stayed up the rest of the night until I had to go to work in the morning. Normally I would crate my dog during the day, but that day I left her out. She got lots of treats and even more attention than normal when I got home that evening!

Technically, I don’t have any proof that it was someone trying to break it – I didn’t have cameras or a home security system, and I suppose it could have been something else that scratched my deadbolt and set my dog off. It seems like the most likely explanation, though.

And now I know that if someone tries to break into my house, my dog actually does have some protective guard dog tendencies buried deep underneath her quiet nature and desire to befriend everyone!