This happened back in the late 90’s. I had just given birth to my son a few weeks prior. My now ex husband worked out of town a lot and could be gone for a week to three weeks at a time. He had left just a few days prior to this incident and would be gone for 2 weeks.

My car unexpectedly broke down. Not good with a new baby. I have no way of getting anywhere. I didn’t have any extra money get it repaired. I let my husband know and he said he would repair it when he got back.

Well my grandparents got word of what had happened and my grandmother who was about 80 years old at the time offered a temporary solution. I could drive her car for the next 2 weeks. Yay!

Now I need to add this detail. My grandparents and I live in a neighboring state. I live about 25 miles away from the state line and it’s another 15 miles to their house.

My grandparents drove from time to time, I didn’t want to ask them to come get me anytime I needed a ride. My friends and other relatives didn’t have an extra car for me to drive and unfortunately they worked full time jobs and couldn’t just take off every time I needed something. So the arrangement with grandma’s car was great.

I had been driving the car to doctors appointments and the grocery store as well as a few other errands I had the car for maybe 4 days when someone knocked at my door. It was a police officer. I opened the door
Me: Hello officer
Officer: Is the owner of the blue car here?
Me: That is my grandmother’s car . Is something wrong?
Officer: is this your house?
Me: yes
Officer: I have driven by this house for the past few days and I keep seeing this car in the driveway. Does your grandmother live here with you?
Me: no she doesn’t. She’s lives in (state) I am borrowing her car until my husband gets back next week to fix my car. He’s working out of town.

I pointed at my car. It’s red and has the state I lived in tag on it. Tag is not expired.
Officer: I see . How long have you been borrowing your grandmothers car?
Me: About 4 or 5 days.
Officer: okay so I see that your grandmothers car has a tag from (neighboring state) . You live in this state correct and she lives in other state correct?
Me: yes
Officer: so I am going to have to write you a ticket for failure to register this vehicle in this state.
Me: what? I don’t own this car! I am just borrowing it for a couple of weeks until I get my car fixed and then it goes back to my grandmother. I have her registration in the glove box.
Officer: Sorry.
He hands me a ticket with a court date. I have the option to pay the fine and not go to court.

I tell my grandmother about what happened and she is angry.
Grandmother: Don’t pay. We are going to court!

My grandmother goes with me to court. She uses a walker to get around. Even though she has a walker she’s tough and is determined. I am giving this information for a visual.

We see the judge and I explain my side. My grandmother also explains.

Grandmother: your honor, my granddaughter just gave birth a few weeks prior . Her car broke down and with no money to get it fixed right away and a husband working out of town, I wanted her to have a car to get around in. I would feel terrible if something happened to her or my great grandson and she had no vehicle. I felt it was in their best interest to loan her mine until her husband came back home to fix hers. I never dreamed something like this would have happened.

My grandmother then presents her registration, receipt for the tag (that was purchased months prior) , her driver license, and her electric bill to prove that is her car and she lives in the neighboring state.

I also presented my license, my car registration and where I had got my tag months earlier along with receipts from the parts we had to buy to fix my car along with my electric bill and lease agreement.

The judge looked over everything and finally said :
Judge: I will dismiss this. Both of you have proven where you live and all the documents relating to both cars. However (grandmother’s name) if (my name) ever should need to borrow your car. You will need to have it registered in this state, regardless of where you actually live. Even if she borrows it for a week.

We thanked the judge profusely and left.

When we got outside my grandmother looked at me and said.
Grandmother: That judge can’t be serious. If you borrowed my car again for a week, I would have to have it registered in this state? I do believe I would have to get a driver license of this state and proof I live here to do that. And once you are done with it I would then have to go back to my state and do the same thing. That’s insane.

Thankfully I didn’t have to borrow her car again. My grandmother lived to be 94 years old and she still was tough and determined.

I miss you so much grandmother!

I’ve shared a story before about the combination gas station/fast food place I worked at many years ago. This story also takes place while I was working there and is the only time I ever tampered with someone’s food in the 5 years I was there. I promise it’s not as bad as you’re thinking, at least I hope not. In order to get to the tampering I have to give a little backstory. My cousin had finally left and divorced her abusive husband. I witnessed the abuse one night when I came home with her after we were at a friend’s house and he didn’t know I was there until I ran upstairs and got in his face. We live in a rural area of less than 1,000 people so everyone knows everyone and his family spread a bunch of lies that she was crazy and making it all up. One evening the husband of one of his sisters came through the drive-thru. In such a small area we often worked alone in the evening so when he got to the window and I saw who it was I took his money, washed my hands, made the order and then promptly smashed every single hard shell taco before putting it in the bag. Yes, it felt great.

I’m at work and somehow our conversation jokingly meanders to what 3 wishes one should make if they found a genies lamp.

Me: “Am I allowed to wish for more wishes?”
Manager: “No that’s cheating.”
Me: “I wish I was allowed to wish for more wishes.”
Coworker: “No way a genie will let you get away with that. You need to get more creative.”
Me: “Okay what would you wish for?”

[coworker] doesn’t miss a beat, launching right into his answer without any hesitation as if he already knew it all.

Coworker: “First I wish for the ability to magically locate any item or person I think of, and it has to work with general or abstract descriptions of what you want not just exact names or something. Second wish is the ability to teleport anywhere I want to, including to the places located by the first wish. After that I use my first ability to identify the nearest person who would accept my offer and can be trusted to not abuse it or try to cheat me. I then teleport to the person identified and offer them the lamp so they can have three wishes. Accept they have to agree one of their wishes must be one I tell them to wish for, one must be for the betterment of all of humanity in some way, and the last one can be a more selfish wish so long as it doesn’t significantly harm others – I keep veto rights if I think a wish is too harmful. Then I just keep teleporting to new people to make the offer to to get an effectively limitless number of wishes. My first few proxy-wishes would be to shore up potential problems like making sure the genie lamp can’t be stolen or taken without my permission from me and that I can magically compel people to keep to verbal agreement with me and then I can wish for anything I want after that. I save my third wish for emergencies.
Me: “Wow. did you just come up with that right now?”
Coworker: “No, I’ve had my three wishes figured out for over a decade, you need to be prepared after all. Next you’ll tell me you don’t have a zombie survival plan either.
Manager: “Does shoot them in the head count as a survival plan?”
Me: “probably not. but now I want to hear [coworkers] plan.”
Coworker: “Well you can’t just have *ONE* zombie survival plan, it depends on the zombies. Are they fast or slow, smart or stupid, indestructible or easily killed? The more realistic zombies all you need to do is board up your windows and live off of stored goods for a week or two while all the zombies starve or die out. But if you have fast indestructible zombies you need to get to water and islands fast because there’s no stopping them otherwise.”
Manager: “So what you have a survival plan for every fantasy disaster?”
Coworker: “not every one, just most of them.”
Me: “maybe you are a bit too prepared?”
Coworker: “blasphemy! You won’t be saying that when I’m gunning zombies down to save you before wishing them all away with my emergency wish.”
Manager: “How do you have time to plan all of these?”
Coworker: “Well what else am I going to do when I’m trapped here 40 hours a week? What you expect me to get work done or something?”
Manager: “That explains so much…”

I’m a man in my late 30’s visiting a shopping mall. On my way through, I see what looks like two 15-year-old girls and a middle aged woman. It seems to be a mother, daughter, and the daughter’s friend. They pass by a store called “American Girl.”

Girl 1: “Mom, take our picture!”

The two teens pose in front of the store with the sign visible. They stand in girly poses with their hands on their cheeks and excited grins on their faces. The mother takes out her phone to take pictures of the girls.

I can’t resist messing with them a little.

I imitate their facial expressions, complete with my hands on my cheeks and bound on by passed the store. As I run passed about 5-10 feet behind the mother, I see the girls’ eyes lock on me.

They immediately burst out laughing while trying to maintain the pose as I run off further into the mall. I looked back as I ran off and saw that the girls had given up trying to pose and were literally falling on to the floor while laughing.

My favorite part was the mom. She stood there, slowly lowering her phone and staring at the girls in confusion, having had no idea what caused those girls to crack up.

It’s just my way of adding some harmless chaos into the world.

(I’m doing drama with my kindergarten class, so ages 5-6. Today, they are playing charades with Disney characters. One boy is pretending to sword fight with one hand in a hook shape as his clue, but none of the kids are picking it up.)
Me: Maybe you can give a clue to who he’s fighting?
Classmate: [gasps] Are you Mike Tyson?
(No. He was not. He was Captain Hook.)