I’m a student at a private high school in a wealthy suburban area. As much as I hate to say it, a lot of the students at my school fit the “spoiled rich kid” stereotype that Hollywood always shows. Some of the kids get really nasty with their bullying, and as much as some teachers try to stop them, too many other adults let them get away with it because their parents are rich.

There are also several students who come from poorer backgrounds. Most of these students were enrolled in the school because their grades are way above average – kind of like an academic scholarship deal. These kids are the most obvious targets of the rich, popular kids’ bullying.

With the current health crisis this year, everyone in school is supposed to wear a mask. Most of the rich kids bought “designer” masks with designs or even sequins on them, but the poorer kids just use basic masks, or make their own.

The rich kids start teasing the poor kids about their “ugly” masks, and things snowball. It gets so bad that the rich kids will literally tear masks off the poor kids’ faces just to make fun of their “low-quality mask”. Finally, one of the poor girls gets so fed up that she full-on punches a rich kid who is trying to tear her mask off, and knocks out two of his teeth. Unfortunately for the poor girl, the teacher “only saw” the punch, and completely ignored the whole tearing off her mask thing. The poor girl got suspended, and the rich kid who tore her mask off got a “talking to”.

After that, a bunch of the poor kids’ parents withdrew their kids from the school, and enrolled them in nearby public schools. I’m begging my parents to let me withdraw, but they want me in the private school because it will “look better on college applications”. I know it’s cruel, but I really hope somebody at my school catches the disease and we can do distance learning again, because that was way better than actually being in school with these jerks.

This story took place just a few days ago, during the current health crisis. A friend of mine had been really down and so I checked the entry rules for his favourite country, Norway. I found out they had opened the country for citizens of European countries with low enough infection numbers. Our country was in the clear and it seemed that it was going to stay that way for quite a while still. That is why I treated him to a trip together to visit our friends there. We booked in July for a trip in September. However, it seemed as time went on, that my predictions were wrong and we got put into the red category. This meant that we would have to go into quarantine for 10 days. Whilst the quarantine rules itself were not a problem as you could still go out into nature and to cabins, the government website we looked at made it seem like we would have a really strict conversation at the airport. Officially we needed a signed letter from the person we were staying with. All we had was email, because it would have been quite expensive to get a letter into international mail just for that. I have anxiety disorder and I was really worried about what would happen. In fact, I had an anxiety attack on the plane.

Then, we arrived at the airport. As I also have mobility issues, we were guided through the airport at quite some speed. When we did get to the passport control, the officer asked us where we had travelled from. We answered honestly and he asked us if we knew about the quarantine. This officer was not strict at all. In fact he was very chilled out. We volunteered the information that we knew about the rules and would stay in quarantine at our friends’ house. That seemed enough for him. My friend even offered him the email he had printed, which the officer did read, but only nodded in response too.

I know from our friend that the rules ARE enforced and that people have been kicked out of the country and banned for a few years for breaking them, so that relaxed attitude definitely surprised me.

My dad has always liked to travel, even when he didn’t really have the money for it. He has always been a free spirit and a rebel. He didn’t always keep to the rules either. This one story is an example of this. My father was on holiday in France. This was in the time that it was still common practice to buy single tickets. He had come from the Netherlands by train. He wanted to go home, but he had run out of money. This was also before many people kept their identification and such in their wallet, and before bank cards. He came up with a devious plan to get the money to go home. He went to a French police station and reported the theft of his wallet. He got an official report and with that report in hand he went to the embassy. The embassy then lent him enough money to get home and on his way he went. Of course, he had to pay it back when he got home, but at least he got there.

I’m in a comedy play about pirates. The costume ladies have gotten their hands on a fake parrot that is affixed to my costume vest during a rehearsal, just to see if it’ll work. One of them is carefully watching my movements to see how the parrot, whom I have already dubbed Bartholomew, fares.

My lines are quite spread out, so I tend to wander around the stage and do “piratey” things to avoid just standing still. One of these things is looking around with a “telescope” that’s really just my hand, since we don’t have a whole lot of props yet.

The routine is simple: I put the “telescope” up to my eye, scan the audience seats, lock onto something, and make a “watching you” gesture. However, this time, after finding a spot to lock onto, I hold the “telescope” up above my shoulder to allow Bartholomew a look through.

The costume lady watching me nearly died laughing.

(I work customer service for an industrial supply company. A version of this call happens nearly every day.)

Customer: I wanted to know if you can get this sheet in a thinner thickness than what you have listed on your site.

Me: Let me check. What thickness did you need?

Customer: Something thinner than what’s listed on your website. [silence]

Me: Did you have a dimension in mind?

Customer: Yes, 0.25″.

Me: [internally] WHY NOT SAY THAT THE FIRST TIME?