Many years ago, I was in band in high school. We were raising money for a trip to play at a festival at a famous theme park by selling chocolate bars.

I stopped by the house of a family friend, and the woman agreed to buy a few. Her young daughter, around three or four years old, happened to witness the transaction and, having found a dollar bill lying around the house somewhere, insisted on giving that to me, too. 

Nothing Mom or I could say would dissuade her from her newfound mission of handing the dollar bill to me. I didn’t want to put Mom on the hook for any more chocolate than she’d already agreed to buy.

Suddenly, inspiration struck!

I gave Mom a knowing look and accepted the money, thanking the girl. Then, I reached back into my pocket and pulled out a different dollar bill. “Here’s your change!” I told her, offering it to her. She took it happily and toddled back off into the house, presumably to wherever she’d found the money in the first place.

My family members all live in different states. I live in Pennsylvania, my sister is in Kentucky, and my parents spend most of the year in Florida and come up to Pennsylvania in the summer. Most of our communication with my sister’s kids is over the phone.

My mom is having a very hard time bonding with my four-year-old niece. Since I’m currently my niece’s best friend and we spend hours each night talking on the phone or FaceTime, I decide to tell my mom what initially got [Niece] to warm up to me. (This is partly to get her to bond with my mom and also so I can get some of my evenings back.) 

Me: “Have you ever heard of Funko Pop?”

Mom: “Not really.”

Me: “They’re these stupid little collectible figurines for celebrities or characters from media. I had a few Disney ones just for particular favorite characters like Merida. One day, [Niece] wanted me to show her my apartment, and she saw it. She was really excited, so I got a few more, and now every time she calls, she wants to see my princesses.”

Mom: “And that’s why she started to want to call you?”

Me: “Yeah. I mean, no offense, but a boring adult with nothing that she’s interested in. Get a few, and she’ll like to see them.”

I decide to send my mom two “Encanto” figures, figuring it can be her starter pack, as [Niece] is obsessed with “Encanto”. My mom is beyond excited to try and bond with [Niece].

Tonight, I get my regular call from [Niece], and she asks to see my figures. 

Niece: “Pap showed me that he has princesses, too!”

Me: “Did Nana show you, too?”

Niece: “No!”

Interesting.

As soon as we hang up, I call my parents. 

Mom: “Hey, what’s up?”

Me: “Were you aware that [Niece] was already shown the Encanto figures?”

Mom: “That rat b*****d. He knew that was supposed to be my ticket in!”

She confronted my dad on the phone with me, and we thoroughly ganged up on him. I’m planning to send more Pops down with instructions to hide them so he can’t steal her thunder again as [Niece] already likes my dad.

I got a Ph.D. placement abroad in Switzerland, but because I was starting directly after my Masters, I only got about three weeks’ notice that I had been accepted by the university. Of course, this meant that my choices in flat hunting were limited. I ended up renting a room in a flat with two other people both in their forties.

Things quickly started going downhill — things like being accused of not doing the cleaning when I had, not being allowed to use the kitchen if the main tenant was cooking (he was technically my landlord as I had the contract with him), and having to eat my breakfast while the main tenant was having his morning meetings at the dining table. While not terrible, it did make the whole situation awkward.

Finally, I’ve had enough, and I start flat hunting and find a nice place closer to the centre of the city. Once I have signed the contract, I arrive back at the flat to tell the main tenant I’m leaving with four months’ notice. (It’s May.) He starts speaking before me.

Tenant: “I’ve got a favour I want to ask you. Would you mind if you moved out during August so my daughter who is visiting can stay in your room? Don’t worry; you wouldn’t have to pay any rent for that month.”

I pause in shock for a second.

Me: “Um, no. I’m working over August. I need to use my room.”

Tenant: “Oh, but aren’t you going home for the summer?”

Me: “No, I’m working in the lab over the summer.”

Tenant: “But you’re a student.”

Me: “Yes, I’m a doctoral student. It’s a full-time job. I only get twenty-eight days of holiday, which I imagine is the same as you. I’m not going to put in for all my holiday just because you want your daughter to use the room.”

Tenant: “Oh. Really? Oh, in that case, never mind.”

At that point, I gave him the news that I’d found a new flat and would be moving out.

The next day, I had a thought. I’m young for a Ph.D. student in Switzerland. (I was twenty-two when I first arrived, and all of the other students in the building were three to eight years older than me.) It didn’t help that I have a baby face. I think that somewhere along the line, the “doctoral” part got dropped, and the guy thought I was an undergrad and based his respect on that. The whole situation made me so glad I’d already got a new place.

Back in the days of cable TV and satellite dishes (the early 1990s), I am a tech who is usually called to handle the more complicated issues. I get a call from a manager who works with my direct manager, who is retiring.

Manager: “We need you to do a hard reset on [Customer]. [Call Centre Manager] left a note on the account to specifically call you.”

I log in and see that it’s full of notes of the worst kind about this customer. Over the years, he has been abusive, racist, and sexist, but mostly homophobic. Every time he gets a male worker at the call centre, he calls them homophobic slurs of the vilest kind. How this customer’s account hasn’t been closed by now is beyond me.

Me: “Why? What happened here? His account is a mess.”

Manager: “It was [Call Centre Manager]. He seems to have… been creative on his last day before retirement last week.”

As I am friends with that old call centre manager, I call him and ask for an explanation.

Call Centre Manager: “I totally did not remote into a customer’s cable box with a generic tech support password, put in a parental lock, hide all channels except for a very nice adult entertainment channel, and then leave.”

Me: “I see. So, you absolutely did not leave this homophobic customer’s cable service locked into only, and absolutely only, the gay adult channel?”

Call Centre Manager: “I absolutely did not do that. No. See you at my retirement barbeque on Saturday?”

Me: “I’ll be there!”

I had a similar interaction to the one in this story with my senior-year English teacher. She hated me. She once pulled me aside after class to accuse me of doodling the entire time. We were reading “Hamlet” at the time, and even though her interpretations of everything were always way off, I knew that if my answers didn’t match hers, I’d be “wrong”. So, I made a point of taking copious notes that day.

This was in 2000 or 2001, so the days of black notebook paper, which I was using. She couldn’t read it, but she could tell she’d been wrong, and she looked like I’d made her eat s***. She very grudgingly let me off with:

Teacher: “Well… as long as you can read it.”

Me: *Happily* “I can!”

And I mentally flipped her off on my way out the door.

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