It was third grade summer break and my family went on vacation to visit relatives and friends. We had dinner with some old friends of my parents from way back when. I didn’t know them but because their daughter was my age it seemed appropriate to everybody else to send us both to her room for hours so the grownups could talk. It was a large house and a bit ritzy, and even though it was nighttime they didn’t have the lights on in the halls or anything. For some reason the ritziness and the darkness made it all seem like a fancy haunted house to me. We played for a bit and then my new “friend” decides to watch a movie. She takes me to some room upstairs where the lights are all off and throws in a movie. I forget which. But as we’re sitting together in the dark room a preview comes up for “Hocus Pocus” – a Disney film about the three witch sisters who say “Double, double, toil and trouble” and all that. My eight year old “friend” starts spontaneously SCREAMING. So I start screaming! I was thoroughly freaked out to be in a strange house in a dark room with a strange (and I also suspected spoiled) little girl next to me screaming. We frantically try to find the door in the black room, and as we get to the door knob our parents have already bolted up the stairs to save us from whatever it is that’s making us yell like lunatics. The lights go on and my little friend recovers and then starts laughing. “She just started screaming for no reason, so I did too. She was probably afraid of the movie,” she tells her parents. I was in tears from being so rattled and furious and I just couldn’t get the words out to tell anyone that she was lying. I was humiliated.
Beth the Other Admin
I was fourteen years old and babysitting a toddler for a couple hours at his parents’ cabin. We had a wonderful time playing games and eating animal crackers. Right before his parents were due to return, he filled up his cloth diaper. I started to change him when I ran into a little problem: what to do with all the poop? You see, all the babies I’d previously sat for had disposable diapers. All I’d had to do was wad up the dirty diapers and toss them in the trash. I knew I couldn’t toss the cloth diaper, but I didn’t think I should put all that poop in the clothes hamper, either.
I knew the answer was right in front of me, but I had a major brain cramp. Where…did…the…poop…go? My mind froze and I panicked. The child’s parents would be arriving home any second. They must never, never know I didn’t understand this basic thing about child care, or they would laugh at me and never hire me again. After a few minutes of frantically racking my brain while the toddler ran around the kitchen, sans pants, I decided to try to think it through from another angle. “Where do we put food that we don’t want anymore?” I asked myself. “Aha! The garbage disposal!”
Feeling vaguely that it was wrong, but not knowing any other options, I emptied the diaper’s contents into the sink and, with a spoon, scooted the poop toward the drain. Feeling relieved that my ordeal was almost over, I hunted around for the garbage disposal switch. There wasn’t one; I had just clogged the drainpipe. At that instant, I had an epiphany: “The toddler’s poop goes in the toilet, you IDIOT! The same place YOUR poop goes!”
Crimson with shame at the extent of my spaciness, and mortified at what I had done, I hastily poured half a can of AJAX down the drain, and ran the water. I kept one eye on the clock, and one eye on the child as I frantically mashed down the remnants of poop that kept bobbing back up. I had just washed the spoon and scrubbed the sink for the hundredth time when the parents came home. I guiltily accepted their money and told them about our afternoon, omitting, of course, the diaper drama.
Apparently they never had any problems with their sink, because they asked me to babysit many times after that. I gladly did, being very careful from that point on to put human excrement in it’s proper receptacle.
The End.
Rachel – NH
A couple years ago, I worked at a group home for the severely mentally ill. It was a great job, but I had to juggle so many duties that I sometimes forgot little things, like where I left the company car.
My shift was three days and two nights. On the second evening, I drove the car to a nearby pharmacy to pick up meds for a patient. I remembered the meds, but unfortunately I forgot the car. I walked the two blocks back to the group home, in a romance-induced haze as I talked to my boyfriend on my cellphone.
The next morning, I woke up and noticed that there were no cars in the driveway. Was the car stolen in the night? I called my boss in a panic. She, in turn, called her boss, who called the police. A few hours passed, in which we all felt terrible about being robbed. Then one of my coworkers happened to drive past the pharmacy and saw the car in the parking lot, right where I’d left it. She called my boss, who called me. She was so relieved that we’d found the vehicle. In the middle of our conversation, I suddenly realized that I was the one who left it there, and blurted it out!
Fortunately, very fortunately, she had a sense of humor, and I was only mildly chastised for my spaciness.
I received a picture message from an unknown number today. I recognized the area code and thought maybe it was my sister or brother-in-law sending me a picture of their new baby. I wasn’t sure if I had their new number in my phone. This is the picture that I received.
It was some random guy trying to impress Sharry. I sent him a picture of me making a weird face, and told him he had the wrong number. :o) Always check the number before sending a shirtless cool picture of yourself, man. On second thought, don’t send pictures like this. It isn’t cool.
Micah the Admin
I worked in a drug rehab with teenagers. Most of their joking was juvenile and perverse, but one day a patient told me a joke that was actually funny. I laughed so hard and couldn’t wait to tell my wife. I forgot about it for several hours until we were at a dinner party with about twenty people. Most of these people I knew but not all. After we ate everyone was sitting around kind of quietly in the living room. I decided to liven up the party with a couple jokes, so I told the one the patient had taught me earlier. The room went silent.
One friend spoke up with a gasp, “Micah?!”
“What?” I replied.
“Do you not realize what that…”
“Umm… does it… oh no!” I trailed off and tried to play it off by talking to my wife about it. I was innocent – not realizing it was a REALLY dirty joke. The problem is that the joke had already been told.
To give some background, this story goes back to the early 70’s, when I was in elementary school. At that time, the government subsidized a part of the public school lunches, which meant that each student had to pay less to buy his lunch. Because of that, the price for lunches was only $.60 and the small ½ pint cartons of milk were reduced to 4 cents each. So, every day I went to school with my bag lunch and 4 cents in my pocket.
Another thing to know is that the boys’ bathroom had no doors on the stalls, just walls. So, you always ran the risk that someone would catch you in the middle of you doing your “business”.
So, one day I was in the bathroom minding my own “business”. All of a sudden, who should burst into the bathroom but the school bully. Seeing me sitting there, he pulls out a knife and says, “Gimme your money!” I replied, “Well, all I’ve got is four cents to buy milk. Do you want that?” Looking a bit disappointed, he said, “Nah, that’s alright.”
Then, he starts bragging as he pulls out all the change that he got from a number of other students. He goes on telling me how much he got from whom and what he was going to do with the money. Meanwhile, I’m just sitting there on the pot, listening to him, not feeling all that comfortable in doing what I originally purposed to do now in front of him.
Finally, feeling satisfied with sharing about his accomplishments, the bully left. Even though I was relieved, I sat there a bit stunned for a few moments. Then it came to me – “Oh yeah. I gotta relieve myself.” I finished my business and went back to class.
Joseph – DC
Picture this, its Thanksgiving, the whole family is there. So after having a few hours of visiting eating and thanking the Lord for the blessings He has given us, we break out the game of apples to apples. This is my first time to play the game even though I’m 19. We’ve been playing for a while (everyone from my little sister who is 10 to my grandmother who is in her late 70s) when it gets to my turn, and I have the word “busy”. So I start getting cards like, “homework”, “school”, “chores”, “work” and so on (about 15 people are playing this game). Then I read one and it says “honeymoon” I must have gotten a strange look on my face because my best friend just starts laughing. Then it dawns on me, and I kinda threw the card down and went “oh! no no no”. At this point all the adults are laughing at my reaction/the card. My little sister asking my mom for an explanation (which she does not get by the way). After choosing from one of the other cards, everyone is just so curious, so I ask “who put that?” Turns out it was my Grandmother! I’m pretty sure I was bright red for about 5 minutes. But its nothing I will forget anytime soon.
Rachel – Somewhere
My family went out for lunch at a new restaurant in town. It was Mother’s Day and the place was packed. We all treated ourselves to margaritas and were having a lovely time. But that’s when it happened. My dad (bless him) has a naturally loud voice, and when he has a drink it tends to get a bit louder. He started telling us a funny story from work where a woman said something quite shocking and awkward. It was much more awkward when my dad practically yelled the punchline, having to do with the FEMALE ANATOMY, of all things, to us. I do not exaggerate – the entire restaurant fell silent and people started turning around in their seats to stare at us. The place was full of little old ladies, young mothers and small children! My dad seemed to notice. He leaned forward and “whispered” to me, “Was I talking too loud?” Happy Mother’s Day!
Andrea – CA
Several years ago my family and I had the most awkward Christmas dinner. It was the year that my grandparents decided they would treat us all to a special dinner at one of their favorite restaurants. When we arrived at the restaurant, it was packed. Completely busy, but we weren’t worried. My grandpa had made a very special reservation several days prior to have a private room for the whole family to dine in. Our confidence in the reservation was short lived as we found out the staff had made a mistake and had already given the room to another party. So instead of our nice private room, they put a bunch of tables together and stuck us in the bar. Fabulous. So after an hour or so passes, we get our meals and we’re eating and enjoying our time. Suddenly, an old man, who was sitting in the booth behind us, falls out of his seat onto my brother, passed out. Now, the old man is on the ground, not breathing and his wife is hysterically crying (which also made my cousin cry). My aunt decides this guy needs some sort of help (he was choking) and so she socks him in the stomach! A nurse, who was sitting at the bar, yells at my aunt, runs over, pushes her out of the way and starts doing CPR and the Heilmlich maneuver. Next thing I know, paramedics rush past me, revive the old man, and roll him out on a gurney…all while we’re eating dinner. That was enough drama for Christmas dinner, right? Probably not. As we’re all trying to calm each other down and get back to enjoying dinner, the restaurant keeps getting more and more crowded by the minute. Apparently there was no more room to sit in the waiting area, so this strange old man decides to sit down right next to me on the booth/bench thing I was on. I was totally creeped out..and for a long time none of my family even noticed this old man sitting right next to me at our table. Finally, my grandpa saw the guy and says to him, ” I don’t think you’ve met my granddaughter, her name is Emily.” It was totally awkward. After awhile, the man left and I thought that had to be the end of our crazy night. Nope. There were crowds and crowds of people waiting to eat. What made it worse was that the service was completely slow. My cousin didn’t even get her meal until everyone else was eating dessert. Anywho, as my family was trying to finish up dinner and dessert, an angry old man starts pacing throughout the restaurant, yelling at each table, “YOU EAT AND YOU LEAVE!” We loved that. What a merry Christmas!
Emily – CA
I remember reluctantly going early to help prepare my great-uncle’s house for his 80something birthday last summer. There was this gorgeous girl helping with the food. I figured she was around my age and I wanted to “talk” to her and possibly get her number. My trip might end up not being a total waste, I thought. She was around my aunt a lot and the way they were talking it was like my aunt raised her or something but I was sure she wasn’t her child. Anyways, this girl was really good-looking, no joke, so I finally see her alone and I muster up the courage to go talk to her. And so it went … Me: “Hey” Her: “Hey ” … long awkward pause Me: *I point to my aunt* “Do you know Aunt Flo?” Her: “She’s my aunt” Me: “oh … that’s cool” … another awkward pause … “I guess that makes us cousins” Her: [with a rather sarcastic smile] “Yep” I die a little inside, make up some lame excuse about something I have to do and quickly walk away. I tried my best to not be seen by her the rest of the day.
Frank – Earth
A few years ago my family was in Hong Kong. We had taken the metro from one side of town to the other, on our way to the mall. We were told that once we got off the metro we were to look for Hong Kong Station, go up an escalator, and then we’d be at the mall. We had been walking for a while with no luck. So I decided to ask for directions. I went up to a lady who worked there and said, ‘Excuse me, where’s Hong Kong?” She tried to keep a straight face, and my family started laughing at me. I quickly continued, “Station! Where’s Hong Kong Station!” I felt like a complete idiot and my family teased me the whole day. But, we did find Hong Kong Station!
Amelia – Brazil
When I was 14, I met this guy at a church camp. I thought he was very sweet but I did not reciprocate the feelings he had for me. He would give me chocolates and gave me this plastic necklace with an ‘A’ on it for my name. He also wrote me a sort-of love letter. I was freaking out. He was my first pursuer. Somehow he got my phone number and started calling me. He would call me collect, so my parents were paying for a phone call I did not want to take. Once he even called me at 11 PM, which made my parents pretty upset. I remember pretty well the last time he called me. We talked for a minute or so and then he said those six words a lot of people dread: I need to tell you something. I got really nervous. This is how our conversation went after that: “It’s like this…… I… I… I…” “You…?” “I li… I li… I…” Silence. “I, I gotta go!” “Me too!”
I feel so bad for him now. I say he was the first person to tell me that he liked me, even though he never actually got to say it.
Amelia – Somewhere
First of all, I am a pretty short person and I have a young face. My whole life people have thought I was younger than I actually am. So when I was about 15, my mom and I were shopping and I went to try on some clothes. In this store, they had a section for women, which split into two sections: one for adults and one for kids. After going through the quick process of getting into the dressing room, she directs me towards the right section that I’d never been to: the kids section. I was very confused. There isn’t a sign that differentiates the two sections, but I could tell it was the kids section by the much smaller stalls and bunches of five year olds with their agitated moms. I hesitated to go there. ‘The kids section? Come on! I’m 15!’ I thought. But she looked at me as if she was thinking ‘Go ahead kid! What are you waiting for?’ I went ahead to the kids section feeling very…awkward. Later I heard my mom calling for me, and I told her where I was. When she walked up, she herself was confused. ‘WHY are you over here?’ After that I was very tempted to make a shirt that said how old I was to wear everywhere I went. People were always acting as if I was kid!
In first grade I was friends with a girl that we will call Candice. First grade. We went to the same school pretty much for the next nine years and never spoke to each other. I’d see her in passing and would hear random bits about her, but that’s it. One night when I was a sophomore in high school the phone rang. My dad answered, “who? Candice? Micah, it’s for you. It’s someone named Candice White.” My dad smiled at me in a sort of wink wink way. I wondered why on earth Candice White would be calling me. She had become popular and was in a serious/crazy relationship with a guy in the very popular jock crowd and only just recovering from another crazy/serious relationship with another guy just like him. Everyone knew about it. I took the phone anyway, held my breath and answered. “Ummm…hi?”
“Hey, Micah,” she said with a way too excited peppy voice.
“Hi.”
“Do you know who this is?”
“Yes. What’s going on?”
“I just wanted to talk.”
“Ummm…ok. Why are you calling me?”
“I was just thinking that we should start talking.”
“Ok…”
Realizing this was some strange attempt at asking me out, I went on to explain to her that I was intentionally not dating anyone and not going to. I had my heart set on Beth the Other Admin already. She responded with a few more sentences about how we should talk more. We never talked. We should just say “hey” and stuff in the hallways at school. Whatever. I said, “Ok…I guess.” The awkwardness continued for a month or two after this. We would see each other in the halls at school and say “hey” or “hi.” I tried to smile, but it was always a little creepy, and I was always slightly afraid of her two angry yet very cool jock boyfriends.
