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True Stories

Senior Citizen’s Center Appreciation Cookout

My wife was the news editor of the weekly county newspaper in the town where we lived shortly after we were married.  This is also the county where we grew up.  As news editor of a county paper, she was the primary reporter for almost all newsworthy items.  She covered city and county government meetings, high school sports events, fires, emergencies, and other various happenings.  She was also the face of the paper for many people.  Whenever a group wanted to recognize the paper in appreciation for its coverage of their activities, my wife was invited.  I tagged along with her to many of these events.

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True Stories

Buying Tequila

My friend Joe and I left the dormitory at college to go to the part of town that had the good record stores.  I was in search of a song but didn’t know what it was called. There were two main record stores in town.  Camelot Music was in the mall. Sounza Musik was a local store in the shopping center across from the mall. Sounza Musik was the place I usually shopped for music.  The staff there knew music and were very helpful.  But for some reason, I thought the store with more records would be more likely to have what I was looking for.  So we started at the mall.

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True Stories

Time for a Break

I walked into the breakroom to get some hot chocolate. I hadn’t been at work that long, so it was to early for anyone to be taking a break.  The only other person in the breakroom was the temporary employee. She spent half of her day cleaning parts and the other half cleaning the breakroom and office area of the plant. When I walked into the breakroom, we didn’t speak because she was immersed in her work.  I was at the vending machine with my back to her. I had no idea what she was doing.

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True Stories

Dating Disaster

I was going on a first date with a girl I barely knew.  This was the first time I had ever been to her house.  When I pulled up in her driveway, I saw concrete steps leading up to the stoop in front of the door.  There was a screen door in addition to the wood door.  I climbed the steps and knocked on the front door.  Since I didn’t know her that well, I knew nothing about her family. I had no idea who would answer the door.  I was trying to prepare myself mentally for any possible scenario.  Would it be a sweet mother or a suspicious dad?  Maybe it would just be her.  Because I didn’t know if she had any brothers or sisters, I didn’t even consider that possibility.

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True Stories

Social Distancing at Walgreens

As I write this story, we are in the middle of the Covid-19 pandemic.  Many businesses and institutions are closing, modifying their hours or limiting access to parts of their building.  Social distancing is a behavior to help reduce the risk of exposure for people when they need to go into stores, to work or other venues were people gather.  The picture above was shared by a friend on social media. It shows the floor of a local Walgreens pharmacy where they have taped it off to indicate where you need to stand to be the proper 6 feet apart for good social distancing. 
 
My friend posted the picture with the following text:
 
“Walgreens is enforcing the social distance.  Please stand on the blue line to check out.”
 
One of her friends replied, “Why not just go through the drive through?”
 
She answered, “Can’t get toilet paper in the tube thing at the drive through”. 

Categories
True Stories

Vine on the Mailbox

At our previous house, we had a mailbox at the road next to our driveway.  When we moved to the house, it had the traditional style mailbox except that it opened on both ends.  That way, we didn’t have to walk into the street to retrieve the mail.  There was a flower bed around the mailbox.  One plant in this flowerbed was a vine that grew up the mailbox post and covered most of the mailbox.  My wife tends to the flowerbeds at our house.  Sometimes she would allow this vine to grow a little out of control.  Sometimes it was so extreme that it was difficult to open the mailbox.

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True Stories

Crazy Co-Worker

NOTE: The names in this story have been changed. Once you read it, you will understand why.

A few years ago, we had a new salaried employee start at work. I will call him Crazy Bob. I didn’t get to meet him until the end of his first week when I went to lunch with him, and a guy named Ed that was mentoring him in his new job.

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True Stories

What’s Up?

On a Saturday evening last August, I was at home eating when my cell phone rang around 8:27 PM.  The call was from a number that I did not recognize.  I answered and they said, “What’s up, ni***r?” I replied, “Don’t know, what’s up with you?”  They immediately hung up.  Less than a minute later I received another call from the same number. When I answered they said “What uppp!” I replied, “Nothing, What’s up with you?”  They hung up again. It would be over 30 minutes before I received another call from the same number.  This time they said, “What up!” I replied, “What up?” Then they asked, “Who is this?” I replied, “I think you have the wrong number.”  I thought that might be the last call but about 10 minutes later they called again.  This time they said, “Hey Tom!” I replied, “This is not Tom.” They replied, “I must have the wrong number.”  I thought, “Really!?! It takes you 4 times to realize it’s the wrong number?”  But I just said, “You must have.  Have a nice day.” 

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Movies True Stories

Movie Restroom Stories

Over the summer while my youngest daughter was home from college, she and I went to the movies a couple of times.  My son lives in town and we invited him to go with us on both trips.  The two films we went to see were Once Upon a Time in Hollywood and Annabelle Comes Home.  Both trips took place during the same week.

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True Stories

Foot Safety While Moving

Last October, my wife and I moved to a new house.  When we decided to put our old house on the market, there were several things we needed to do to get ready.  Each week there was a new area of focus for this preparation.  One weekend, I decided to tackle the task of getting the yard ready.  Our old house had a big shop behind the house and a fence around the backyard area.  There was a bank between the shop and the fence on two sides of the building.  Trees and brush had grown up around this area.  I decided to do some cleaning up around this area of the shop.