MAF 𐙚 | Dearest Gentle Reader • Writer Workplace • Life • Relationships • Travel Retelling experiences 📧, encounters & unexpected moments.
Solo traveling
Joined August 2011
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maf retweeted
I took my ex-husband to court over $219 for our daughter's glasses. Eleven minutes later, the judge made me wish I'd answered one email.
The email was nine words long.
Can we pick a cheaper frame? I'm between jobs right now.
Cal sent it on a Tuesday in March, eleven days after the eye doctor prescribed glasses for our nine-year-old daughter, Poppy.
Her prescription was -6.50 in both eyes. She needed high-index lenses to reduce their thickness, and she'd been squinting at the classroom board for a year and a half. Her teacher had moved her to the front row twice.
Our divorce decree required us to split reasonable and necessary medical, dental, and vision expenses equally.
Cal had never missed a child support payment. I'll say that plainly because he wasn't a deadbeat father. He was the man who spent five years begging me for a baby, drove me to every injection appointment, and cried harder than I did the day Poppy was born.
The glasses cost $438. His half was $219.
I didn't answer his email because I was still angry about something that had happened two months earlier.
Poppy needed a follow-up appointment for her asthma medication. Cal had agreed to arrange it and take her. He never called the doctor's office, never told me he couldn't do it, and I only found out when the nurse left a message asking why we'd missed the appointment.
I had to rearrange my workday and book another visit.
So when I read his request for cheaper glasses, I heard another promise I would eventually have to handle myself.
I still checked with the optician. There were cheaper frames that could accommodate Poppy's prescription, but the optician explained that the smaller, round tortoiseshell frames Poppy wanted would work better with her strong prescription and help reduce the thickness at the edges. The cheaper options weren't impossible, but they weren't quite the same fit.
Poppy called the frames she chose her scientist glasses.
I ordered them.
Then I sent Cal the invoice.
He replied that afternoon.
She doesn't need $438 glasses. A $90 pair would do the same thing.
I could have explained what the optician had told me. I could have sent him the cheaper options and asked what he could afford.
Instead, I sent the invoice again.
By June, he still hadn't paid…..
maf retweeted
I'm 28, and my father has always treated me differently from my three brothers.
He paid for their university education, bought them cars, and helped them get jobs.
I paid my own way through university.
Whenever I complained, he said, "A man must be responsible for himself."
Then, two weeks before my wedding, he called a family meeting.
FATHER: I'm not paying for this wedding until we settle something.
ME: Settle what?
FATHER: I want a DNA test.
MOTHER: Are you insane?
FATHER: I've suspected it for years.
ME: Suspected what?
FATHER: That you're not my son.
My brothers started laughing.
I looked at my mother. She wouldn't look at me.
ME: You want a DNA test? Fine. But we're testing everybody.
FATHER: What does everybody have to do with this?
ME: If we're opening this family up, let's open everything.
He agreed because he was convinced I would be the only one exposed.
The results arrived five days later.
I was his biological son.
But my eldest brother wasn't.
Neither was my youngest brother.
My father stared at the papers as if someone had physically slapped him.
FATHER: This is impossible.
MOTHER: I can explain.
FATHER: Explain what? That you cheated on me twice?
During a biology review class, I raised my hand nervously:
“Teacher… I know rabies makes animals aggressive, but why does it make humans afraid of water? Do they just… not like drinking?”
Teacher (smiling): “Actually, it’s much scarier than that. The virus isn't making you afraid of water it’s protecting itself from being destroyed.”
Me: “What do you mean?
Teacher: “Rabies multiplies in your salivary glands. To spread to the next host, it needs you to bite someone with a mouth full of infected saliva.”
Me: “Okay… so what does water have to do with it?”
Teacher: “What happens when you swallow?”
Me: “You wash down the saliva into your stomach?”
Teacher: “Exactly. Stomach acid destroys the rabies virus. If you drink water or swallow saliva, you flush the virus down into an acid bath that kills it.”
Teacher: “So the virus causes excruciating, violent spasms in your throat muscles whenever you try to swallow, or even think about drinking. It forces your body to pool saliva in your mouth until you foam, keeping the viral load maximum strength for a bite.”
Me: “So the virus actively manipulates human behavior to stop its own destruction?!”
Teacher: “Precisely. It turns the host’s body into a delivery system.”
Viruses don't have brains, yet they hack ours with terrifying efficiency. We're just biological vessels to them.
maf retweeted
Today, I got a scam call from someone pretending to be the police.
Scammer: “You need to report to the Los Angeles Police Department immediately.”
Me: “Wait! This is the scam call I’ve seen people talking about online!”
I actually got excited because I’d finally received one of those calls myself.
Me: “Do you think I can get to Los Angeles right now?”
Scammer: “You’re Mr. Sawada from Columbus, Ohio, right? We know your home address, so…”
Me: “Do you think I can get to Los Angeles right now?”
I was smoking on a park bench when a 7 year old boy picked up my pack and read the warning label out loud.
I had no answer for what he asked next.
I'd gone to the park to clear my head. Lit a cigarette. Set the pack beside me.
A little boy walked up.
Boy: Hi, missus. How are you?
Me: I'm fine.
Boy: I'm fine too. What are you doing?
Me: What does it look like I'm doing?
Boy: Smoking a cigarette.
Me: Who told you that?
Boy: I watch grown-ups do it. Why do you?
Me: Because I want to.
Boy: Why would you want to?
Me: Because it's fun.
Boy: Does it hurt your health?
Me: I don't know.
He picked up my pack. Held it right in front of my face.
Boy: It says smoking causes cancer. Throat cancer.
Me: Yes. It does.
maf retweeted
My neighbour once knocked on my door at 9:30 p.m. to complain that my television was too loud.
I apologised and turned it down immediately.
Two days later, he was playing music so loudly that I could hear every word through my bedroom wall.
I waited until the next morning and politely asked him to keep it down at night.
He told me that his house was his property and he could enjoy it however he liked.
I reminded him that he’d asked me to reduce my television volume just two days earlier.
Boy: So why do you do it, knowing that?
I opened my mouth. Nothing came out.
Me: Go play.
He didn't move.
Boy: You didn't answer.
Me: Because I don't know, okay?
Mind your business.
Boy: My grandpa coughed like that. Every morning.
Me: ...
Boy: Then one day he didn't cough anymore.
My hands started shaking. I hid them under my legs.
Boy: Can I try one?
Me: NO. Never. Not even when you're big.
Boy: Why?
Me: Because it's what grown-ups do when they're frustrated.
Boy: Then why don't you do something else?
I couldn't answer that either.
Then he asked the one question I wasn't ready for.
Boy: Why are you sad?
Me: Because I'm a grown up.
Boy: Does that mean you have to be?
He didn't ask why I was smoking. He asked why I was sad.
No adult had asked me that in months. Not one.
Boy: Then throw it away.
Me: It's not that easy.
Boy: Why not?
I looked at the cigarette burning down in my fingers. I had no excuse left.
I put it out. Stood up. Dropped the whole pack in the bin.
Boy: Good.
His mom called his name from across the grass. He ran.
I sat back down with my hands empty and my chest strangely light.
Kids don't ask the polite questions. They ask the true ones.
maf retweeted
My boss ordered me to stop correcting my coworkers’ mistakes. When I asked him to put it in writing, he actually did.
Three weeks later, a coworker sent a proposal to a major client with a pricing error. I spotted it, forwarded it to her, and told her to correct it before sending it out.
She ignored my message and sent it anyway.
The client discovered the error and threatened to cancel the contract.
On Friday, my boss called me into his office with HR.
“You were aware of the mistake. Why didn’t you fix it?”
“I reported it to the person responsible.”
“You should have corrected it yourself. This company cannot afford people who watch problems happen and do nothing.”
Then HR slid a document across the table.
The company intended to recover the financial loss by deducting money from my salary every month.
I looked at the figure, then at my boss.
“You’re making me pay for a mistake I reported?”
“You should have taken responsibility,” he replied.
I opened my laptop and showed them the email I’d sent my coworker, complete with the timestamp.
Then I pulled out the written instruction my boss had given me.
“You told me to stop correcting other people’s mistakes. I did exactly what you asked.”
He barely glanced at the document.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you could have prevented this.”
I turned to HR.
“Before I sign anything, can you explain why I’m being charged for an error I reported, committed by someone else, after my manager formally instructed me not to correct her work?”
Nobody answered.
Then HR picked up the written instruction, read it twice, and asked my boss one question.
“Did you know she had this?
maf retweeted
小学校3年生の息子を、妻と二人で育てている。
放課後の学童への迎えは、仕事の都合に合わせて交代で行っていた。
先週の火曜日、学童の責任者からメールが届いた。
「お迎えに関して、少し確認したいことがあります」
最初は、利用時間か料金の話だと思った。
その日は仕事を早めに切り上げ、私が迎えに行った。
妻は仕事が長引いて、まだ到着していなかった。
玄関に出てきた責任者は、私を見ると小さな声で言った。
maf retweeted
For twelve years, an elderly man named Cornelius walked into the same small hardware store every Saturday morning and bought exactly one item, a single pack of light bulbs, always paying full price even though the owner, a woman named Shelby, had offered him a senior discount every single week since the day he started coming in.
He always declined it the same way. "I appreciate it, but I'm fine paying what it's worth."
I only found out there was more to it because I started working the register there during college, and one slow Saturday, Cornelius came in while Shelby was on a supply run, and I rang him up with the senior discount automatically applied, the way the register defaulted for anyone over sixty-five……
My boss ordered me to stop correcting my coworkers’ mistakes. When I asked him to put it in writing, he actually did.
Three weeks later, a coworker sent a proposal to a major client with a pricing error. I spotted it, forwarded it to her, and told her to correct it before sending it out.
She ignored my message and sent it anyway.
The client discovered the error and threatened to cancel the contract.
On Friday, my boss called me into his office with HR.
“You were aware of the mistake. Why didn’t you fix it?”
“I reported it to the person responsible.”
“You should have corrected it yourself. This company cannot afford people who watch problems happen and do nothing.”
Then HR slid a document across the table.
The company intended to recover the financial loss by deducting money from my salary every month.
I looked at the figure, then at my boss.
“You’re making me pay for a mistake I reported?”
“You should have taken responsibility,” he replied.
I opened my laptop and showed them the email I’d sent my coworker, complete with the timestamp.
Then I pulled out the written instruction my boss had given me.
“You told me to stop correcting other people’s mistakes. I did exactly what you asked.”
He barely glanced at the document.
“That doesn’t change the fact that you could have prevented this.”
I turned to HR.
“Before I sign anything, can you explain why I’m being charged for an error I reported, committed by someone else, after my manager formally instructed me not to correct her work?”
Nobody answered.
Then HR picked up the written instruction, read it twice, and asked my boss one question.
“Did you know she had this?
Then HR picked up the written instruction, read it twice, and turned to my boss.
For the first time that afternoon, he had nothing to say.
I closed my laptop, took the salary deduction document, and slid it back across the table.
“I won’t be signing this.”
My boss leaned forward. “You can’t just walk away from your responsibilities.”
I looked him straight in the eye.
“I fulfilled my responsibilities. You put it in writing that correcting other people’s mistakes wasn’t one of them.”
I returned to my desk, typed my resignation letter, and copied HR.
My notice period was thirty days.
Before I left that evening, the CEO sent a company-wide email announcing an emergency review of the contract and the circumstances surrounding the proposed salary deduction.
My boss was removed from the client account pending an investigation.
For three weeks, he’d insisted that I stop fixing problems that weren’t my job.
On Friday, he finally got exactly what he asked for: an employee who followed his instructions to the letter.
maf retweeted
I had only been dating my boyfriend for a few weeks when he started struggling financially.
I’d just gotten out of a long-term relationship that left me drained, so I was taking things slowly. We went on dates and spent time together, but I wasn’t ready to play wife to a man I barely knew.
When he needed an apartment, I recommended a place managed by someone I knew. He viewed it, liked it, and signed the lease.
maf retweeted
Two days into my new job, an email landed at 9:04 a.m.
"Your employment has been terminated, effective 2:00 p.m. today. Please do not discuss this with anyone."
I marched straight to HR.
Me: "I've been here forty-eight hours. What did I do?"
The HR rep, a woman named Priya with dark circles under her eyes, locked the door behind me.
Priya: "Nothing. Yet."
Me: "Yet?"
She slid a folder across the desk. Inside was a list of fourteen names, each with a date.
Priya: "Every person on that list was fired the same day they were hired. They all think it was a mistake. All of them are alive."
Me: "Why wouldn't they be?"
She pointed at the dates, then at a printout of old news headlines clipped beside them. Elevator Cable Snaps in Downtown Office. Gas Explosion Injures Six. Ceiling Collapse at Brightline Tower.
Each headline matched a date on the list.
Priya: "Our software doesn't predict the accidents. It predicts who's going to be standing in the wrong place when they happen. We remove them before it does."
Me: "That's insane."
Priya: "It's never been wrong. Not once, in three years."
I looked at the clock. 1:41.
Me: "So something happens in this building at 2:00."
Priya: "Or just after. The software only tells me who. Never what."
I scanned the list again. The last name on the page wasn't mine.
It was hers.
Me: "Priya, your name is on here.