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I…I…I…I gotta go!!
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
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the children's dressing room
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! Amelia – Somewhere
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ummm…why are you calling me?
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. Micah the Admin
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the poll
The results are in. They’ve been in awhile. We’ve been waiting and waiting, hoping for more votes that would put us victims of mistaken identity in the majority. It was close, but more of you have not had your gender confused, which kind of makes the rest of us feel even worse about being mistaken […]
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next time we're getting a hotel
Years ago my husband’s grandmother died suddenly. We drove the eight hours from Texas to Florida where the funeral would be held with Micah’s brother and his wife. To save on money we all decided to spend the two nights with “Patricia,” a nice woman who was related to them somehow. We arrived at the […]
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the chatty naked man
I am a video editor and my job sometime requires me to work on location. A few weeks back, I was working on site at a country club in Palm Desert, CA. It had been a long day, and I was preparing to wrap things up so I could head home. I made a quick […]
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separate checks
My sister had just gone through a traumatic experience and recently come home after being away for a few months. My husband and I wanted to spend some quality time with her. Talk things over, tell her we loved her, stuff like that. We invited only two of our closest friends to join us. We […]
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mistaken identity
I saw a little girl in a store once who looked a lot like my sister, Kate, did at age five. Without even thinking about it, I patted her on the top of her head and said: “Hi, Katie!”. I nearly yelled when she turned around and wasn’t my sister. To make things even weirder, my sister hadn’t been five in quite some time, say, ten years! The little girl was perfectly fine with the case of mistaken identity. Her mother, on the other hand, looked at me rather askance, especially when I tried to explain that I’d mistaken her daughter for my little sister who was now fifteen! Rachel – NH
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it's pat!
When I was a teenager I went to a Summer camp. The first night we had a big get together where everyone could get to know each other really quickly. The staff told us to go find someone in the room who we did not know at all. We would ask them some questions and then introduce that person to the rest of the group. I was too nice sometimes. I saw this person who was sitting all alone. I had never met them, and clearly no one was going that direction, so I did. I shook hands and realized that I couldn’t tell if this was a girl or a boy. No problem…they had to have a name. I asked. The response: some made up name of gender neutral syllables. Oh no. The voice was even kinda ambiguously monotone. I was getting really nervous. I had to present the person to the room, but how do you do that without gender specific pronouns? I pressed in with my awesome problem solving skills. I needed gender specific questions. I tried asking things about hobbies and likes that might help or produce a long winded answer with some clear gender clues. Maybe she liked horses? Maybe he played football? Nope. We had like thirty more seconds, and I could only get one or two word answers. Yes, this person loved their mom. Hmm…this person likes music. Yep. I’m stuck. My last chance was that the staff would reveal it as we walked up with a “these two boys are next.” or “Micah from South Carolina and a new girl from Texas!” No such luck. I stumbled through as quickly as possible trying to be funny to cover it up. “This person’s name is ______. They like music and love their mom!” It worked. I had offended no one. At worst, I sounded like a moron, but moron is better than jerk. I found out a day or two later that she was a girl. We never became friends. Micah the Admin