user: (Q).
“Hey, Natalie! Nice sweatshirt!” I was passing through the hallways of school last year, being messenger boy for the teachers, when this girl walked up to me. I had no clue who she was, but I thought she was a year younger than me. That’s why I thought it was weird that she said my name. But the “nice sweatshirt” bit was what really got me. I wasn’t even wearing my sweatshirt. So. There was a substitute teacher in my literacy class, so my class was split. half of us did actual work, and the other half watched a documentary. Ben, Evan, Isabelle and myself were put together in the class watching the super boring documentary. We got bored, so, when Ben left the classroom for a bit and left his jacket behind, I don’t remember why, but, I put on his sweatshirt and traded it for mine. This turned into everyone swapping sweatshirts for the next hour until school was out. At one point I was called to the office to deliver a message to a different classroom. I walked out of the office with the information, and turned around at the sound of my name. “Hey, Natalie! Nice sweatshirt!” I smiled and thanked her like the nice human being I want people to think I am. Once she started down the stairs I looked down at my sweatshirt. Black and orange? Nike? But my sweatshirt’s gray and purple! Then I remembered our little game of “try not to get caught swapping sweatshirts and giggling”. I wasn’t wearing my sweatshirt. Someone else had it. I was wearing Evan’s. It’s also kind of sad because that was one of the only compliments I’ve gotten from a stranger all year. Complimented on something that wasn’t even mine… Welcome to my life, everybody! How long have they been swapping sweathers? - not enough information - They've only done it this once - It's been a thing for years. - They've been doing it all year
(A).
They've been doing it all year


(Q).
TL:DR: I un-professionally get mad at a customer and verbally slam the door on her way out. I was working a shift at a chain cafe one afternoon in England, it was during the lunch rush, so we had a back up of customers lined up to the exit. See the problem with the chain is that all of our customers mostly range from midlife crisis to half-a-foot in the grave, so once a customer lines up, they don’t leave and they extend the queue. Plus this is a chain cafe so I've got a manager who's constantly on my back to speed up because someone is on her back to drive numbers up: this results in the line putting stress on my air-hostess smile, but they don't call it work for nothing. Now I'm not the only one stressed, a customer lines up during lunch, they're hungry and wish that Euclidean laws would suspend themselves so that they did not have to deal with the fact that I can't deal with a customer at the speed of light. Well one eldritch horror declares that my coffee took too long and does her rendition of the 1933 Hitler speech to the rest of the customers with an addendum that she will take her business elsewhere. Now my chain are pretty big in England, so if a customer wants to slap me around with a ‘customer is always right’ the script dictates that I do everything in my power to make sure they come back, and Cthulu knows this, well: I'm stressed, I don't like her face and she's given me an opportunity for me to give her the polite ‘fuck off'. All I say is ‘Good’ and move on to the next customer. Hitler-lite phones my corporation to voice a complaint, so a suit comes out and asks the team who did it, I fess up so I can save the time and not have a reason to hate one of my co-workers. I get a lecture and a warning, the end. The incident the worker described probably lasted: - a few minutes - not enough information - over a year - 2 hours
(A).
a few minutes


(Q).
It was a dream, then a place, then a memory. My father built it near the Suwannee River. I like to think it was in the heart of Florida, because it was, and is, in my heart. Its name was Dogland. Some people say you can know others if you know the central incidents that shaped their lives. But an incident is an island in time, and to know the effect of the island on those who land there, you must know something about the river they have traveled. And I must warn you before we begin, I don't know that river well. I visit that time and place like a ghost with poor vision and little memory. I look up the river and see fog rolling in. I look down the river, and the brightness of the approaching day blinds me. I see shapes moving behind me and beyond me, but who they are and what they do, I cannot say. I will tell what I know is true, and I will invent what I believe is true, and that, I think, is all you can ask any storyteller to do. I learned the Nix family history from the stories Pa told. Even at the age of four, I suspected that Pa's stories might not be perfectly true. When Pa said we Nixes came to North America as indentured servants working our way out of debtor's prison, Grandma Bette would make a face and say he couldn't know that. When he said we Nixes had Lakota and Ojibwe blood in our veins, Grandma Bette would say she wasn't prejudiced, but it simply wasn't so: she and Pa and his brothers and sisters were dark because her people were Black Dutch, from a part of Holland where everyone had black hair and black eyes. And then Grandma Bette wouldn't say a word for half an hour or more, a very long time for Grandma Bette to be quiet. What is "it" that the author says was a dream, a place and a memory? - Dogland - Florida - Holland - not enough information
(A).


assistant: Dogland