Writing about relationships online since 2009.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission.

My mother was hospitalized following prolapse surgery earlier this year. During her brief hospitalization, she learned that the hospital beds served a dual purpose. They had built-in scales that also weighed the patients as they lay in their beds. Unfortunately for my mother, the hospital staff put her in a broken bed.

She compared recovery from her surgery to the way she felt after giving birth to each of her two children decades ago. It was painful to move, so she tried to lie as still as possible to minimize her discomfort.

A nurse finally convinced her to move from the bed to a chair by the window when another nurse walked into the room and said she needed to get my mother's weight to make sure she wasn't retaining fluid after her surgery. "Just get back in the bed, and I'll weigh you that way," she said. "The bed is also a scale."

My mother felt worried. Hopping back into bed wasn't exactly an option. She had to clamber from her seat and mince her way back to the bed. Climbing back onto the bed was another ordeal, but she finally got settled.

The nurse pressed every button on the bed. There was plenty of whirring and clanking, but no weight. "It doesn't seem to be working," the nurse said. "Could you hop out of bed for a minute while I try to fix it?"

Slowly and painfully, my mother lifted herself out of the bed. She stood on wobbly legs and waited for the nurse to fix the bed scale so she could get back into bed and get weighed.

"Maybe you should get back in the chair," the nurse said. "This could take a while."

My mother obediently hobbled over to the chair near the window. No sooner had she sat down than another nurse entered the room to assist.

The two nurses pushed buttons and muttered until one of them said, "Okay, can you get back on the bed so we can try to weigh you again?"

My mother laboriously got back into the bed. "I should have said, 'No,'" my mother told me, but she didn't.

It didn't work. After the nurses fiddled with the bed scale for a bit more, one of them announced she was leaving the room to fetch a scale chair.

"She came back into the room with a chair that was even more dilapidated than the bed," my mother said. "And can you believe it? The chair didn't work, either."

My mother got back into bed for the last time, and the nurses muttered to each other, asked my mother her weight, and noted something in her chart. While my mother didn't believe they actually got the bed scale to work, she pretended that she did because she didn't want to get out of bed and back into it again. She felt exhausted.

"After all that, I didn't even care if I was retaining fluid," she said. "I just wanted them to stop trying to fix that scale bed."

According to my mother, the surgery wasn't nearly as painful as the nurse trying to weigh her in that faulty hospital bed. "Compared to the incident with that scale bed, recovering from the surgery was a piece of cake," she said. She can laugh about it now; she wasn't laughing when I picked her up from the hospital.

Writing about relationships online since 2009.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. When my mother worked as a Walmart associate for a decade, she saw enough strange things to fill an entire book. There were times she felt shocked at the events that went on in the workplace. One of the most surprising incidents that happened while she was working at Walmart involved a coworker who brought her child into the store and put her to work all day long without getting caught.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. Way back in the late 1950s or early 1960s, my mother heard that a famous singer named Connie Francis was scheduled to appear at the Outlet Company in Providence, Rhode Island. Connie Francis was my mother's favorite singer, so she was very excited.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. My grandmother loved Bounty paper towels. They were indeed "the quicker picker upper," as advertised in their commercials. They were her favorite paper towels. Whenever we went shopping together, she would load up on Bounty paper towels, and it had to be Bounty. No other brand would do.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. My mother was one of the bridesmaids at my aunt's wedding. According to my mother, it was a beautiful event. What could possibly go wrong?

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. A family member was an awful mother. She had two children. Unfortunately, she always hated children, and her own children were not an exception.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. My mother worked for a popular retail department store. One of my mother's coworkers injured herself on the job. While this woman didn't have to miss work due to her injury, the doctors prescribed medication to her and gave her a note instructing her to perform only "light duty" at work.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. According to my mother, everyone has a mouse story, but hers is the best. I was about to tell her that not everyone has a mouse story, and then I realized I have one, too, but that's a story for another day.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. My mother is fastidious when she fries fish for dinner. She doesn't like the smell of frying fish or the splatter of hot cooking oil, so she always fries fish outdoors in the backyard.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. Living in a house with your mother-in-law and your father-in-law is a mistake. Just ask my mother. She told me living in such close proximity to your in-laws can be a nightmare, and I believe her.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. I got my first real full-time job six months after high-school graduation. I had decided not to go to college, and I kept my part-time after-school job for half a year after I left high school before my parents convinced me to enter the real world.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. When they hire new employees at Walmart, they hold a meeting with the new associates. Among other topics, managers discuss the store's Amber Alert policy.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. Shortly after I rented my first apartment, I found a large dog wandering the street outside my apartment building. The dog seemed lost and friendly, and I love dogs. We were a perfect match. I decided to take the dog home.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. I only change my bedsheets twice per year, and I'm not ashamed to admit it. In fact, I think it's kind of awesome.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. My first boyfriend was hardworking and generous. He paid whenever we went out to dinner, whether it was McDonald's or my favorite fancy restaurant with real silverware and lit candles on every table. If we went to the store together, he always bought me a little something.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. A family member asked me to be a bridesmaid at his wedding. I wasn't excited about it. The wedding date was one day after my fifteenth birthday, and I was a painfully shy and awkward teenage girl. I wanted no part of it, but I had no choice. Family is family.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who experienced them firsthand; used with permission. My mother and my aunt worked together at a jewelry shop in the 1960s. One of their coworkers had a teenage son who also worked at the shop. My aunt was eighteen years old, and the coworker's son was sixteen.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. I dated a man who had a penchant for taking things that didn't belong to him. His habit of shoplifting got him arrested once. It got him fired twice. And it made me extremely angry more times than I can remember.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events I experienced firsthand; used with permission. Whenever I hear the words "weight loss," my ears perk up. I want to hear exactly how the speaker dropped the extra pounds.

*This is a work of nonfiction based on actual events as told to me by a family member who witnessed them firsthand; used with permission. My aunt never liked her mother-in-law, but she allowed the older woman to babysit for her children whenever she visited from overseas. One child was a toddler, and the other was a baby.