Thursday, December 9, 2010
Local woman overestimated her Japanese language skills.
Many years after finishing grad school at New York University, I went to visit a Japanese student I'd met while in school. I was staying for 10 days, first in Tokyo and then in Kyoto, the old capital. The first day I arrived in Japan, I was on my own because my friend's vacation from work had not started yet. Feeling rather adventurous and courageous, I decided to go shopping in some department stores in Tokyo all by myself. For several months before traveling, I had been studying Japanese. I was under the impression that if I had to, I would be capable of communicating. I was looking around one of the many elegant department stores in the crowded city–I have to say their department stores are much more elegant then ours–when "nature …
Wednesday, December 1, 2010
He jumped to conclusions at the check-in counter.
The tale-teller: Gary Sharpe of Morris Township. The question he chose: What's the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to you? His answer: Years ago when I was brand new at meeting planning, I was a bit nervous during the preparation for a 100-guest meeting in a small resort in San Antonio, Texas. I had reserved 50 sleeping rooms for 100 guests. Each attendee and their guest were allocated a room. I was not expecting the hotel to be sold out. Since there was no room for error I was personally monitoring the check-in process. During my monitoring at the hotel front desk, I overheard someone checking in with my last name. I immediately assumed that someone overheard me using my last name and was trying to book a room which would …
Monday, November 8, 2010
A Morris Township man's destiny changed along with a plane reservation.
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Monday, November 8, 2010
The tale-teller: Ed Aussem of Morris Township. The question he chose: What's the strangest thing that's ever happened to you? His answer: "In the past, I traveled extensively in my sales management job. In early September of 2001, I was told that I'd be needed the following week at a meeting in San Jose. The meeting was one day earlier than I'd planned to travel there, so I changed flights from Tuesday to Monday and thought nothing more about it." "After watching everything that happened the morning of September 11, I got a call from a colleague who excitedly asked, "Did you make any changes to your itinerary for this trip?" I said, "No," not even remembering the switch I'd made the previous week. He pressed me on the question and …
Saturday, October 23, 2010
She gave birth with a shattered hip.
- OPINION
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Saturday, October 23, 2010
The tale-teller: Maria Cobern, a stay-at-home mom from Morris Township. The question she chose: What's the strangest thing that's ever happened to you? Her answer: I was 25 and pregnant with my first child, due in two days, when I had a freak accident. It was April Fool's Day. I walked through a doorway in my house, stubbed my toe on the door frame and twisted my body in a weird way. I heard this sound like a champagne bottle popping and all of a sudden I felt this excruciating pain. Turns out I had broken my hip in what the doctors said was "the worst possible way you could break it." The way they explained it to me was that the hip is like a mushroom and I had snapped the stem from the cap. I had to wait three days to get it operated on …
Tuesday, October 19, 2010
A frightening moment; a lesson learned.
The tale-teller: Yours truly, Kathy Shaskan, editor of the Morris Township-Morris Plains Patch. The question I chose: What's the strangest thing that ever happened to you? My answer: When I was in my 20s, I lived in a beautiful brownstone apartment on Van Vorst Park in downtown Jersey City. That was in the early days of the area's renaissance and my neighborhood was still a little iffy. The shared washer and dryer, just off the entryway, were not properly vented, so the foyer always filled with steam. We had to open the front door for a few minutes after each use to air it out. One day I did a load of laundry, opened the front door, forgot I opened it and went to take a shower. When I walked out of the shower and into my bedroom, stark …
