The Discount I Never Asked For
The man at the hardware store gave me a discount I’d never asked for and couldn’t explain. Fourteen percent, every time, for nine years. He would type something into the …
The Discount I Never Asked For Read MoreAuthor: john.mitchell
The Note on My Refrigerator
My mother’s handwriting showed up on a note in my kitchen four years after she died. It was just a grocery list stuck to my refrigerator with a magnet. Milk, …
The Note on My Refrigerator Read MoreThe Jury Check I Never Expected
The court sent me a check for jury duty I never served. Forty dollars and mileage, for four days in 2023, at a courthouse ninety miles from here. Somebody sat …
The Jury Check I Never Expected Read MoreThe Business That Was Still Using My Name
I got a summons for a case where I’m listed as the defendant’s employer. I’ve never had an employee. It was a small claims case over unpaid wages—eleven thousand dollars. …
The Business That Was Still Using My Name Read MoreThe Warrant in My Name
There’s a bench warrant out for me in a county I’ve never been to. Failure to appear, 2011. I found out at the DMV when my license wouldn’t renew. The …
The Warrant in My Name Read MoreSomeone Was Voting Under My Daughter’s Name
My daughter got a jury summons at my address. She’s lived in Oregon since 2014. I called to tell them, and they said her voter registration here was still active …
Someone Was Voting Under My Daughter’s Name Read MoreThe Letter From the Jury
I served on a jury in 1996 and got a letter about it last month. Twenty-nine years later, the letter came from the court, on court paper, and asked me …
The Letter From the Jury Read MoreThe Summons Addressed to My Dead Husband
The summons came addressed to my husband. He’d been dead eleven years. It wasn’t a mistake—jury pools get purged, and we filed everything, and I know because I filed it. …
The Summons Addressed to My Dead Husband Read MoreThe Accident I Was Never Supposed to Remember
I was subpoenaed as a witness in a case I’d never heard of, for an accident I supposedly wasn’t at. It happened on Route 9, outside a town two hours …
The Accident I Was Never Supposed to Remember Read MoreThe Notebook She Left Behind
My mother’s caregiver kept a notebook and left it behind when she quit. It was a spiral drugstore notebook containing four years of my mother’s vitals, meals, medications, and notes …
The Notebook She Left Behind Read More