Have you ever spoken too loud or yelled the wrong thing and didn’t mean it at the time, like in a crowded restaurant? Well, that’s what happened to Mark Polchleb, except the person he accidentally yelled at was an innocent DoorDash driver dropping off Polchleb’s meal. Fortunately, the customer tried his best to make up for the mistake.

Repeat stories are all over the Internet about the abuse gig workers have had to endure just to make extra income as a second job or earn a living freelancing via services. DoorDash has become extremely popular in the food delivery industry, utilizing freelancers to connect the bridge between restaurants and customers at home wanting food delivered. The company’s business spiked, obviously, during the pandemic when both customers and restaurants wanted food bought and delivered but couldn’t do so in the restaurant itself due to social distancing. However, while business exploded, so did the rudeness drivers and delivery people had to put up with.

So, when a driver had to deliver an order to Polchleb’s door, it wasn’t an outrageous shock to be yelled at through the door, but it wasn’t a wonderful experience either. Unknown to the driver, however, Polchleb wasn’t yelling at the worker; instead, he had gotten verbally frustrated with his dog, but Polchleb didn’t realize his mistake was misinterpreted by the driver outside until it was too late.

The whole mistake happened with the driver getting near the front door. Polchleb’s dog reacted first and started barking up a storm. He yelled at the dog, probably using a few choice words. Unfortunately, the driver thought the verbal cussing was at him; the surprise and reaction turned to have been filmed on Polchleb’s doorcam. Worse, Polchleb opened the door, grabbed the food, and kept up the yelling at his dog. The driver probably thought the Australian customer was nuts.

Later, when Polchleb took some time to check out his camera’s footage, the mistake became obvious. The key reaction in the driver was when Polchleb yelled at his dog, “Get away from the door, mate!” The driver then backed up noticeably and left. Most folks would chalk up the goof to a personal whoops and move on. However, Polchleb felt genuinely bad and wanted to do something about it.

So, given how easy it was to reach a lot of people quickly, Polchleb decided to reach out online via social media, hopefully connecting to the driver through friends or direct. If it worked for companies and marketers, the online reach could work for Polchleb as well. So, he posted an apology on TikTok. Lots of users took the post as genuine and sympathized with what Polchleb was trying to do. Many noted they felt sick at the thought of being in the same situation. Mark kept posting, telling everyone he could online about his mission to find the driver to make up for the delivery mistake.

Finally, Polchleb was able to connect. It turned out the delivery driver’s child saw the video and told her father about it. They connected with Polchleb online. Sami, the driver, agreed to meet in person, and Polchleb got to learn about the driver and his family. The DoorDash job was intended to help Sami visit his son overseas, and the driver quietly kept the matter to himself like so many drivers do regularly. However, when DoorDash found about the story, the company also got involved, giving Sami elite status in the company and a permanent pay raise for life. Between that and some other help, Sami now has a very good chance to connect with his son again. And Mark Polchleb was able to clear his conscience as well.

The trend of people wanting to relive their memories as kids and teens through physical things they used to have earlier in life isn’t fading. In fact, even as people get older and many are positively in retirement, the trend has grown exponentially. The proof is easily seen in how expansive sites like eBay, for example, have grown in the last two decades, becoming global markets for used items that people want to own again. However, it’s one thing to buy a replacement for what one had earlier in life. It’s quite another to actually buy the same item decades later!

Halifax native Renee Forrestall decided at the active age of 60 that she wanted to get back on roller-skates again. It’s a common situation; people have more time on their hands after the kids have moved out and possibly are retired from work, and activity is promoted by everyone as a great way to keep the pounds off as well as keep the brain sharp. Roller-skating seemed to make sense for Renee, and it would give her a way to exercise that she remembered enjoying.

So, off Renee went to the store, and she quickly had a brand new set under her feet. However, old memories are hard to shake, and the new skates just didn’t feel like the old ones she used to have. Something about the fit with the old skating style made a big difference to her. So, knowing the Internet auction sites and similar were a great place to find old stuff, she started searching. Soon enough, Renee found a set that looked an awful lot like the rollerskates she remembered having four decades earlier. They were old, needed cleaning and laces, but they seemed to fit the bill.

Renee could have been completely wasting her time. The online ad didn’t even have the foot size listed, but she took a gamble and connected with the ad owner about the skates listed. In fact, Renee even traveled in person to the owner to try the skates on and buy them there if they fit. Once at the seller’s residence, she put her foot in the first skate and was shocked. The rollerskate not only fit, it matched her foot correctly!

Renee was a bit flabbergasted by what was going on and started to lace up the rollerskate. To do so, she had to move the tongue of the shoe part, and the writing on it caught her eye. Renee was literally looking at the name of a previous owner, and that name was hers. At that moment, the rollerskate fit and the name seemed to all make sense. She was buying back her old roller skates from almost half a century earlier.

Like most kids, Renee had written her name on the shoe tongue in case the skates got lost. The pair were originally sold by Renee when she was at university, and she forgot about them. To get them back was not only the thrill of finding something old for memory’s sake again, she had found literally her own rollerskates!

And, as an aside, the seller’s real name, no kidding, was James Bond. Talk about coincidences.

What do you do with crow with a foul mouth, and it wants to be your friend? That was the dilemma for one class at Allen Dale Elementary in Grants Pass. Normally, birds stay clear of humans, using their ability to fly to stay out of reach, unless doing an occasional drop or dive bomb to chase folks away from a nest. However, in the case of one particular crow, she wanted interaction. The particular bird made it pretty clear it wanted inside a school, pecking on windows and doors until she finally found a way into a 5^th grade room for a few snacks.

The crow didn’t behave like a wild bird at all, being extremely friendly and landing on the kids. What was really noticeable, however, was that the bird could make sounds that imitated human phrases. And in that collection of verbal enunciations, the bird was apparently taught how to swear. Just like a like a pirate’s parrot, the crow was barking up a storm, completely flavored with salty language. When the local animal officers showed up to deal with the bird, they took one look at the fiasco and culprit and decided it wasn’t their type of case to deal with. The folks backed up and refused to do anything further. Eventually, however, the bird was in deep doo-doo. The Oregon State Police wildlife officer showed up instead. This time, the law was going to be applied, even if the bird didn’t have a clue what that meant.

The first question with the officer’s presence was exactly how to catch the crow. No one really wanted to use a net in case it traumatized what was clearly a friendly animal. However, every time the officer tried to get control, the crow would show around or next to one of the kids and hide. As it turned out, the government had to give up, and the bird spent the night on the school roof or nearby when the kids went home.

The avian culprit had clearly learned a wide vocabulary. By local count, it had something near 40 different words it could use, and the bird mental dictionary apparently got bigger with more interaction with the school kids. As it turned out, the bird had a name and was indeed cared for by humans earlier in its life. Cosmo was a recovered baby crow at the time who was cared for by Daphnie Colpron’s mother years earlier. Cosmo took quite a liking to the family and the farm they lived on as it grew to adulthood, chasing the family dogs and raising a ruckus during the day.

As it turned out, Cosmo, in her older age, decided to broaden interaction with humans, and started targeting local schools for more talking and play with human children. The bird began to learn the arrival schedule and made itself a regular at a local preschool before showing up at Allan Dale Elementary. Daphnie thought Cosmos had disappeared at one point after coming back from a holiday when they found out Cosmo had been captured and turned over to a bird sanctuary. However, Cosmo didn’t mingle well with other birds, and the sanctuary released her. Back she went to humans and daily chattering with local kids in Grants Pass. Daphnie and family eventually picked up Cosmo and took her home again, and the bird is doing just fine.

If you happen to be in Baltimore and looking out on the water, don’t be surprised if you see a gigantic contraption with cartoon eyeballs chugging along in the water. You have been blessed with being witness to the Mr. Trash Wheel doing its job.

Trash interception, or the process of diverting pollution and garbage from ending up in natural locations or general landfill, has been a fundamental function of cities for decades. In particular, big cities have been challenged with improving their garbage removal as well as finding ways to recycle better. The Mr. Trash Wheel is one of the latest, more creative approaches developed in Baltimore, Maryland, particularly targeting the waterfront area that is seen by thousands every month. And, it’s also quite popular. When not gobbling up trash on the waterways, the Mr. Trash Wheel has become a popular target for social media selfies.

Design-wise, Mr. Trash Wheel operates as a floating garbage interceptor catching floating debris and consumer trash in the Jones Fall water path, a part of the Baltimore Inner Harbor water system. With an over-emphasized mouth and goofy eyes, the interceptor already has a fan club among locals in Maryland, and the city management is quite pleased with its actual garbage removal performance as well. Had it not been for this particular interceptor, thousands of pounds of floating trash would simply make its way out to the Atlantic Ocean affecting coastlines up and down Maryland state and further.

John Kellet can take credit for the Mr. Trash Wheel. A local business founder of Clearwater Mills, he began to become personally irritated by the amount of trash Kellet would witness after every storm, with the new drainwater pushing trash through the Harbor to the ocean. So, he decided to do something about it. With a bit of thinking and creativity, Kellet realized the market was entirely missing a viable tool for job. So, his entrepreneurial side kicked in, and Kellet took on the job of creating a solution.

Plastic has been the biggest factor of the problem. It doesn’t degrade, it floats, and it’s poisonous to wildlife. So, Kellet targeted that part of the trash environment first. Since that first development, the Mr. Trash Wheel, has since diverted well over 3 million pounds of plastic garbage, as well as other floating material picked up in the Harbor. The tool has been so effective, three more units were created to help keep the Harbor clean as well.

Interestingly, the Trash Wheel design is not very high tech. It incorporates a simple water paddle that utilizes the water’s own motion and power to work. As the water pushes against the mill paddles, it powers the unit’s operation (or with solar power), which scoops out track and floating material from the water and puts in on a conveyer track. This in turn pulls the trash up and out of the water and into a catch container for removal. The feed occurs via bouy net that traps the debris as it floats in the water towards the Trash Wheel. The trash container then just gets periodically emptied while the Trash Wheel works 24/7. Even more noticeable, the units can be managed remotely, increasing the pump function to turn the wheel as needed.

The benefits of the Trash Wheel in Baltimore’s Harbor have been immediate and noticeable. The device was extremely effective, and the floating trash levels dropped significantly after just the first few weeks. With the results so obvious, the additional three Trash Wheels were ordered by the municipality and put into action elsewhere in Baltimore’s waterways.

The story just goes to show as bad as consumerism and trash can get, people can be just as creative and effective in cleaning pollution up if they put their mind to it.

Have you ever met someone you thought you knew? What if that person turned out to be a dead-on ringer for a cartoon character? What would you do? Would you say something to the person about it? Don’t be surprised if someone beat you to it. There are dozens of folks walking around in real life that have a surprisingly accurate resemblance to cartoon characters, both classic as well as modern. Here are some examples.