My husband and I were visiting Oslo, and we went to the National Museum. We are American, and we were speaking English between us. My Norwegian was enough to get by and be polite.

At the time we were there, there was a special traveling Egyptian exhibit. It was only a largish room, and I read faster than my husband, so I was hanging around by a wall-sized mural of Hatshepsut’s tomb. Suddenly, an elderly lady approached me, put her arm through mine, and started telling me how her father excavated the tomb, how much fun she had playing there, and how slippery the ramp was when it rained. When she was done, I thanked her for sharing with me, and she patted my arm and wandered off.

It doesn’t sound like a story, until you take into account that she was speaking German, which I do speak but for obvious reasons hadn’t been. I have no idea why she thought I’d understand her.

I never checked on her story to see if it matched up. The whole bizarre story might be better than the truth.

(My friends and I have gotten together for the weekend and my friend whose house we’re staying at can’t find her corkscrew. Since her parents live in the same complex, we go over to get their corkscrew. While we’re there, the weather starts getting nasty and raining hard, so the topic comes up about how we’d weather the storm if there was a tornado since the houses don’t have basements.)

Friend’s Mom: “I’d go hide in the crawl space.”

Friend #1: “We’d be safe in the bathtubs.”

Friend #2: “When it came up at school, I told my students I’d jump out the window and hope I didn’t crash through the grate below.”

Me: *mishearing* “What’s the Great Below?”

Friend #2: *laughing* “You know, grate? Like a piece of metal?”

Me: *laughing* “Yay for homonyms!”

I’ve recently gotten a job at a motor factory in the connecting department. Both connectors I work with are originally from Vietnam, and both are old enough to be my parents.

The woman and I talk quite a bit, as it’s easier for me to get physically get close enough for us to hear each other over the noise while still working, and one day she says, “You just look so familiar to me, and I don’t know why.”

I honestly can’t think why I would look familiar to her. I ask if she frequented a job I had at a convenience store for nearly ten years, but she hadn’t. We can’t think of any other reason and just shrug it off.

After a few weeks, we’re talking about music, and I mention that I took piano lessons for ten years, and that I ended up quitting lessons because I hated the recitals. She is mostly impressed that I kept with the lessons for so long, and she tells me about her oldest daughter who tried to take lessons for a few years but just never got into it.

I mention the music school I used to attend for private lessons and she actually pauses in what she’s doing to look at me again and she says, “You’re the little girl from [Music School]! You used to sit with me in the waiting room; my daughter had lessons with [Teacher] before you!”

Over 25 years later, and she still remembered me as “the little girl who sat in the waiting room with her.”

(I offer to clean some football shirts for my seven-year-old son’s team in our village. One of the mothers says they will send someone to pick them up next Sunday at noon. About that time, the doorbell rings and my son and I go to answer the door. The woman standing there is too young to be a mother. I assume she is maybe an older sister. She is carrying a bag containing some bulky items.)

Me: *to son* “What do you say?”

My Son: *handing the clothes over in a shopping bag* “Here you go.”

(The young woman looks surprised for a moment, before she smiles, takes the bag, thanks my son, and walks away. Twenty minutes later, one of the mothers comes to the door.)

Mother: “Hi, I’m here to pick up the clothes.”

Me: *confused* “But you just sent someone.”

Mother: *just as puzzled* “No, I didn’t.”

(I go into panic mode, and start feeling a little embarrassed. I immediately tell her everything that happened. The neighbour, hearing us talking loudly, interrupts and says that a young woman just gave her some goods she had ordered that matched the description. Another neighbour says that the woman in question was selling goods to various houses in our street.)

Mother: *loudly* “YOU GAVE OUR CLOTHES AWAY TO A SALESWOMAN?!”

(A third neighbour, as told to us the following day, had also ordered some goods. The woman giving them to her had asked if she also wanted to buy some clothes for “a cheaper price.” The neighbour brought the clothes for £20.)

(My best friend and I are both 25. She has been married for a year now, and I can’t remember the last time I went on a second date. She’s telling me that she and her husband both got ordained from some online group.)

Me: “You’re not going to be my maid of honor now; you’re going to be the one performing the wedding.”

Friend: “Or both! Or [Husband] can perform the wedding, since your spouse might not be close enough with him to have him as a groomsman. Or bridesman.”

Me: “Future spouse will probably be a man.”

Friend: “At this point, can you afford to be picky?”