(During middle school, during a game of ‘wall ball,’ I end up bouncing the ball off the wall, into my best friend’s face, and back to the wall multiple times. I was so stunned I didn’t say anything when he chased down another classmate. Five years later…)

Friend: “Hey, dude. Remember that game where I got hit in the face a lot?”

Me: “Yes, that was pretty bad luck.”

Friend: “Well, I was talking to [Classmate], and he says YOU are the one that threw the ball!”

Me: “… What?”

Friend: “Yeah. I thought it was him the entire time! Why didn’t you apologize?”

Me: “Dude, I’ve told you it was me five times now.”

Friend: “Really?”

Me: “Did you really forget again?”

Friend: “Shut up.”

Me: “How hard did I hit you with that ball?”

(My friend and I are about 14, and have just finished eighth grade.)

Me: “Wouldn’t it be awesome if we could run our homes off solar power? It could almost be free!”

Friend: “What’s solar power?”

Me: “Solar power is when you produce energy from the sun’s rays.”

Friend: “That’s not possible! The sun isn’t plugged in!”

(My best friend and I watch a lot of crime shows together, both fiction and non-fiction. We like to point out all the stupid things the criminals do during these shows. We just finished watching a show where a killer is turned in by one of his friends.)

Best Friend: “I’m lucky you’re not a sociopath. You’d probably have to kill me before I found out your secret and went to the police.”

Me: “Oh, I wouldn’t do that…”

Best Friend: *surprised* “You wouldn’t?”

Me: “Of course not. You’d be traced back to me too easily. I’d hire someone else to kill you and then kill them before they had the chance to rat me out.”

Best Friend: “… I’m REALLY lucky you’re not a sociopath.”

(My roommate and I have a friend staying overnight. It is getting late and my friend and I are in the bedroom area of our house.)

Roommate: *from the main room, in a bored tone* “Mwa ha.”

Me: “Got it.”

Friend: “Um, what?”

Me: “Oh, that’s us-speak for ‘I’m locking the door and turning off the lights.’ You know, like ‘Mwa ha ha, now I have you in my evil power!’ Only it’s routine, so it’s just kind of…” *shrugs* “‘Mwa ha.'”

Friend: “You two are weird.”

Me: “This is not news.”

(On very short notice, I have driven for four hours to be with my friends during a family emergency. It is nearly 10 pm when we stop at a fast food place just in time to find one of my tires is flat. We proceed to unload my trunk to get at the spare tire and tools. Afterwards…)

Me: “Can I take a moment to thank you for not even asking why I have a seamstress dummy in the trunk of my car?”

Friend: “Hon, it goes with the territory. Dummy, bags of chips, several 12-packs of soda, that’s all normal for you to have in your car.”

Me: “True.”

Friend: “Only thing I’m wondering is why you don’t have saltines in your purse. You must have really rushed down here!”