(A few online friends and I get together once a week over Skype to play Dungeons and Dragons. For the most part it goes smoothly, but there’s been a little bit of irritation building up behind the scenes, and since I’m the Dungeon Master of the group, I ask about it.)

Me: “Hey, guys, I noticed when I give out the rewards every week everyone seems kind of upset. What’s going on?”

Friend #1: “Well, it’s just — it takes us, like, a month and a half to level up, or to get anything worthwhile.”

Friend #2: “Yeah, I don’t get why you’re so stingy with everything! This module said we should get through it in, like, just a few sessions!”

Me: “Well, remember when we started, and our sessions were about five to six hours long, and everyone was really focused, and we rampaged through content?”

Friend #1: “Yeah, that was great!”

Me: “And you know how, over time, we now have between two and three hours per session, with maybe half of it cut away because you guys constantly stop to chat about OOC stuff and then get mad at me when I try to bring the focus back to the game?”

Friend #2: “Um…”

Me: “And how I asked you guys to pay a little more attention, because one fight, that should have been over in a round and taken ten minutes, ended up taking over an hour because everyone spent ten or more minutes on their turn umming and uhhing because they didn’t listen to what other people were doing and weren’t watching the [virtual tabletop] to see what moved where?”

Friend #3: “So can’t you, like… adjust the XP we get per fight?”

Me: *getting an outright slasher smile* “SURE! You guys ready to fight four encounters at once!?”

(They started to focus a bit better after that, and stopped coming late and leaving early and then complaining about how little we did.)

(I’m not very good at noticing people’s physical characteristics. Both these conversations are with a friend I have known for over a year.)

Me: “You’ve got no thumbs!”

Friend: “I’ve never had thumbs. I was born like that.”

Me: “How did I never notice before?”

Friend: “I don’t know especially since we met in the pool hall!”

(A few months later he shows me his new ID.)

Friend: “Not the best picture.”

Me: “Haha, it makes you look like you have huge buck teeth.”

Friend: “…”

(I look at him and realise he has huge buck teeth and I never noticed before.)

Me: “…”

Friend: *trying not to laugh* “You can say it. I do have huge buck teeth.”

Me: “No, you don’t.”

Friend: “You are such a bad liar.”

(I buy a local pool pass for my whole family but they are so busy they never come out with me and my daughter, so I just have friends join me. They are usually male. I never talk about my job and very few people know what I do.)

Me: *to the check in lady* “Three under pass 69.”

Friend: “Seriously?”

(Later I got a text reminding me to pay a bill.)

Me: “I need to pay this quickly. Sorry!” *on phone* “Yes, my Social Security number is [bunch of numbers] 666.”

(I get off the phone and see my friend looking me up and down.)

Me: “What?”

Friend: “You don’t say where you work; you leave for foreign countries all the time! Now your pool pass is 69 and you have 666 in your Social Security number!”

Me: “Yeah? And?”

Friend: “I knew it. You are the devil in disguise.”

(I’m watching ‘Planet 51’ in the theatre. The human character is naked for some reason.)

Alien: “That’s a funny place for a tentacle!”

(Silence in the theatre, and then…)

Little Girl: “Daddy, what does that mean?”

Me: “I am SO glad I’m not the person who has to answer that question!”

(I am 10 years old. I’m with my older brother in the post office. My brother is waiting in a queue and I decide to sit down on a nearby sofa because we’ve been walking a lot. Soon afterwards, an angry-looking old woman comes in; she has a cane but is surprisingly fast. She ignores other chairs nearer the entrance and makes a beeline for me.)

Old Woman: “Get up! I’m tired! I want to sit!” *gesturing away from the sofa*

(Surprised, I get up and go stand next to my brother, still in the queue. She sits in the sofa for a few seconds at most and then stands up and goes back out the door, still looking angry.)

Brother: “Somebody’s disappointed she didn’t get to prove that kids today are rude.”