(My friend and I are working out our schedules for next year.)

Friend: *receives text* “Oh, my god, everyone keeps asking me for advice on their schedules. I’m not god! I don’t know what you should do with your life.”

(Five minutes later:)

Friend: “Hey, [My Name], do you think I should take AP or regular science?”

(My friend is playing ‘Hitman: Absolution,’ a video game where you play as a hitman, while I watch and give tips. The game awards you for being silent, stealthy, and killing ONLY your target. My friend is not the stealthy type, and will try to kill everyone he can. He is playing the tutorial mission. He enters the kitchen, waits for the chef to stop talking to a guard, and instead of sneaking by (which is easy, the chef won’t even think of anything) this happens. It is worth noting that there is a scoring system, and points are deducted for killing the wrong person, being seen, etc. and starts at zero.)

Friend: *grabs knife*

Me: “All right, you might need that later.”

Friend: “Should I kill the chef?”

Me: “No, just go through the kitchen.”

Friend: *throws knife in chef’s face, killing him*

(His score is now at -3500 for killing a non-target, killing a civilian, and being spotted. In other words, VERY bad.)

Me: “That was a CIVILIAN!”

Friend: “Oh, my gosh, I’m so sorry!”

(Later is a mission to kill a man, “king of Chinatown.” Crowded environment, but several ways to kill him, including a sniper rifle, poisoning his food, and pushing him down a hole.)

Friend: “Okay, so how can I kill him?”

Me: “Well, there’s a sniper rifle in one these houses… You can also lure him to his car…”

Friend: “Can I just shoot him?”

Me: “In a crowded marketplace? They’ll call SWAT teams!”

Friend: “I’m going to shoot him.”

(He did so. And actually managed to finish the mission without being filled with holes and only killed one or two cops.)

(I volunteer as a Scout leader. Our Cub Scout pack has several boys in it who live at a nearby residential school for kids with emotional and learning disabilities. Many are there because their parents have lost custody due to their inability to give these kids the help they need. When we first accepted these kids into the pack, we were a little concerned about how they would fit in with the ‘typical’ kids. One of the kids from the special school is going to be going back home to live with his parents, which is a huge deal. We give him a goodbye card and wish him luck. Unfortunately, he is back at the school a month later due to his loser-parents not doing their job. There is a pack event, and this kid shows up with the rest of the kids from the school. He is hanging in the back, looking a bit down when the rest of the den he had been in sees him.)

Scout #1: “[Kid]! You’re here!”

Scout #2: “We thought you left!”

Scout #1: “We need you for our team! Come on!”

(The kid burst into a huge smile and joined the others like he had never been away. 10- and 11-year-old boys can be a trial some days, but my Scouts gave this kid a better welcome than his own family, and his teacher said it was the first time he had smiled in about a week. The next generation of humanity is doing all right.)

(It’s tourist season, and an older couple approaches me:)

Woman: “Excuse me, can you tell us where [Store] is?”

Me: “Sure, just continue down this street another half mile or so. It’s almost across the street from the McDonald’s.”

Woman: *in a syrupy condescending voice* “Oh, honey, we’re not from around here. We don’t know where the McDonalds live.”

Me: “Uh, look for the golden arches. You’ll figure it out.”

(I’m on my father’s family phone plan, and since he bought my first cell phone I have a number with his area code, a five-hour time difference ahead of mine. For a while I was getting a lot of random calls, business and otherwise, from that area code, with a good chunk of them coming in at three in the morning. As a joke, I recorded a voicemail message in Japanese (since everyone who knows me knows I speak it), and it actually helped; people stopped leaving messages or calling back again. One morning I’m between buses on my way to work, coming in early on a Saturday, and my phone rings. I check the number, recognize the area code, and let it go to voicemail. But the person hangs up before it does, and calls again. They do this two more times before I, already grumpy at the early hour, decide to pick up.)

Me: “Moshi-moshi?” *hello?*

Man: *ten seconds of silence* “…Trevor?”

Me: *I’m a girl* “Ah, Trevor? Dochira-sama desu ka?” *Trevor? who is that?*

Man: “Is this Trevor’s phone?”

Me: *waiting for the light bulb to go on* “Ano, gomen nasai, watashi no eigo ga waruinda kara…” *I’m sorry, my English is bad…*

Man: *thirty seconds of loooong, uncomfortable silence* “I guess I have the wrong number…”

Me: *in Japanglish* “Ah, hai! Rongu numba!” *yes! wrong number!*

(I hung up on him.)