(I’m walking my dog through a park. It’s an overcast day, so most of the walk passes without me seeing any other person. Eventually, however, I see a mother and her young son up ahead on the path, walking in my direction. Once we get close enough to really see each other, the little boy notices my dog and grins happily. Note that my dog is very sweet and tolerant of children, and hasn’t growled at or bit anyone since he was a puppy.)

Boy: “Doggy!”

Me: “You can pet him if you want! He’s really friendly.”

(His mother gives the okay and the boy runs over to pet my dog. My dog enjoys the attention while I make small talk with the mother.)

Mother: “Your dog is really good! Puppies are usually so hyper.”

Me: “Actually, he’s an adult. A regular old man, believe it or not!”

Mother: “Really? He’s so little! What kind of dog is he?”

Me: “He’s a mix, part-cocker spaniel and part-poodle. He—”

(Out of the corner of my eye, I see the boy grab my dog’s ear and yank on it. It happens too quickly for me to stop it. In response, my dog yelps in pain and snaps at the boy’s hand, but misses. I pull my dog away and the mother does the same to her son, and for a long moment we’re all too shocked to speak.)

Mother: “Your… your dog is vicious! It almost bit my son!”

Me: “I’m sorry, ma’am, but your son pulled on my dog’s ear. It hurt him, and that’s why he snapped. I’m sure your son didn’t know any better, but—”

Mother: “You lied! You said your dog was friendly!”

Me: “Ma’am—”

Mother: “It ought to be kept indoors, away from people! I bet it attacks people all the time! It’s a menace to society!”

Me: *deadpan* “Yes, my eleven-year-old dog who’s so small you mistook him for a puppy is a menace to society because he snapped at your son after he injured him. Look, ma’am, this dog hasn’t bit or tried to bite anyone since he was a year old, and he loves kids. But kids have to be nice to him in return. I’m sure your son is too young to know how to properly interact with a dog, but it’s up to you to teach him. If my dog had bitten your son, it wouldn’t have been my dog’s fault.”

Mother: *turns red and storms off with her son, muttering all the while*

Me: *in a high-pitched voice, to my dog* “Who’s a menace to society? You are!”

(I’m a teenager and I recently got my very first job bagging groceries. It’s my third day working and my feet are killing me, but I’m still smiling and doing the best I can. A woman and her little boy — maybe three years old — are finishing up in the next lane. They pay and the woman begins to push her cart away, but the little boy starts talking.)

Boy: “Bye! Bye!”

Me: *waving* “Bye!”

Boy: “Bye!”

(He continued the whole way down the line, waving and saying bye to all the workers with a huge smile on his face. It made my day.)

(My friend and I are having fun exploring the festival. She’s just gotten a large henna tattoo on her back, so she’s just wearing a bra, but hardly indecent. We sit down to eat samosas.)

Woman: “Hi! Are you enjoying the festival?”

Me: *assuming she works for the festival* “We sure are!”

Woman: *as though a switch has flipped in her brain* “Have you accepted Jesus Christ as your lord and savior?”

Me: *to my friend* “How’s the chicken samosa?”

Friend: “It’s good! Here, I’ll trade you.”

(We weren’t rude; we just completely ignored her and talked about samosas.)

(My wife and I have brought our good friend, who is an atheist, to our church, since he has never been to a service of our denomination before and was interested to hear how a liberal, progressive church works. Needless to say, he was not familiar with the songs or hymnals, but we tried to explain as we went. We have just started a hymn.)

Me: *whispers* “Can you read music?”

Friend: “Sort of, but this is totally new…”

(He stumbles with the words a bit before deciding to copy us, both women. This results in a really weird-sounding cracking falsetto.)

Wife: *whispers* “[Friend], you know you can go down an octave, right?”

Friend: *starts laughing as quietly as possible*

(I look at him and start laughing as well, while trying not to laugh as we are in the middle of church. This, of course, makes me laugh more until I am completely out of breath with silent giggles.)

Wife: *glares* “I can’t take you anywhere! You two just feed off each other!”

(I’ve just entered the main building of my school together with a friend when I encounter one of my classmates. Said classmate has a scar under his eye that wasn’t there earlier.)

Me: “Holy s***, dude… What happened?”

Classmate: *deadpan* “Ah, just got into a fight yesterday.”

Friend: “With whom?!”

Classmate: “I don’t even remember. Was too drunk to tell.”

(While we go out drinking and all that, our class in general is considered the “goody-goodies” of our year, and he is far from a violent drunk. That my classmate would get into a that serious fight is shocking enough that my friend doesn’t know how to respond and quickly excuses herself. I and my classmate head for class.)

Me: “That’s… that’s not what happened, right?”

Classmate: “How could you tell?”

Me: “If the other guy was serious, he’d give you more than just that scar, like a black eye or something. So, what happened?”

Classmate: *sighs loudly* “I was in bed, watching stuff on my phone, and my hand slipped, that’s all.”

Me: “Oh… then why didn’t you say so from the start?”

Classmate: “It’d make me look bad.”

Me: “And acting like you were in a drunken fight wouldn’t?!”