(I am doing homework that I have put off until the last possible second. I’ve been feeling under the weather, and so I go to complain to my boyfriend.)

Me: “I don’t feel so well; I’m all achy and sleepy.”

Boyfriend: “Can I help?”

Me: “No, not really, unless you know how to get me out of homework.”

Boyfriend: “Call in dead! ‘Hello, professor! I can’t do my homework because I am, in fact, dead.'”

Me: “That’d make it hard to complete my senior thesis.”

Boyfriend: “Promise that you did it, and you just can’t submit it because you died, but it’s really, really good.”

(I’m a temp at a bookstore at the local university with less than a week until classes start.)

Me: “Thank you for calling the text department; how may I help you?”

Caller: “Yes, do I have to be with my son when he picks up his textbooks?”

Me: “No, ma’am. If he ordered them online, he can pick them up at—”

Caller: “No, he hasn’t ordered them yet.”

Me: “Well, ma’am, if he has his class schedule, he can come in to the bookstore to get his books.”

Caller: “Are they ready for him?”

Me: “…excuse me?”

Caller: “Isn’t that what you do? You get all the students’ book lists and put their books together for them!”

Me: “No, ma’am. We’re just here to help if the student needs help.”

Caller: “So now I have to come in and get my son’s books?!”

Me: “No, ma’am. He can get his own—”

Caller: “You are a GROSS WASTE of my time!”

(My mother calls me long-distance as I am in college. She is upset because her car is making a bright green puddle behind the right front wheel. I keep fairly close tabs on the family cars, even from afar.)

Me: “Take the car to our regular shop and have them take a look at the water pump.”

(My mother takes the car, and sure enough, it’s what the car needs. She calls me again a day or two later…)

Mother: “I picked up the car but I don’t think they did the job right. The water pump warning light was on the whole way home.”

Me: “The… which, now? The ‘water pump warning light?'”

Mother: “Yes, it was on steadily except when I would accelerate or turn a corner or step on the brake, and then it flashed.”

Me: “Uh… okay, and where is this ‘water pump warning light?’ What does it look like?”

Mother: “It’s on the dashboard with the rest of the lights. It’s a little blue water fountain icon.”

Me: “The windshield washer fluid is in the garage on the second shelf…”

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(I am supervising an experiment for first-year physics students involving the use of a sound generator. Students must press a button in order to play the musical notes described in their instruction sheet. A normally quiet student approaches me.)

Student: “Excuse me; I can’t find the button to play G-hashtag!”

(I’m going back to school after working as a teacher for several years, so I’m older and more experienced than the other students in my introductory anatomy class.)

Student In My Group: “It didn’t change color, but we know that it’s a reducing sugar, so should I put down that it was a positive reaction?”

Me: “Guys, science is not just writing down what you think you already know. It’s about observation. It didn’t change color, so there was no reaction. That’s why reproducibility is so important. We could have done any number of things wrong. All we know is what we observed, so that’s what we put down.”

Student In Another Group: “This has to be a lipid, but it didn’t change color. Should I just put it down as positive?”

Professor: “Guys, science is not just writing down what you think you already know. It’s about observation. It didn’t change color, so there was no reaction.”

Me: “Did she just plagiarize me?”