(Our local comic shop has a 10% ‘loyalty’ discount – if you go in often enough that the people working there recognise you, you get a discount. My older sister is a regular, but I am not. I go in to purchase some dice for a game I play.)

Worker: *unsure* “Oh, I see you in here a lot, don’t I?”

Me: “Uh, no, but my older sister is here all the time. I come in about once a month for tournaments.”

Worker: “Oh, yeah, short dark hair, right? You have really similar faces.”

(This is true, so I don’t think much of it, selecting my £10 worth of dice.)

Worker: *ringing me up* “Okay, that’s £9. I recognised you, so it counts, right?”

(I guess I get a loyalty discount by association now!)

(My boyfriend and I are in a small comic book store looking around. A family with two little girls are also looking around and are in the kids’ section. The older one remarks that a lot of the comic book covers are creepy. We then hear this gem.)

Little Girl: “It’s a good thing I haven’t learned how to read yet!”

Boyfriend: *remarking quietly* “Never heard that said as a brag before.”

(My boyfriend has decided the best way to help me learn how to build my own deck is to take me to a Magic: the Gathering draft event. We start the draft and everything is going smoothly until the guy on my right slows progress. Note: unlike most present, I don’t look nerdy in the slightest.)

Guy: *starts to hand me the next pack* “No! Wait!” *pulls it back and swaps cards* “Here!” *offers them to me again then snatches them and swaps cards again* “Sorry! I just don’t know which one I want!”

Me: *irritated, in perfect mimicry of Gollum’s voice* “Is it going to give us the cards or isn’t it, precious?”

(Cue bewildered stares from everyone in the room except for my boyfriend, who laughs.)

Boyfriend: *grinning* “Yeah, she does that.”

Friend: “Hey, Water Farmer, are you making a food run? Can you get me something?”

Me: “Sure, but out of curiosity, you’ve all been calling me “Water Farmer” for a couple of weeks now. Why is that?”

Friend: “Because you’re Luke.”

Me: “Yeah but where do you go from Luke to Wat— This a Star Wars thing, isn’t it?”

Friend: “Luke’s aunt and uncle are moisture farmers.”

Me: “Right. Moisture farmers, water farmer. Congratulations, that’s the first original Luke Skywalker joke I’ve heard since Empire came out.”

Friend: “We try our best.”

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(I’ve liked comics since I was a little girl but I’d always been too shy to go to a comic store, for various reasons. I finally wander into one to get a birthday present for my sister and have a terrible time finding it until I swallow my embarrassment and ask for help. Shyly, I ask him where they keep the Transformers comics.)

Cashier: *surprised* ” People don’t usually ask for those! We might be out, but I’ll show you where they would be.”

(Sure enough, I find exactly what I am looking for. I start coming in pretty regularly during lunch break, always looking for Transformers comics. Then one afternoon, I walk in and find one issue of the newest comic. I grab it, and when I turn around, the cashier is grinning.)

Cashier: “I always order extra Transformers now.”

(Needless to say, I will continue frequenting that store.)