(I have a relative who is obnoxiously self-righteous. Race, politics, the environment, gender issues, it doesn’t matter; she is insufferably “enlightened” and seizes every opportunity to lecture everyone else on their lack of political correctness. Fortunately, we don’t see her very often, but she’s visiting locally and I’ve invited her to supper. I’m setting the table, wearing an apron over my work clothes.)

Relative: “You know aprons are a badge of servitude, don’t you?”

Me: “Only to people with a really fragile self-image and a lot of emotional baggage.”

Relative: *huffily* “Well, I just don’t understand why any woman would want to wear one!”

Me: “I’m a sloppy cook.”

(I am a pediatrician. A woman has come in with her little girl who is suffering from a rather infected finger. I diagnose her with a staph infection, prescribe some antibiotics, and send them home. At the end of the antibiotics, the woman is back in his office, and the infection has spread to several areas; a spot on the little girl’s face, the inside of her nose, and a spot on her leg. She demands that I run a million tests because I’m clearly a “failure of a doctor.”)

Me: “Ma’am, it appears that your daughter has spread the infection to other areas of her body, most likely through scratches or by touching a scratch that was already there.”

Mother: “That’s impossible! How would she get one in her nose? You’re just making excuses because you don’t want to run any tests!”

Me: “I can assure you, ma’am, that’s not the case. If I felt the need to, I would certainly run more tests, but there is no need for all that time, effort, and money when I can clearly see what the cause is. It’s more than 99% certain that she spread it through her nose by a scratch as the bacteria causing the infection is located under her fingernails. She picked her nose, scratched it, and spread the infection there.”

Mother: *turns bright red* “That’s ridiculous! My little princess would never do anything so disgusting as pick her nose! We’re just going to go and get a second opinion! You’ll be run out of business, you’ll see!”

(We turn around to see her “little princess” with a finger very far up her nose indeed. The mother grows nearly purple at this point and swats her daughter’s hand away from her face.)

Me: “So I’ll be prescribing that next round of antibiotics, then?”

(My professor’s wife had a baby last week, and the professor takes a moment during class to show us a photo of him. We ask him a few questions about the baby and what the delivery was like, and it eventually gets to this:)

Student: “So, when exactly was he born?”

Professor: “Wednesday at, uh, 4:20.”

(There’s silence for a moment before everyone starts giggling.)

Professor: “Yeah, it couldn’t have been 4:19, or 4:21. It had to be 4:20.”

Me: “If that’s still a thing when he’s older, you should definitely tell him!”

(The professor had a sense of humor about it, but he quickly changed the topic back to the lesson!)

When I was three, my mom was overdue to have my brother and she need to be induced into labor. I was getting impatient, so my parents decided to explain what was going to happen as best they could.

I took the information surprisingly well. I told my mom that everything was going to be okay and that the doctor was going to stick a broomstick down her throat and knock my brother out of her.

(My husband and I have just started to try to conceive, instead of just leaving it to luck or chance. After an intimate night, he asks me to position myself so that gravity isn’t working against us. I ask that he at least hand me my phone so that I have some entertainment until I get up.)

Me: “Please, it’s just right there by you. I would have to get up to get it myself.”

Husband: “No. No distractions. I need you to completely focus on telling those swimmers to get you pregnant.”

Me: *sigh* “That’s not how it works.”