My Mom’s Friend: “[Friend] told me that you were allergic to red peppers, so I made it with yellow and orange ones, instead!”

(A large group of us goes bowling one night after church. There are some new people in our group, including one particular guy who has decided to follow me around all night, attempting to enter every conversation I’m in. I’ve been able to avoid being alone with him so far, but when one friend gets up to take her turn, he slides into her seat.)

New Guy: “So, you’re [My Name], right?”

Me: “That’s me.”

New Guy: “I’ve been wanting to talk to you, but you’re pretty popular around here.”

Me: “And your name is…?”

New Guy: “Oh, sorry. I’m [New Guy]. It’s my first time. Do you guys always do big group stuff like this?”

Me: “Oh, yeah. It’s more fun that way.”

New Guy: *scoots closer* “So, are you single? Because I’d love to get to know you better…”

Me: “Um…”

(In one of those rare and perfectly-timed moments, one of my guy friends hops over the bench we’re sitting on and plants himself between me and the new guy.)

Guy Friend: “[My Name], what’s up? I feel like I haven’t talked to you all night. How’s life? How’s your bowling score?”

Me: “You know very well that you’re going to kick my butt, as always!”

Guy Friend: “Let it be known that you said it, I didn’t.” *turns to the new guy* “How’s it going, bro? Don’t think we’ve met. I’m [Guy Friend].”

New Guy: “Oh, fine. I get it.” *gets up and walks away*

Me: “Has anyone ever told you that you have insanely good timing?”

Guy Friend: *laughs* “You had that deer-in-the-headlights look.”

I work in a call center with several other women, all of them at least 40 years older than me. They’re all incredibly sweet and we get along great. One of them has a lot of health problems and eventually has to carry an oxygen tank around, but it does nothing to dampen her hilarious and eccentric spirit.

One slow afternoon, this particular coworker hands me a Post-It with her signature scrawled on it and tells me that I’ll want to keep her autograph for when she’s famous one day. I laugh and tuck the note away, forgetting it soon after.

Eventually, I leave the company to move back to my hometown for a new job opportunity. A few months after moving, I come back to town for a visit and stop by my old call center. I’m talking to my former supervisor when I ask how the elderly coworker is doing.

She suddenly gets quite somber and tells me that the coworker passed of cancer a month or so ago. I’m devastated. While I wasn’t terribly close with her on a personal level, I’d worked with her for over a year and a half and truly enjoyed her company.

After my trip, I’m looking through some of my old things and I find the sticky note with my former coworker’s “autograph.” I have a small corkboard hanging on my wall, so I pin the signature up there alongside mementos from my old city. It makes me happy to know that she is no longer suffering and that I’ll always have a little something to remind me of her.

(This takes place on the playground at recess in second grade. My friend and I have built a snow fort.)

Friend: *yelling to the boys in our class* “WHO WANTS TO BE KING?!”

Boys: *all raise hands*

Friend: *still yelling* “THEN YOU WILL HAVE TO MARRY ME!”

Boys: *all scream and run away*

(By coincidence, I land a job in the same office that a friend’s boyfriend, [Coworker], works at. As this is a small office, most of them have ended up being outside-of-work friends, so my friend is able to give me a rundown on what all of my new coworkers are like.)

Friend: “And that just leaves [Trainer]. She’s… well, she seems nice, but watch out because she’s homophobic.”

Me: “Oh, no! How did you find out?”

Friend: “I mentioned I was bi to her once, and she just gave me this really, really flat stare and didn’t say anything for a long time, and then changed the subject. She’s also a Christian who wears a crucifix all the time.”

Me: “Gotcha. No mentioning the liking-girls part, I guess.”

(When I start at the office, it turns out [Trainer] is actually my trainer. She does, in fact, wear a crucifix, and I spend weeks in anxious silence waiting for the other shoe to drop. Instead, not only do I never hear a bad word from her about ANY race or orientation, but the only time I hear her say a word on the subject at all is when she puts forward a thought-out argument for why being trans is actually supported by the Bible. Eventually, I ask my friend and her boyfriend about it one night when we’re hanging out.)

Me: “So, [Friend], how did you find out [Trainer]’s homophobic? She seems nice to me.”

Coworker: “What? [Trainer] is definitely not.”

Friend: “She is. I mentioned I was bi, and she completely blanked me.”

Coworker: “Preeeeetty sure that never happened.”

Friend: “It absolutely happened–”

Coworker: “You know what? I’m calling her and asking.” *gets [Trainer] on speaker phone* “Hey, did you know [Friend] is bi?”

Trainer: “Uh. I didn’t. Do I need to do something with this information? Like, is this your way of saying you’re organising a coming-out party?”

Friend: “Bulls***! I absolutely told you before!”

Trainer: “What? When?”

Friend: “At that first party after [Coworker] and I got together.”

Trainer: “I don’t remember this conversation. At all.”

Me: “What did you actually say?”

Friend: “I don’t know. It was just after [Coworker] and I got together, and she said something like, ‘Congrats on not being single anymore,’ and I said, ‘Oh, I wasn’t single; I was on stand-bi.’”

Coworker: “Ha! That’s clever.”

Trainer: “Um? Did she just make some sort of hand signal or something?”

Coworker: “It’s a pun. Here, I’ll text it to you.”

Trainer: “Oh! Oh, I get it now. Sorry, [Friend], I guess I aced that conversation.”

Friend: “No, you did the absolute opposite of–”

Me: “Wait. Was that an asexual pun?”

Trainer: “Yep.”

Me: “And you’re… not homophobic?”

Trainer: “I’m what?!”

Coworker: “Nah, [Trainer] is just bad at jokes.”

(And so, the last lesson my trainer taught me was to not assume malice for what stupidity can explain.)