(My brother’s boyfriend comes to pick him up for their date. My brother and I share the same room. I’m feeding my new pet tarantula when he walks in.)
Brother’s Boyfriend: “Cool pet.”
Me: “Thanks. Say hello Tara.”
Brother’s Boyfriend: “Tara? Isn’t that a little on the nose?”
Me: “You have a calico named Catherine and an Egyptian Mau named Cleopatra.”
Brother’s Boyfriend: “Touché.”
(My friend has the uncanny ability to call correctly on random chance in video games. I like to joke that it’s his superpower. These are just a few examples. Playing Mario Kart 8:)
Me: “Bullet Bill, Bullet Bill, please! I need a Bullet Bill!”
Friend #1: “Nope. Banana peel.”
Friend #2: “Oh, crap, blue shell!”
Friend #1: “You’ll be fine; you’ll get a sound box.”
(He is right on both counts. Later, we’re playing a game where the characters you get are random. We’re chatting as I pull up the summon screen.)
Me: “I hope it’s [Character].”
Friend #1: “Bet you it’s this one.”
(He taps the orb before I can stop him and starts the summon. The smoke clears, and [Character] appears).
Me: “What the f***?!”
(Playing a strategy game:)
Me: *explaining my strategy* “[Character] has a 78% hit chance; this’ll kill off the boss and then I can take the castle.”
Friend #1: “She’s going to fail so badly.”
(Not only does the unit miss, the foe scores a 1% critical hit chance and kills her, forcing me to restart the level!)
Me: *laughing and pushing my friend away* “You swore to only use your powers for good!”
(My dad and I are staying with a friend of his, whose daughter recently had a baby. We are all sitting in the kitchen, while she bounces her son on her lap. At one point she moves a bit farther to the left than she meant to, and SLAMS her elbow onto the edge of the table. She freezes, her eyes bug out, and her jaw drops.)
Me: “Why don’t I hold onto him for a minute?”
(She wordlessly handed me her baby, eyes watering, then doubled over, clutching her elbow.)
(I crocheted a Pokémon. The pattern is complicated, due to the Pokémon having a weird shape and lots of little pieces that need to be made and sewed on. I also made a major mistake, didn’t realize it until several rounds later, and had to undo half of it to fix it, so once it’s finally finished I’m quite proud of it. I show it off to my friends.)
Friend: “Oh, wow! You made a Lugia!”
Me: “Yep. It took me forever to work on that. I think I was working on it off and on for most of this week.”
Friend: “Can I have it?”
Me: “I beg your pardon?”
Friend: “Can I have it? It’s nice. I want one.”
Me: “I made that because I wanted it, and no, you can’t just have it for free.”
Friend: “Why not? Can’t you just make another one?”
Me: “Did you miss the part where I said I worked on it for about a week?”
Friend: “So, can I buy one, then?”
Me: “Sure, but it might take me a while to do it, because I don’t feel like crocheting another complicated pattern so soon, and it’ll cost you $100.”
Friend: “$100? It’s not worth that much!”
Me: “Trust me, you’re probably getting this for a lot less than it’s worth.”
Friend: “I’ll give you $20 for it.”
Me: “I am not taking $20 for something that took that much time and effort to make.”
(He argues with me back and forth, raising his offer to a “generous” $30, when finally I get fed up and pull out my phone calculator and a piece of paper.)
Me: “Okay, since you don’t seem to understand this, how about we break it down and calculate the worth? First, the yarn that went into making it. I used the majority of a brand-new skein of white yarn that cost me about $3. The rest of the yarn for the blue bits was probably about a dollar’s worth, and the Fiberfill used is probably about a dollar’s worth at most, too.”
Friend: “Okay, so that’s only about $5. Nowhere near $100.”
Me: “I’m not done. It’s not just the material that went into making it; you also have to factor in the time spent on it. I don’t have an exact estimate of how long I worked on this, but let’s say about five hours a day for five days. That seems about right.”
Friend: “So, 25 hours altogether?”
Me: “Right. Now, the minimum wage in Pennsylvania is $7.25 an hour, so multiply that by 25, and that’s $181.25, plus the $5 for materials, which brings your total for the Pokémon amigurumi up to $186.25. I expect that all in cash, and I don’t take payment until it’s done for people I know personally, so you’ll have some time to save up.”
Friend: “Uh… What else can you make?”
(I ended up making him a Charmander, and charged him $20 for it because it was a lot easier and less time-consuming. Let’s hope he learned something and doesn’t pull this again with me or someone else.)
(We just finished auditioning for “High School Musical” and are making small talk with the director, who knows most of us pretty well. The audition dealt a lot with the different cliques in the show and how they would be portrayed, so our conversation inevitably drifts to that.)
Actor: “I asked [Musical Director] if we could have an emo clique, but he said emos can’t be in musicals.”
Director: “Well, actually, I’m thinking there will be a group of… I think I’ll call them, ‘Utility Students’… who will play different things in different scenes. Like, sometimes if I need two extra brainiacs, they’ll be brainiacs. So they’ll probably be emos and goths for at least one scene.”
Actor: *extremely cheerful and upbeat* “Yes! I am amazing at being emo! Like, seriously, I know I’m wearing a colorful sweater right now, but my entire wardrobe is black and blacker. I’m the most emo person you’ve ever met!”
(They didn’t seem to catch the irony.)
