I’m catching up with a friend in a coffee shop.

Friend: “My landlord is increasing my rent again!”

Me: “Wow, again? Didn’t he do it at the beginning of the year? How can he justify doing it twice in one year?”

Friend: “He said I’m not allowed to keep animals on the property, so he’s increasing my rent when he found out about Tim.”

Me: “Tim… your tarantula?”

Friend: “Exactly! See! He’s an insect, not an animal!”

Me: “The fact that you were wrong twice in that sentence suddenly makes me very worried for Tim…”

P.S. Tim is fine.

Some friends are hanging out at a friend’s place. Some of them are complaining about their studies.

Friend: “This is so hard. I need to pick an elective.”

Me: “Yeah, I remember having a tough time choosing.”

Friend: “Oh yeah, you’re all graduated and employed now, right? You got that good job!”

Me: “I mean… It’s okay.”

Friend: “What was your elective?”

Me: “Logic.”

Friend: *Scrunches up their face.* “Um, well, you see, I’m more in tune with my emotional side, and I prefer to feel rather than to think, so I don’t agree with a lot of logic.”

I’m talking to my friend online.

Me: “Hey, [Friend]. I thought your mom was very… uh… I wanna say conservative?”

Friend: “She is.”

Me: “Didn’t you say she was foaming at the mouth when you tried to discuss Black Lives Matter with her?”

Friend: “That she did.”

Me: “It’s just… I saw her at the grocery store at the weekend and she was wearing a sweater that said ‘MLK 4 LIFE’.”

Friend: “Ah, yeah, we told her that MLK is Gen-Z lingo for milk, and, well… she likes milk. No one’s telling her to see how long we can get her to unknowingly fight for the cause.”

My cat – an F3 Savannah – is a thief. One weekend, a friend was staying over and wanted to make a chicken dish she found online. I got the chicken out of the freezer and put it in the sink, covering it with a glass dish and putting a heavy book on top.

Friend: “Why are you doing that?”

Me: *I nod toward my cat, who is sleeping on the couch.* “She steals meat.”

Friend: “Why would she steal raw chicken?”

Me: “Because she’s a cat.”

Friend: “No way. I leave food out to thaw all the time, and my cat doesn’t take it.”

Me: “I have lost many meals to her; this is the only way I have found to keep her from taking my food.”

Apparently, [Friend] did not believe me, and she removed the cover from the chicken sometime before we left for the day. When we came home, the chicken was gone, the bag was on the countertop, shredded, and my cat had backed herself into a corner, chicken breast in her mouth. She was silent, but the message was clear: finders keepers.

Friend: “Hey! Give that back!”

She reaches out like she’s going to take the chicken, but I grab her arm and pull her back.

Me: “Don’t!”

Friend: “Make her give it back. Go take it from her!”

Me: “That is a predator with razor-feet guarding her kill. Even if I did get it back, I’d only throw it away. And I’m assuming she only got it because you uncovered the chicken.”

Friend: *Turning red.* “She should know better!”

Me: “But she doesn’t, and it’s not going to change. I’ll order a pizza.”

Friend: “I’m just going to take it from her.”

Me: “Not if you enjoy your blood on the inside of your body, you’re not.”

I ordered the pizza and came back to the room to see [Friend] trying to pry the chicken from my cat’s mouth with the handle of a wooden broom, now sporting some fresh scratches and teeth marks.

Me: “Just leave her alone!”

Friend: “I can’t believe you let an animal control your house.”

Me: “I can’t believe you thought you knew my pet better than I do.”

We ate our pizza in silence, save for the sounds of my cat eating and the occasional warning sound if one of us moved too much. [Friend] eventually apologized for not listening and agreed that MAYBE I know what I’m talking about. Thankfully (for her body and my nose), my cat suffered no gastrointestinal distress from consuming her “prey.”

A friend of a friend turned out to be some sexist, red-pilled misogynist “bro”, so he didn’t last in the group for very long, but it did give us this conversational gem when we were all hanging out one time.

Male Friend: *Showing us some travel photos.* “Here we are on the plane. The pilot came out and hung out with some passengers for a while.”

Me: “That’s kinda cool.”

Misogynist Bro: “That’s a female.”

Male Friend: “That is a woman, yes.”

Misogynist Bro: “Women shouldn’t be pilots.”

Female Friend: “Oh, f*** off, [Misogynist Bro].”

Misogynist Bro: “Calm down. I’m just saying men are naturally more attuned to being pilots. I wouldn’t trust a female pilot.”

Female Friend: “Natural?! Do you hear yourself! A plane is what’s doing the flying, and there’s nothing natural about it! The gender of the person piloting it doesn’t matter!”

Misogynist Bro: “It’s all about the understanding of aerodynamics.”

Female Friend: “Well, since we’re talking about all things natural, there’s a certain part of the male anatomy that makes it much less aerodynamic than a woman! It’s also the part of the anatomy I’m thinking of when I look at you, [Misogynist Bro].”

Misogynist Bro: “…huh?”

Male Friend: “She’s calling you a d***, dude.”

We never saw him again after that.