We were with a group of friends. One of them suddenly announced she was going to Montreal in December. It took a few moments for us to react, as we were a bit flabbergasted. Not that we hate Canadians, far from it, but 5 cm (2 inches) of snow and minus 10°C (14°F) feels horrific to us, let alone a Canadian winter… 

We didn’t quite get why you would go for a casual visit, again in December. Finally, someone managed to ask:

Friend: “What will you wear?”

Traveling Friend: *A bit vexed.* “I have a winter coat!”

Friend: “You’ll need more than the light winter coat and clothes you’re used to wearing here.”

Traveling Friend: “We’re more or less at the same latitude. You’re just pulling my leg.”

She was so proud of having found low prices to fly to Canada. So she went, and complained upon her return about the wintry conditions that didn’t allow her to go out…

My roommate comes out of his room, still in the middle of an online fantasy video gaming session.

Me: “Aren’t you still playing?”

Roommate: “Yeah, but our healer is from Trinidad. His neighbor’s monkey is currently spinning on his ceiling fan, peeing everywhere.”

Me: “That… is a decent excuse to take a break.”

Roommate: “Pee break!”

My roommate does his business and then walks back into his room. As he closes the door, I overhear:

Roommate: “Okay, has our white mage cleansed his soul of simian corruption yet?”

I’m borrowing my dad’s car to drive some friends to a concert. As we’re putting their bags into the trunk, one of them says:

Friend: “Oh my god! Eww! Gross!”

Me: “What is it?”

Friend: “There’s moldy bread back here!”

Me: “Oh d***. I thought that would be gone by now.”

Friend: “You knew that was here?!”

Me: “That’s my dad’s hot dog bread. He lets it get moldy on purpose.”

Friend: “Why?!”

Me: “Okay, so you know how packs of hot dogs and packs of hot dog buns are always off by two? You usually get two more hot dog buns than you need? He hates that.”

Friend: “Uh huh…”

Me: “Yeah, so he uses up the six he needs, but he leaves the two he doesn’t in the trunk of the car to get moldy. Then he goes to the store, buys a new pack of hot dog buns, and comes back the next day with the moldy buns in the packaging, with the receipt from yesterday. They refund him every time.”

Friend: “How many times has he done that?!”

Me: “Too many to count.”

Friend: “And the store lets him get away with it?”

Me: “I mean, yeah? They know what he’s up to, but he has a receipt, he bought back part of the product, and it’s clearly moldy. They’ve told him to his face that they know what he’s doing, but he also knows they have to go by what corporate says, so here we are.”

Friend: “Your dad sounds… invested.”

Me: “Just don’t tell him that the money he saves is wasted by the gas used to drive back there the next day. He hates that…”

This story reminded me of my own experience from the other side.

Some girlfriends and I are having a girls’ night out, leaving the boys at home playing XBOX.

Friend #1: *Looking at her phone.* “Oh my God! I got about ten missed calls from [Boyfriend].”

Friend #2: *Knowing all our boyfriends are together.* “That’s weird, I got nothing from mine. Maybe call him back?”

Me: “Yeah, it sounds urgent.”

[Friend #1] excuses herself for a moment and calls him back from the outdoor smoking area. She comes back in a few minutes later, looking frustrated.

Me: “Everything okay?”

Friend #1: “The big emergency was that the boys were asking themselves how many 2^nd graders they think they could beat up if they came at them in waves of ten. They all agreed that [Boyfriend] would be able to beat up the most, and he was so proud he wanted to tell me.”

Friend #2: “Ugh… boys.”

Friend #1: “He was extra happy because apparently this scenario involved a 5^th grader boss coming in every five waves.”

Friend #2: “I’ve seen some big 5^th graders, so that does make it more challenging.”

Me: “Stop! We’re going to fall down the same rabbit hole as the boys!”

Friend #1: “Maybe that was their plan all along!”

And just like that, we stopped talking about whatever we had been talking about and started talking about if the boys tried to intentionally sabotage our evening.

Related:
Too Boring To Believe

It’s D&D game night with some friends. The Dungeon Master has described a room our characters have entered, full of ancient artefacts and fossils of giant beasts. We’re fighting a powerful enemy. 

The following has been shortened and simplified extensively:

Friend: “I use my necromancy on the fossils to—”

Me: “—sorry to be that guy, but uh, you can’t.”

Friend: “Why?”

Me: “Necromancy needs flesh and bone to possess something.”

Friend: “Yeah. Fossils. Bones.”

Games Master: “Uh, he’s right. You can’t control the fossil as a necromancer, as it’s not flesh and bone. Fossils are stones or minerals or something.”

Our other friend, who has had some unused and useless-up-until-now geomancer spells gathering dust, cracks his knuckles.

Other Friend: “Now’s my time to shine…”