(My story involves a party game called “Bag of Nouns.” Everyone puts five nouns on five strips of paper and all the papers go into a bag. Teams are optional. The game has three rounds: the first round, you say whatever you can to get your group to guess the noun you drew from the bag and get through as many nouns as you can in a minute. At the end of each turn, all the strips of paper go back into the bag, so very quickly certain nouns become familiar through repetition. The second round is same idea, except you get ONE WORD to describe what’s on the paper, so you’d better hope the nouns you draw on your turn are familiar ones, or that someone in your group will figure out one of their nouns that hasn’t been drawn yet. If you screw up and say, “um,” then you’ve used your one word for that noun, and you’d better hope your team can guess from nothing. The third round is charades. We are on the second round, and a friend’s guest gets to go first.)

Friend: *to guest in question* “Okay, second round. You get just one word per noun that you draw. You can say that word over and over, but you cannot say any other words, not even ‘uh’ or ‘um.'”

Guest: “Okay.” *draws from bag, looks at it* “Right, so, this is a thing where—”

Friend: “—no. One word.” *everyone agrees to give her another shot, since she clearly missed something* “Okay, so if the noun you drew was, say, ‘car,’ you could say, ‘drive,’ or maybe, ‘traffic,’ but nothing else. If the noun you drew came up a lot in the previous round, try to pick a word from those turns to describe it that your team would recognize. Okay?”

Guest: “Yeah, got it.”

Friend: “Great. Draw again.”

Guest: *draws, looks* “Um, so, these are given when—”

Friend: “—no. Stop. Okay. So, for example, the one you drew that time was ‘Finals.’ You could say, ‘test,’ or, ‘college,’ and when that word came up in the first round, ‘stress’ was focused on a lot, so you could use ‘stress’ or something. But no other words. No sentences. No descriptions. One word for the noun you drew, and then your team has to guess based on that one word.”

Guest: *pauses* “Sure.” *draws again, looks at paper* “This is something that—”

Friend: “—yeah, okay, your turn’s over. Next person!”

(She never seemed to really understand the rule, but she also never seemed to understand that she was missing anything.)

(I’m sitting in the bedroom, listening to my husband play a video game in the next room. It’s a space flight game, and uses a “frame ship drive” to jump between star systems. Because of the voice they used for the computer, it always sounds like “friendship drive” to us. I love puns and wordplay.)

Me: “Hey, hon?”

Husband: *from next room* “Yeah?”

Me: “Your game needs its own show: My Little Spaceship: Frame Ship is Science.”

Husband: *laughs*

(The young son of one of our regulars is the cutest thing. He goes up to my coworker with a pack of cards that we give away for free, as a promotion for a game his dad plays, and he says, in his tiny voice:)

Kid: “Is it okay I took this? It says ‘thirteen plus.’ I’m five.”

Coworker: “That’s okay; we won’t tell.”

(We both had a good laugh at his seriousness. Ah, the logic of a five-year-old.)

(I am working in the gaming department. A couple and their young son of about six are looking for a game.)

Me: *to the kid* “What’s your favorite game?”

Kid: “Uh… I dunno.”

Me: “My favorite game is Pokémon.”

Kid: “No, it’s not!”

Me: “What do you mean?”

Kid: *defiantly* “Grown-ups can’t play video games.”

(I’m working in the gaming department of an electronics store. At this time, our store’s gaming department is ranked #1 in the company, due in no small part to a female coworker who is very knowledgeable, skilled at selling, and personable. However, this situation plays out several times.)

Coworker: “[My Name], can you see if that group of customers needs anything? I asked them, and they said no, but I think it’s because I’m a girl.”

Me: “No problem.”

(I walk over to the group of teenage boys.)

Me: “Hey, guys, is there anything I can help you with?”

Customer: “Yeah, we’re wondering if [Game] is any good.”

Me: “You know what? I haven’t had a chance to play that one yet. But I do have a coworker that has, and knows everything about it. I’ll be right back.”

Customer: “Thanks!”

Me: *returning with my female coworker* “[Coworker], these guys had a question about [Game]. Can you help them?”

Customer: “Uh…” *silence, embarrassment*

(That coworker ended up getting a job in the gaming industry. To this day, I’m convinced that I will never know as much about games as her.)