(I am working alone at the front desk of a hotel. It is ten pm and about a dozen people walk in to check in at the same time. While I’m making the first person’s keys, the key maker stops working. I try about twenty times and gave up. As they are all staring at me I look up at them all, look down, and blow into where the key enters.)

Me: *to them all staring at me* “I used to do this with my Nintendo all the time.”

(The group started laughing and everything was no longer super awkward. Thank God I’m a 90s kid!)

(The notification on my phone is a sound effect from one of my favorite cartoons when I was younger. One day, as I’m heading to class, I realize at the last second I’ve forgotten to put my phone on silent. I stop in the hallway to do so, and just as I take it out of my purse, I receive an email and the notification goes off. The volume is low, but the hallway is pretty much empty, so I suppose it must echo a bit.)

Voice: *from around the corner, excitedly* “WHAT’S THE SITCH?!”

(Made my day!)

(A couple comes in, and it is immediately obvious that English is not their first language. They point to the menu and state a couple of things, but it seems they want to order something specific.)

Male Customer: “I… uh…” *makes drinking motion*

Me: “Drink, yes. Coffee? Tea?”

Female Customer: “Coffee! Yes!”

Male Customer: “And… uh…”

(He is looking increasingly frustrated, and I want to find a way to reassure him. I notice he is wearing a Star Trek shirt, and the wife has a Starfleet insignia necklace, so I assume these two are not just passing fans.)

Me: “Raktajino?”

(They both pause, smile, and nod vigorously. I give them the Vulcan salute, and we manage to  get their order together with less stress and more laughing. They wanted a mocha and a salad. After they are seated my coworker comes over.)

Coworker: “What did you say to them?”

Me: “‘Coffee’ in Klingon.”

(My grandmother and I are both big Harry Potter fans. She calls me the evening of my seventeenth birthday.)

Grandma: “How does it feel to be seventeen?”

Me: “Well, I’m now a dancing queen and I can legally perform magic outside of Hogwarts.”

(She laughed and we ended up exchanging butterbeer recipes. Geeky grandparents are the best.)

(I’m in a class about comics. We are currently talking about typography in vintage comics when someone mentions the font Comic Sans. Our professor is a very good-natured guy and responds in a somewhat joking way.)

Professor: “I don’t think Comic Sans existed back then… and it shouldn’t exist now. That and Papyrus should be banned for all time.”

(I and a few other classmates chuckled out loud. I can only assume they were thinking the same thing I was. Sans and Papyrus are characters in a highly popular video game who use those two fonts in their dialogue. Look where those fonts got them!)