I’m guiding a rafting group on a river. We’re finishing up, and I’m guiding everyone to the jetty we use at the end of the tour. One of the tourists looks confused.

Tourist: “This isn’t where we started? How’d we get here?”

We keep bees as a hobby in a small home apiary, and we sell some of their honey from the door to offset the cost of keeping them. The hives are in our garden, and if people are interested, I offer to take them round to see the bees, from a respectful distance, of course. People are very curious but also visibly apprehensive when confronted with a quarter of a million bees, so I’m used to answering all sorts of questions about them. 

One day, a chap, aged in his fifties, who was watching the bees flying around, decided to enlighten me about something.

Man: “I’ll bet you never get women standing here. You know, women are genetically predisposed to throw themselves to the ground when things fly over them.”

Me: “Well, most people do tend to react to bees as they know they could get stung…”

Man: “No, no, anything! Bees, birds, if anything flies over a woman, she’ll dive to the ground! Airplanes! It’s genetics! Have you never noticed?”

Me: *After re-engaging my ability to speak.* “Um, no, I can’t say that I have.”

I should mention that, from the visitors we’ve had over the years, it is generally women who seem more at ease around the bees.

This was told to me by my sister, so the details of the conversation are paraphrased, not exact.

There’s currently a road closure near our house, as they’re digging up the road to install utilities for a new emergency services station. It’s not too much of a hassle to go around – just go up one road and down another – but there’s absolutely no way you could get through, as again, the road has been dug up.

As they’re walking the dog one evening, my dad and sister see someone get to the roundabout where the road is closed off (well in advance of the actual hole) and drive right past the sign and the road cones, onto the closed section. Dad gestures for the driver to roll down the window.

Dad: “The road’s closed; you can’t go that way.”

Driver: “I know, I can read!”

Dad was apparently thinking at this point that clearly she couldn’t, given she’d driven past a sign saying the road was closed, but anyhow…

Driver: “I live around here; I’ll turn off before I get to the hole in the road!”

There are no turn-offs before the hole, which is why the road was closed at that point.

At this point, the driver pulls away and heads down the closed road, where my dad and sister got to watch her stop at the concrete barriers placed in front of the hole, and then inevitably turn around and come back the other way.

A mother and her small child in a pram are walking beside me up the street.

Mother: “When we get home, would you like sliced avocado or mashed avocado?”

Brief pause.

Child: “Cheeeeeeeeeese!”

Related:
Children Of The Corn Aisle, Part 3

I’m taking a forestry class at college, and part of the course is going on forestry walks with the United States Forest Service on their patrols.

Forest Service Guy: “Yeah, man, take care when we’re walking through the woods. Last week I almost stepped on this big a** rattlesnake.”

Me: “Oh wow, what happened?”

Forest Service Guy: “I flipped out, and my boss runs over with a can of spray paint and unloads on the snake with paint.”

Me: “What, why?!”

Forest Service Guy: “His reasoning was, ‘Hey next time we will see it!'”