(When my mom and I are waiting in line or waiting for something to start, we play Heads Up, a phone game where you have to make the other person guess the word on the phone. The category is “food.”)

Me: “Okay, this is like soup, but it’s thicker.”

Mom: “Clam chowder!”

Me: “No, like … less specific. Like it’s got all the soup components but it’s thicker.”

Mom: “…Gumbo? I don’t know!”

Me: “Okay, pass.”

(When the game ends, we see the list of all the words she got or missed.)

Mom: “Stew?! That’s not a thicker version of soup!”

Me: “What do you mean? Whenever you made beef stew, it was always basically soup.”

Mom: “Well, yeah, but that’s only because I didn’t add any thickener to it.”

Me: “So you’re saying it’s basically a thicker version of soup?”

(My wife and I are both women, and I am my wife’s first same-sex relationship. We are walking to the store while a bit drunk. I put my arm in hers, making her stumble onto the grass.)

Wife: “Hey! I was walking in a mostly-straight direction until you came along!”

Me: “That basically sums up our entire marriage.”

(I used to live in a college town near the popular drinking/pub district on a street with a lot of apartment complexes. A fair number of people would exceed the speed limit for the area during the day. This one was rather distinctive. I was outside getting my mail and I heard the roar of a motorcycle and turned around to see a motorcycle going around 50-60 miles per hour.)

Man #1: *yelling* “How do you like the ride?!”

Man #2: *screaming* “THE SPEED LIMIT SAID 35!”

Man #1: *laughing as he doesn’t slow down*

Me: “Ah, friendship.”

(It is Halloween and I am 19 years old. My friends and their kids are going trick or treating in our neighborhood. I am a huge scaredy-cat; I scare easily, and I have a strong survival instinct.)

Best Friend: “Look at that house; I wonder why the garage door is halfway open?”

Other Friend: “It’s probably just so they can have easy access going back into the house.”

Me: “I don’t care what it is. I’m not going near it. I think someone is gonna jump out at me.”

Other Friend: “Stop being such a punk! Look at all those kids walking up with no problem. Just go get your free candy!”

(I reluctantly walk up to the man giving candy. I start walking really slow behind the children staring at the garage door making sure no one comes out. I end up getting close enough that I don’t think anything is going to happen.)

Best Friend: “Nobody is in there! Hurry up!”

(I start walking faster and I’m just two feet from the garage door, all of a sudden someone in a scream mask holding a knife in the air comes out of the garage screaming at the top of his lungs! I panic, turn around and run not realizing that in that moment I’m pushing and shoving little five and six year old kids out of the way. The next thing I know I’m down the block, when I look back all you see are kids getting off the floor and my best friend and her man helping them up, and all the kids screaming and crying in fear not knowing what just happened.)

Best Friend: “What the h***! You freakin’ chicken! How could you push little kids?! What’s wrong with you?!”

Me: “They shouldn’t have been in my way!”

(At this point all of the adults were laughing extremely hard, not seeming to care their kids were pushed, instead just focusing on how scared I was.)

(While I can be frank to the point of awkwardness, I don’t open up easily about intimate matters to my friends. I’m playing mahjong with my boyfriend and two friends of ours. Friend #1 hesitates about a discard I might win on, and Friend #2 gets impatient.)

Friend #2: “Come on, cast it. [My Name] doesn’t bite.”

Boyfriend: “Oh, she does bite. Just not in public.”

(I freeze and both friends snicker.)

Friend #2: *laughing* “We do not need to know that, man.”

Boyfriend: *innocently* “What?” *realization dawns on him* “No, no, I meant the way she speaks her mind—”

Friend #1: “Stop right there. Now.”