(I work as a lifeguard during the summer at the local park pool. Being an outdoor pool, it is hard to regulate the temp. The pool tends to be warmer in the afternoon when the sun is directly overhead. A lady comes up to me mid-morning:)

Customer: “The water is too cold!”

Me: “You will have to wait until the afternoon; then the water will be warmer.”

(To most, the reason would be obvious, but she blankly stares at me.)

Customer: “Why?”

(I’m not certain what comes over me, but I reply:)

Me: “Because the water is always warmer after the kiddie swim classes.”

(She contemplated my answer for a minute before it dawned on her and she walked away, disgusted.)

(I’m sitting with one of my friends during dinner. The conversation rolls around to her sister, with whom my friend is in the middle of a — several years long by now — prank war.)

Friend: “So, I need ideas on how to pay back that little b****. Got anything?”

Me: “You mentioned that your house had a suit of armour, right?”

Friend: “Yeah, that piece of junk my dad found in a thrift store.”

Me: “How about you put on that suit of armour, wait until your sister wakes up in the morning, and then jumpscare her.”

Friend: *homicidal joker grin on face* “Ooh, I like the sound of that. Problem: I’m not sure it’s even wearable. And it’s covered with dust and cobwebs.”

Me: “Can you try to get your father to put it on? Say that you’re curious if it can actually be worn and talk him around into wearing it. That way you can both confirm if it can be worn and how to put it on.”

Friend: “Oh, that’s a good idea. Two birds with one stone.”

Me: “Better, I imagine that your father would not want to wear something that is filled with spiders, so he’ll probably clean it first, which means that you won’t have to wear a dusty old suit.”

Friend: *excitedly* “And I can video him doing it. If he gets stuck inside it’ll be a big hit on [Video Site]! Five birds with one stone. Man, you’re a genius.”

Me: “I prefer ‘devious mastermind,’ but anyway, that still leaves the million-dollar question: will your father wear the suit of armour?”

Friend: “Yeah, I can convince him to do that. He’s quite the nut job. Once, my uncle and I managed to convince him into dancing naked on the abandoned railway bridge near our farm.”

Me: *OMGWTF face* “What?”

Friend: “Yeah, a rain dance to piss off the sky. We videoed it. Getting him to put a suit of armour on will be easy. Oh, I can’t wait for the weekend. This is going to be so fun!”

Me: “Show me the video of your dad in the armour at some point. And good luck with the prank.”

(My little sister has a sleepover birthday party. We use an Echo Dot to play music for the party. It’s quite early the morning after and all of them stayed up until four in the morning before finally the last one passed out.)

Mom: “Can you go down to the basement and wake them all up for breakfast, please?”

Me: “Oh, sure.”

(I walk downstairs where all of them except for one are still asleep and I walk over to the Echo Dot still sitting on the table. The volume is still up quite loud from last night.)

Me: “Alexa, play ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’ by Bring Me the Horizon.”

Alexa: “Got it! Playing ‘Diamonds Aren’t Forever’ by Bring Me the Horizon.”

(I got yelled at by my mom, but it admittedly woke them all up pretty fast.)

I am in band in tenth grade and at one of our school concerts, right at the last song of the set, one of the students comes up to the band teacher. She is one of our percussionists, but she broke an arm and can’t play.

Student #1:
“Mrs. [Teacher], there’s a call for you in the office.”

Teacher:
“Why are you telling me this? It can wait.”

Student #1:
“Mr. [Principal] said you couldn’t come to the phone, but they said it’s about your daughter.”

The teacher apologizes profusely to the audience and steps down to go into the school and take the call, which leaves several parents very upset. After about thirty seconds of waiting around and people grumbling angrily, someone speaks up.

Student #2:
“I don’t want to have to be here any longer than I need to! Come on!”

The first student stepped up, picked up the teacher’s baton, and conducted us through the last song of the night. But, instead of sitting around professionally, we were goofing off. If we weren’t playing, we were throwing things at each other, such as paper or erasers we had laying around. I even got into a “sword fight” with the other girl on marimba with our mallets. It generated a lot of laughs from the parents. We got through the song, and the first student set the baton back down and went to sit down about ten seconds before the teacher came back to explain to the audience what had happened.

Everything about it was rehearsed, from the “phone call” to the goofing off.

(I have a younger cousin who is studying in the UK. He’s returned for Christmas and is answering our grandparent’s questions about the food in his boarding school.)

Cousin: “Potatoes. Day in day out. Three meals a day. Name every type of potato dish you know of and I will have eaten it, and more.”

Grandpa: “No variation at all? Every day you have potatoes?”

Cousin: “Yes. Potato soup, smoked potato, steamed potato, mashed potato, mashed sweet potato, sweet potato fries, even potato tofu.”

Wife: “I’m sorry, what?”

Grandma: “Potato tofu?”

Me: “That’s a thing?”

Cousin: “Yeah, I didn’t believe it, either. I thought my seniors were joking until I actually had it. Wasn’t actually too bad.”

Me: “What did it taste like?”

(My wife and I then got into an intense debate/interrogation about everything my cousin knew about that potato tofu he had, which allowed us to approximate the recipe. When my cousin returned back to Singapore after graduation, we disguised it as normal tofu, which he loves, and served it to him. He flipped out when he ate it, screaming that he did not want to see a single potato again for the rest of his life. After he calmed down, we had a good laugh about it and began plotting to serve the same dish to the rest of his fellow students at their next get-together.)