I was a writer working in an industrial shop. Every day at break, everyone would sit in the break room and work on the crossword… as a team. They’d save the weird ones for me, until one day…

Them: “Four-letter word, third letter is N, means ‘preference’.”

Me: *Casually walking to the microwave* “Kink.”

You could’ve heard a pin drop.

Me: *Laughs* “Guys, I’m an English major.”

And they somehow took that to mean that I didn’t also have other ways of knowing that word.

My dad had always liked to mix foods in unlikely combinations. For example, his “refrigerator omelets” would include whatever leftovers in the fridge that caught his eye.

One day, when he was in his nineties, I took him shopping at our local market. He stopped at the hot soup bar and pointed at the pea soup.

Me: “Okay, Dad, you want some pea soup?”

I added one ladle of pea soup into a container.

Dad: “Eh, eh.”

He stopped me, pointing at the minestrone.

Me: “Dad, you want me to mix them?”

He nodded.

Me: “Pea soup and minestrone? Do you realize what you’re creating? Peanistrone!”

He nodded. 

I did it, but I’m not proud of it.

A lady comes in with a lab-mix dog to get groomed.

Me: “What would you like done?”

Customer: “I want my dog waxed.”

I stare at her for a few seconds.

Me: “We don’t wax dogs.”

Customer: “You will wax my dog’s hair! You’ve done it before!”

Again, confused, I look her up on the computer, and alas, all her dog received was a basic bath and brush package. I try explaining this to her, and she screams at the top of her lungs: 

Customer: “WELL, I’LL JUST GO TO MY LADY THAT WAXES MY VAGINA! SHE’LL WAX MY DOG FOR ME!”

I work for an STD clinic, and I am handling intake. A guy comes up after having filled out a form. I run through some basics and then hand him a vial. I get the impression he just wants to get this over with, but he nods that he understands.

Me: “Please use one of the rooms to your left, place the vial with the sample inside the secured bag, and place the secured bag in our biological drop-off box.”

He nods and heads off. A few minutes later, he’s back and looks a bit frustrated.

Patient: “You could at least have had some magazines or something! I had to load up some stuff on my phone to finish!”

I am confused for a moment, but then it dawns on me.

Me: “Sir, we needed a urine sample.”

The patient’s brain takes longer than it should to process the information I have just provided.

Patient: “You might not want to use what I just… ah… deposited.”

He came back a few hours later after drinking some water. I found the first sample and… disposed of it.

About thirty years ago, at a time when manga and Japanese animation were really booming in France, I was browsing in an audio and video store. I saw a VHS of “Urotsukidôji” next to “The Smurfs”, “Babar The Elephant,” “Beauty And The Beast”, “The Little Mermaid”, etc.

I flagged down a shop assistant who was passing by.

Me: “This movie is actually a p*rn movie with lots of gore and scary monsters. It belongs in the adult section.”

Assistant: “Nah, it’s a cartoon, so it goes with the other cartoons in the children’s section. Besides, it’s up to the parents to check the content beforehand and make sure that it’s appropriate for their kids.”