(In a Shakespeare class, we’re talking about gender presentation in the play, “As You Like It.”)

Professor: “Is sex really symmetrical?”

Classmate: “If you do it right, it is.”

Professor: *dryly* “I’m not talking about f******.”

(I’m at the store casually shopping. A customer walks past me and I overhear her:)

Customer: “Mom, I’ll be right back. I’m just going to look for an inappropriate birthday card.”

Mother: “Don’t do that; get your sister a nice card!”

Customer: “That’s boring.”

(I later passed the same customer again, and I saw her holding a birthday card with a half-naked man on it.)

(One of my coworkers brings in an icing-covered snack cake called a Ding Dong. Usually, they are covered with chocolate icing, but this one is vanilla, so the icing is white. My coworkers are all women, and I’m a guy.)

Coworker #1: “Look what I’ve got.”

Coworker #2:”Oh, a Ding Dong! I’ve never seen a white one.”

Coworker #3: “Yeah, I’ve never seen a white Ding Dong.”

Coworker #4: “I’ve never seen a white Ding Dong, either.”

Me: “…”

(We’re reading Julius Caesar in class, and on one of the pages there’s a line drawing of the Colossus of Rhodes in all its naked glory, complete with a tiny penis. As sophomores, several of the boys simply cannot handle it. Our female, middle-aged teacher tries to ignore them. That fails, so she tries to make it a “teachable moment.”)

Teacher: “Actually, in a lot of Renaissance art, the phallus was drawn purposefully small. They believed that a large penis meant a man had lower intelligence because he was more animalistic. Smaller penises indicated a higher intellect.”

([Boy #1], whose name conveniently starts with P — this becomes important later on — looks at [Boy #2]’s feet.)

Boy #1: “Well, it looks like you’re passing the next quiz.”

Teacher: “[Boy #1]! That is very inappropriate!”

Boy #1: “What?! You’re the one talking about wing-wang-doodles.”

Teacher: “Let’s just continue, shall we?”

(Class resumes, but [Boy #1] keeps muttering under his breath about “wangs.”)

Teacher: *turning to [Boy #1], extremely exasperated* “Penis! Be quiet!”

(The teacher turns fifty shades of red and apologizes profusely.)

Boy #1: “Yeah, it’s okay. I mean, I am kind of a d**k.”

(I am shopping with my younger children one morning at a dollar store. Two rows over, two employees are talking about their weekend, VERY LOUDLY, and they can be clearly heard from most of the store.)

Male Employee: “How was your weekend? Did you see that nasty boy-toy of yours?”

Female Employee: “Oh, that f****** boyfriend of mine decided he wanted to lick my—”

Me: *very loudly* “Keeping in mind that there are customers in the store with young children, you might want to rethink having this conversation out here and go back into the break room.”

(Silence. Another older lady with her grandchildren came up to me and thanked me for saying something.)