(I am on a business trip to New York. At my suggestion, our group goes to a famous NYC deli for dinner, a place known for their pastrami and for their brusque staff. When the waitress comes over to get our order, this conversation ensues:)

Me: “I’ll have a pastrami sandwich, lean, and—”

Waitress: “Have you ever been here before?”

Me: “No, but I’ve been to other delis.”

Waitress: “It’s just that here, ordering the pastrami lean is considered a cardinal sin. I mean, if you want to take away all the fat and have something like jerky…”

Me: *smiling* “Okay, do it your way.”

Waitress: *mimes cracking a whip at me*

(Later on:)

Waitress: “I try to be nice to people, but sometimes I have to be a b****, and that can get me in trouble.”

Me: “Wait, isn’t being nice against company policy?”

Waitress: “Oh, I wouldn’t get in trouble with my boss…”

(I do some acting lessons and groups at a company as a teen. The backstage area is pretty dirty and has a lot of spider webs as a result.)

Me: “There are two spiders right there and they are kind of big!”

Friend #1: “Ahh, really?”

Me: “What should we do? I don’t want to go near them, because I have a little arachnophobia.”

Friend #1 & Friend #2: “Me, too!”

Friend #2: “But tarantulas are pretty cute.”

Friend #1: “Yeah, they are, so furry!”

Friend #2: “Aww, and their adorable eyes!”

(They continued to talk about their love of tarantulas as I stared up at the spiders, wondering how they could say they were afraid of spiders when they found tarantulas to be cute.)

(I work in a bank. We have an annual mandatory training meeting, and this year it is scheduled on my day off, so I have to drive into work for an hour. Two days before the MANDATORY meeting:)

Coworker #1: “Hey, [My Name], you’re coming to the meeting, right?”

Me: “Yes, of course.”

Coworker #2: *twenty minutes later* “Are you going to come to the meeting on Saturday?”

Me: “Yes, I’m coming.”

Coworker #3: “What is your favorite flavor of cake? I’m thinking of making one for our potluck next week.”

Me: “I like chocolate cake, but you should ask our other coworkers because most of them don’t really care for chocolate.”

Coworker #3: “Okay, thanks, I’ll make chocolate. You are coming to the meeting on Saturday, right?”

Me: *super confused about why I keep getting asked about whether I will come to a mandatory meeting* “Yes.”

(Thirty minutes before the mandatory meeting starts:)

Supervisor: *texts me* “Hey, [My Name], are you going to come to the meeting today?”

Me: *wondering if the mandatory meeting suddenly became optional* “Yes, I am on my way.”

(When I got to the bank, I could see everybody in the lobby staring at me as I walked up. I started to panic, thinking I got the time wrong, and walked in. As soon as I got in the door, everybody started singing “Happy Birthday.” There was a chocolate cake on one of the desks. My birthday was a few days away, but I hadn’t really talked to anyone about it, so I was totally shocked. My coworkers said my face went completely purple, and they were so happy they’d surprised me. Then, we started the meeting. I have awesome coworkers.)

I work in the office of a regional park, selling park vehicle permits. Occasionally, we get a customer asking if we offer any sort of discounts — senior discount, veteran discount, etc. Unfortunately, we do not. 

Most people are understanding, if somewhat disappointed. If I think it will lighten the mood, I sometimes joke, “If it makes you feel any better, there’s no employee discount, either!”

This is a line I have been using for years to pretty good effect, but my supervisor recently improved on it:

“Well, I’d let you use my employee discount, but I don’t get one.”

I may have to adopt her version.

This is a story my dad told me from when he was a college freshman in the late ’80s. Apparently, my uncle, who was still in high school, had gotten himself a pet tarantula around that time and had it in some sort of cage-type setup in their kitchen.

One day, not long before spring break, my grandmother was tasked with feeding it and, naturally, the tarantula jumped out of its cage and fled right into a sink filled with dishes and soapy water and died. 

When my dad came home not long after, he ended up taking the tarantula’s corpse and shellacking it to a piece of wood in a way that made it look like it was still alive. He then brought it back with him to school a few days earlier than he’d initially planned. During those few extra days, he put up several “Missing Pet” signs for it all over campus. 

As people in his dorm started returning, he would sneak the dead tarantula into their rooms while he pretended to help them with their luggage, and, since this wasn’t out of the ordinary for him, they never suspected anything until they ended up finding it. He told me he lost count of how many people he pranked in his dorm before word got out of what he was doing.