(I work the front desk. As part of our ongoing safety training, we do storm drills at the beginning of spring and throughout the season. The maintenance manager asks me to call out such a drill.)

Me: *on the overhead* “Code Yellow drill, Code Yellow drill. All staff please report to the lobby.”

(The manager and I wait a few minutes, watching people show up. After a few minutes, we figure everyone’s there, and he’s about to start his safety talk when a couple other employees walk up.)

Me: “Too late! You’re dead!”

Manager: “Yep. Blown off to Kansas.”

(The employees start to walk away.)

Me: “Hey! Not too dead to miss the meeting!”

(Everyone laughed as they came back.)

(To reduce strain on my back, I often kneel down while reshelving books on the lowest shelves in the library. Whilst I am doing so, a woman — who must be in her 60s or 70s — has been browsing the fiction section, and she walks past me.)

Elderly Woman: “The best place to be is on your knees.”

(I don’t know if it was a poor choice of words, or if she’d actually intended it for it to sound like it sounded, but either way I was left at a loss for words at her remark; my colleagues, on the other hand, had a good laugh.)

(I am checking out at a store. My nine-month-old daughter is in the cart, and like with most children this age, it can be difficult to tell her gender.)

Clerk: “Oh, what a good… girl?”

Me: “Yes, it can be hard to tell at this age, and she is wearing a boyish tee-shirt.”

Clerk: “Pink Floyd! Oh, I just love Stairway to Heaven!“

Me: “… “

At my younger sister’s school, there’s a girl who somehow came up with the idea that Roman Catholics — the earliest form of Christianity — are devil worshippers.

She’ll sit near my sister and her friends and give my sister nasty looks and rude comments.

One day, just as my sister finishes doing the sign of the cross, there’s a blackout. The girl is staring at my sister in horror, so my sister shrugs and says loudly, “It worked!”

Years ago, I was working at a bookstore with a cafe in it. I had always gotten along well with the cafe crew and liked to joke around with them. When the fad of drawing a mustache on your finger to hold up to your lip first became a thing, I thought they would get a kick out of it. One day, before my shift started, I went and stood in line in the cafe to get my drink, like I usually did, and when it was my turn at the register I smiled, held the drawn mustache up to my lip, and made my order.

My coworker let out a boisterous laugh, and then literally doubled over on the floor laughing. I was shocked at her reaction, as I was only expecting to get a chuckle out of her, not this kind of extreme response. I stood there embarrassed as the line of customers behind me was wondering what was happening. Another coworker in the cafe, upon seeing the cashier on the floor, let out a disgruntled sigh and stepped over her to come take my order, obviously annoyed with both of us. I sheepishly repeated my order, paid without a word, and stood to the side, red-faced and looking at the floor.

After that, I decided to cut back on horsing around with the cafe crew… At least where customers would be watching.