(I live in Scotland. My little sister and I are playing charades using an app on an iPad. We are playing the food category and the words come up. It is, “American _____,” so my sister decides to split the dish to make it easier. Here is how our crazy conversation goes.)

Sister: “Okay, the first word. Think of a big country.”

Me: “Russia?”

Sister: “No, no, like, think Trump.”

Me: “America?”

Sister: “Yeah! Then—”

Me: “[Sister], you’re eight! Where did you learn about Trump?!”

Sister: “I don’t know. I heard a lot of people talking about Donald Trump, the President of America. Anyway— OH, MY GOD! YOU ONLY HAVE TEN SECONDS LEFT! WHAT DO YOU CALL PEOPLE FROM AMERICA?”

Me: *panicking* “Um, um, BURGERS!”

(Our new lab technician has a sense of humour.)

Lab Tech: *pushing the dirty glassware cart along the rows of benches in the lab* “Glass for the Glass God! Glass for the Glass God!”

(We empty and rinse our used glassware and put it in her cart. She comes to the row where the lab professor works.)

Lab Tech: “Glass for the Glass God! Glass for the Glass God!”

Professor: *confused* “Wha – what?”

Lab Tech: “Do you have any dirty glassware for the glass wash?”

Professor: “Ah! Ah, no, I don’t. Thank you, though.”

Lab Tech: *next row of benches* “Glass for the Glass God! Glass for the Glass God!”

Professor: *muttering* “I know what I thought I heard.”

(It is our wedding day. Before the doors open for my father to walk me down the aisle, he slips something on to my wrist and tells me that everything will be okay. I should note that I have already been married once before. The music starts, the doors open, and we make our way to the front. It’s a beautiful moment, and then our dear friend and officiant asks who is giving the bride. My father steps up.)

Father: “Her mother and I are. And we’re not taking her back. She’s yours for life.”

(With that, my normally rather serious and traditional father sent the entire chapel into an uproar of laughter as he slapped the other half of a pair of handcuffs onto the wrist of my blushing but amused groom. We wore them for the entirety of the ceremony. We’re still happily married, and my dad loves to retell the story.)

(I attend a fairly prestigious liberal arts college, where students often try to present themselves as more intelligent and “woke” than their peers, so student humor often tends towards satirizing the pretentiousness of the student body itself. Additionally, there’s a pretty big divide between the humanities majors in Division I, arts and language, Division II, social sciences, and the STEM majors in Division III. This conversation is overheard in a dining hall between two physics majors, a boy and a girl, about a third student:)

Girl: “I like how we both tried to talk to him at the same time, but what I said was, ‘Have fun in lab!’ whereas you just declared your everlasting love—”

Boy: “I did not say, ‘everlasting’!”

Girl: “Okay, you just declared your temporary and ephemeral love—”

Boy: “Are you implying that my love for [Friend] is only meaningful if it’s eternal?”

Girl: “Am I? Does love even exist? Or is it really a social construct designed to enforce existing power structures in a post-industrial, capitalist society?”

Boy: “…”

Girl: “See? I can BS like a Div. II [humanities] major!”

(I’m in a bar during my first week of university and have sat down by the dance floor to rest for a minute. A student I vaguely recognise from my halls comes and sits next to me. I am female.)

Guy: “Hey, how about I buy you a drink, and then we can get out of here?”

Me: “Ah, I’m really sorry. I’m a lesbian.”

(This is true.)

Guy: *thinks for a minute* “I have moobs?”

(I immediately twigged that he wasn’t serious, and he’s been one of my best friends for the last seven years. I was even his best woman when he got married.)

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