(I am listening to a talk show about Youth Day and the rights of children. Someone who sounds like an old man calls in:)
Caller: “Children have too many rights these days. They are rebellious, and don’t respect their elders. I think we need to bring back capital punishment in schools.”
Host: *long pause* “I think you mean ‘corporal’ punishment.”
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(I work as a travel agent and on Saturdays I work alone. I have just come back from the restroom and reopened the store when the phone rings.)
Me: “[Travel Agency]. [My Name] speaking. How can I help you?”
Customer: “Finally! I was wondering if you guys were open at all! I have called ten times already!”
(I can see on my screen he has only called twice before.)
Me: “Sorry, sir. I am alone and had to step out to the restroom for five minutes.”
Customer: “Don’t you have a bucket you guys can use to be close to the phone? Rather inconvenient for the customer to be kept waiting.”
Me: “Unfortunately, not all of us are barbarians that relieve themselves in buckets. Now, how can I help you?”
Customer: *hangs up*
(I’m playing with my two-year-old son when the following exchange happens.)
Son: “I want to play with the toilet brush!”
Me: “No! Yucky!”
Son: “The toilet brush! The toilet brush!”
Me: “I can’t let you. You can get sick.”
(Son runs to the main bedroom, which has an en-suite bathroom. I chase after him. My wife is in the bedroom.)
Wife: “Hey, what are you looking for?”
Son: “The toilet brush!”
Wife: “The story blocks? Sure, here they are!”
(Son happily walks out of the bedroom with his box of story blocks. I still don’t understand how I got what he said so wrong!)
(A few classmates and I are sitting in a classroom waiting for our lecturer. It’s a small early morning class. A cold front has just passed by and brought cold, rainy weather. The building we’re in is cool at the best of times and has no heating, which is common for buildings here since it’s so rarely needed. Needless to say, we’re all feeling a bit miserable. Suddenly, one classmate pipes up:)
Classmate: “You know, I brought a flask of vodka. That could come in handy right about now.”
(We’re all jokingly discussing how to distribute it among ourselves and have settled on adding it to coffee when the lecturer walks in. He’s caught the tail end of the conversation.)
Lecturer: “Vodka? At this time of the morning? In my class? Are you alcoholics?”
Classmate: “Not in class… and we’d be adding it to coffee. It’s just to warm up.”
Lecturer: “Do it now, on one condition: make me one as well.”
(And that’s how we ended up drinking in class…)
(My sister, my cousin, and two friends come to visit me and we go to a nature reserve. My friend is using her army knife to chopping vegetables for dinner.)
Me: “Can I see your knife?”
Friend: “Yeah, here – oops!”
(The knife went point-down into my foot and must have hit an artery because the floor was covered in bright red blood in seconds. I quickly sat down and raised my foot in the air while the other girls scurried around grabbing towels to put pressure on it. Later, when we had the bleeding under control:)
Me: “Guys, we are a biologist, a rural social worker, an Army officer, a police employee, and an Outward Bound instructor — and nobody brought any first aid stuff?”
