(My partner is the only one who drinks coffee, and she only drinks one cup. To avoid waste, we pour the excess into an ice tray and freeze it. She’ll pop these cubes into her hot chocolate. I use the ice trays to make cheap popsicles. Today, she makes the hot chocolate and stirs in the cube.)

Partner: “Blech! Who knew that frozen coffee could go bad?”

Me: “Well, throw it out. Want me to make you a fresh coffee?”

Partner: “I guess so. Yuck. It turned pink.”

Me: “Pink? Like popsicle pink?”

(Very long pause.)

Partner: “We shall never speak of this again.”

(My husband is preparing dinner. He opens a can of cannellini beans and two of our cats come running, meowing in the most pathetic, begging fashion and making boo-boo eyes.)

Husband: “These are beans. Not cat food, beans. You have never been interested in beans before.”

(The cats meow and try to stretch up to the counter to reach the food.)

Husband: “You want to see the beans? Here.”

(He takes the colander full of drained beans and brings it down to ground level. Both cats excitedly sniff a couple of times, realize it’s not cat food, and look betrayed. Satisfied, my husband places the colander back on the counter, but the cats begin begging again.)

Husband: *exasperatedly* “They’re beans. Cannellini beans. Here. Look.”

(He spears a bean on a fork and shows it to them.)

Husband: “This is a bean.” *pause* “No, we don’t rub our head on the bean. That’s not what beans are for. They’re cannellini beans, not catellini beans. Now stop.”

(I work as the office manager of an upscale spa. We’ve hired a male massage therapist who is fresh out of school. He’s a sweet guy, good at his job, and is quickly building a list of regular clients. I am working at the front desk when he comes rushing out of the back where the massage rooms are.)

Therapist: “Hey, uh, [My Name]?”

Me: “Hey, [Therapist]. I thought you had a client right now?”

Therapist: “Yeah, I do, but there’s a problem.”

Me: “What’s wrong?”

Therapist: *leans closer and whispers* “She’s, uh, she’s started saying dirty things to me.”

Me: “She’s what?”

Therapist: “I don’t know what to do! In school, they only talked about female therapists dealing with inappropriate people. She keeps saying how much I’m turning her on, and how she wants me to do things to her while her husband is getting his massage in the next room! I made up an excuse to leave for a minute. What should I do?”

Me: “The thing to do is inform her that her massage is now over. Tell her that we have zero tolerance for inappropriate behavior. If you don’t feel comfortable saying this, then you can go in the break room and I’ll tell her. We can also bar her in the system from making an appointment here again.” *sigh* “Unfortunately, we can’t directly tell her husband what she did, as it’s currently against company policy. But we can make sure she never does this again to any of our therapists.”

(The therapist chose to be the one to tell her he couldn’t continue the session. She came storming out to the front desk and pitched a fit. I told her she was no longer welcome at our spa, and that if she continued to carry on like that her husband was going to want to know what was going on. That shut her up. She sulked in the lobby until her husband was done with his appointment and made some snooty comment about not wanting to come to a “low-quality” spa like ours anymore. I checked with the therapist who had her husband, to make sure he didn’t pull the same stunt, and she said he was perfectly polite the whole time. We never saw either of them again, though.)

(I work at a bank call center. The accounts have security phrases that the customers need to confirm when they call so they can get assistance. I receive a call from a man who hasn’t called since 2016; he doesn’t remember his phrase. They can check and change this phrase in their accounts online, so he has his wife go and check. The phrase was, “I love my wife.”)

Wife: *while laughing* “I’ll make sure he doesn’t forget that.”

(It was one of the sweetest calls I’ve had.)

Wife: *in the bathroom* “Could you bring me the TP?”

(I bring her the little teepee she made for our daughter as a fort.)

Wife: *does not laugh*