My best friend once tried to impress a girl by pretending he knew how to skateboard.

He borrowed someone’s board outside a bar, rolled about three metres, hit the tiniest pebble I have ever seen, and launched straight into a bush.

Everyone froze, waiting to see if he was hurt, and he popped up with a leaf stuck perfectly to his forehead and just went:

Best Friend: “Nailed it.”

The girl laughed so hard she sat on the pavement, and they ended up dating purely off of that disaster.

Customer: “Do you have a permanent whiteboard marker?”

Me: “Permanent?”

Customer: “Yup.”

Me: “As in… ink that stays on the whiteboard forever?”

Customer: “You know it.”

Me: “I mean, nothing marketed as such, but we have plenty of markers that will stay on a whiteboard and be very stubborn about being removed.”

Customer: “I’ll take it!”

Me: “Okay, but… why?”

Customer: “It’s my last week in the office, and the boss is a right c***. I’m gonna tell him how I feel on the whiteboard in his office and make sure the message sticks.”

I show him the markers and leave his business to him. When he checks out, he’s also buying glitter, glue, and a suspicious amount of scotch tape…

There’s a partial solar eclipse happening in the UK on August 12th, 2026. A few friends and I have met up at a good vantage point to enjoy looking at the sun gradually disappear through the special glasses, organised by a friend who is very interested in astronomy.

One of our friends, who is not interested in astronomy, is trying to figure out what he’s looking at.

Friend: “Wow, that’s amazing, but I have a question.”

Astronomy Friend: “Sure thing! I’m pretty sure I can answer any question you have about the eclipse.”

Friend: “How is it that the Earth can block the view of the sun way over there. Aren’t we on Earth over here?”

Astronomy Friend: “…I retract my statement.”

Related:
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 11
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 10
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 9
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 8
Total Eclipse Of The Brain, Part 7

On a whim, I applied for a job that was very much at the speculative end of the scale with a company that seemed refreshingly laid-back. Given that, I decided to take a more relaxed approach to the interview. I’d also heard they tended to stick to fairly standard interview questions, so I came prepared.

Sure enough, during the interview:

Interviewer: “What would you say is your greatest weakness?”

Me: “Well, I don’t think I have any weaknesses, but I asked my wife for her opinion…”

At that point, I bent down and pulled a thick sheaf of papers from my bag.

Me: “…and she helpfully put together this extensive list for me.”

I work from home. While this usually allows me a certain level of freedom to take a walk during the day, grab lunch, etc., at some times of the year my workload is so high that I’m working from sunrise to sunset. At these times, I use online food delivery.

Over a period of about six weeks, I’d ordered toasties, cakes and coffee from a chain coffee shop for lunch delivery most days. Honestly, the caffeine, sugar and cheese were all that kept me going.

One afternoon, when I’d been working non-stop from about 6 AM and would be at it until at least 9 PM, I opened the bag containing my lunch to find two fully completed loyalty stamp cards stapled to my sandwich wrapper, each good for a free coffee and sandwich, and a note that said, ‘You deserve this. I hope you are having a great day.’

There’s no way the worker who added those to my order could have known this, but that day was my birthday. Thank you, coffee shop person.