Really Falling for This One
(A guy I’ve been flirting with leans in to kiss me. The flimsy table falls over and he crashes to the floor. Thankfully, he immediately picks himself up.)
Date: “And that, ladies and gentlemen, is why I’m still single!”
(I soon corrected that grievous error.)

(Due to some issues my friend was having with her boyfriend at the time, my friend ended up staying with me for two weeks. I had to warn her that I can be really gassy, especially in my sleep, and we were sharing a bed the entire time. One night I am in that half awake half asleep phase when I farted…loudly. It was so loud it woke me up)

Me: “Mmwhat wuz that?”

Friend: *Busy laughing her a** off* “You FARTED!”

My cousin and I are around fourteen or fifteen. At this swimming pool, they have a normal lap pool, and a diving board pool. The high dive is a solid platform, five metres high, which is intimidating enough that a lot of people who get to the top need a bit of time to pluck up the courage, meaning there’s always a bit of a queue up there.

While we wait our turn, we’re chatting with the various people there, including one girl, about twelve, who is openly quite nervous. It’ll be important to note later that she is slightly on the huskier side. My cousin, who is well used to the diving board, gives her some advice and encouragement before we both jump.

As I surface and reach the side, this girl has approached the edge of the diving board. We yell up some more words of encouragement – along the lines of ‘Go On!’, and ‘You can do it!’ – in between joking about something or other. Either she eventually jumps, or backs off, but we stop paying attention to the diving board and sit on the edge of the lap pool chatting, until a lifeguard approaches us:

Lifeguard: “Hi guys. I’m afraid I’ve had a complaint about you two from that girl over there [points to the girl from the top of the diving board].”

Me: [confused] “What? What did we do?”

Lifeguard: “She claims you were bullying her, calling her fat and saying that she shouldn’t jump because it would make too big of a splash, and if she’s nervous she should pretend there’s a burger at the bottom.”

Cousin: “Er…no. I said she should sit on the edge and just slide off if she’s nervous, and that’s about it.”

Me: “Surely if we were yelling insults up at her, you’d have heard it?”

Lifeguard: “Yeah, it seemed a little outlandish, but I wasn’t sure why anyone would make up something like that so I thought it best to speak to you guys anyway.”

Me: “Yeah, we have no idea why she thought we were making fun of her.”

Lifeguard: “Either way, it’s probably best that you avoid her for the rest of your session. I’ve said the same to her so hopefully this’ll be the end of it. Have a good swim!”

To this day, I really can’t tell why that girl said that to the lifeguard. Whether she genuinely thought we were laughing at her while we were joking about something else, or just wanted to stir up some drama, I have no idea. Either way, it was a weird experience.

It is early April, and I am home from University due to the virus. In all of my free time, I have been playing a lot of nerdy board games with my equally nerdy younger sisters, who are 14 and 7 but look very similar, especially from far away – long blonde hair, big blue glasses, same face shape. I on the other hand look a bit different – I have dark hair, wear contacts, and because it doesn’t really matter in quarantine I haven’t shaved in 2 months so I have facial hair obscuring parts of my face.
We went for a walk on this fateful afternoon with our dog, when some middle aged couple also walking a dog started yelling at us from across the street.
Man: We know you’re not related, you know! You’re clearly breaking quarantine.
Woman: You young people don’t understand – people like you are going to spread the virus around just because you don’t understand that love can wait.
I have been told that I look like I older than 18 without my messy facial hair, and my sister looks much younger than 14 (she’s been mistaken for 10 before), so I am a bit astonished that the red flags that were going off were quarantine.
Youngest Sister: Yeah! Well, you look like Gloomweaver!
With that, she turned and walked off with her nose in the air, prompting us to follow.
The couple were caught off guard, clearly having no knowledge of what Gloomweaver is. For context, Gloomweaver is a villain from a comic book card game who is essentially a skeleton whose skull is floating in green flames, and this couple looked like the average White middle class couple (like WASPs, except this is Massachusetts, so its more like WIICs – White Italian Irish Catholics). My sister and I were so amused by the whole incident we promised to buy her ice cream once quarantine was over.

Some years ago I was attending a bankruptcy auction for a small business.
Things were busy, with a lot of people – in both business and casual wear – turning up at various times and going in and out.
At the end of the auction, when things are being taken away, a recent arrival in a business suit approaches the auctioneer.
Man in Suit: I’m here about the cash register and Point of Sale systems. They were leased from my company and I’m here to take them back.
Auctioneer: *With deer-in-the-headlights look* I’ve just sold those!