(I’m eating a hamburger. I see the man next to me carefully picking a slab of cheese out of his burger, wrapping it in a paper napkin, and eating the rest of the burger. It puzzles me, so I ask him about it.)

Me: *point at napkin* “Excuse me, but why did you do that?”

Man: “Oh, every time I eat a burger, I set one ingredient aside. At the end of the week, I have a free burger!”

(It is my first time at Burning Man, and ‘the man’ has just burned. Afterwards, my boyfriend and some of our friends go looking for where we parked our bikes. A very enthusiastic European woman bumps into me.)

Woman: “Oh! I am so sorry!”

(She looks at me. I am wearing a scarf that covers my eyes, nose, and mouth due to dust. Only my eyes are exposed.)

Woman: “Your EYES! They are magnificent!”

Me: “Oh, thank you!”

Woman: “You simply must let me hug you! Ah, new friend!”

(Although I’m a short person, I feel I am gifted in the art of hugs.)

Woman: “Ah! What wonderful loving hugs!”

Me: “If you like my hugs, try hugging him.”

(I pull over my boyfriend, who is very tall, a little chubby, with very big hands. He is ‘famed’ for his hug talent. He understands right away that I’m pimping out his hugs, and opens his arms for this woman.)

Woman: “Yeee!”

(She hugs him, then squeals, jumping up and hugging him with all four limbs.)

Woman: “Is like he is the papa bear, and I am the baby bear! Eeeeee! So nice!”

(Some people might have been jealous in this scenario. I thought it was the most hilarious, memorable, sweet thing I had seen the whole event. My boyfriend felt a lot of joy in being everyone’s ‘papa bear’ after that.)

(The head librarian is showing us how to look up someone’s account if the student doesn’t have their ID in order to check out books.)

Head Librarian: “Okay, so with me so far? At this screen you enter this access code [code] and voila! Now this works for students, teachers and even administrators, so you can check things out to anyone.”

My Friend: “What if they want to pay their late fees?”

Head Librarian: “Oh, you can find all that on this screen. See? You have access to all the student’s information: library records, late fees, grades, address, social security number, whatever you need!”

(My friend turns to look at me with a surprised and slightly horrified look. I immediately turn to the head librarian.)

Me: “Uh, did you just show us, two underage students, how to get anyone’s name, address, and social security number? And this anyone includes all the students, teachers, and faculty members?”

(The head librarian turns to me as her jaw drops.)

Head Librarian: “I… should not have done that. You two go dust or shelve something. I’m going to change my access code now.”

Me: “Tech support, how can I help you?”

Customer: “Why are you holding my website to ransom?”

Me: “Sorry?”

Customer: “I pay you good money every month and now you’re holding my site to ransom to sell your cookies!”

Me: “Pardon me?”

Customer: “I went to my site and when I tried to add to cart, it came up saying I couldn’t until I bought some cookies! I never agreed to this and I’m going to sue!”

Me: “Sir, cookies are just a computing term. What you saw was the page explaining that you have cookies switched off and telling you how to turn them on.”

Customer: “Cookies! Blackberries! Well, I don’t know these kinds of technical things!”

(I am 17 and my mom is in her 40s. We are flying back from a month long trip across Europe, and are getting ready to land back in Canada.)

Flight Attendant: “Customs forms, one per household.”

My Mom: “Thanks, we just need one.”

Flight Attendant: “It’s one per household.”

My Mom: “Yes, thanks, just one.”

(The flight attendant leaves, but comes back shortly after and squats down next to us so he can talk quietly.)

Flight Attendant: “You do know these are one per household right?”

My Mom: “Yeah…”

Flight Attendant: “So are you two married, or…?”

My Mom: “She’s my daughter.”

(The flight attendant turned bright red, apologized and ran off. Mom and I couldn’t stop laughing. Shortly thereafter a different flight attendant came, said the guy was really embarrassed and really sorry and they would like to offer us a free bottle of wine for the mistake. We already had our liquor limit in wine from Italy, so we gave it to the flight attendant on our way out and thanked him for making us laugh!)