So yesterday I tweeted this:
And the replies made me laugh so hard I scared the cats. Some of my very favorites:
Never change, you guys. Never change.
PS. The whole thread is here.
188 thoughts on “Honestly, I’m pretty sure you can download Fortnite for free so I sort of blame Kevin here.”
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I fucking love these people & not just because they support my wine-slushee habit:
I had student write a science fiction story and the hero fell into a vat of sewer water and grew testicles. Those testicle were the star of the story, knocking people out, grabbing our hero’s girlfriend from the same fate, wrapping them around the bad guys to save the day. They were busy testicles. When I went in to class the next day, I asked him to look up the word. Oops! He meant tentacles. Still laugh about it 20 years later.
My mother wore an orchid to church and thought the pastor asked her, “Fornication or just because it’s pretty?” Of course, he had said, “for an occasion.”
Yesterday, you and all these people won Twitter! Thank you, Jenny, for starting this!!! Made me laugh all day long and kept me up late last night. But, no regrets! So fucking funny!
LOL holy cow. Those are awesome!
A ha ha ha ha! Gotta love people.
About a year ago, I ordered a pizza over the phone. When they asked for a name, I told them that It’ll be Doug (my husband). He called me from the pizzeria – they didn’t have an order in his name. Turns out, it was under the name of Itel Bee (it’ll be, get it). Also, I had a boss who thought that “Bite the bullet” was “Buy the bullet”.
I shouldn’t read this in the cafeteria. People are staring I’m laughing so hard!
When I read stuff like this, I think maybe I should be on Twitter. Still can’t do it, though. Thanks for the laughs.
Worked at toys r us. An older woman couldn’t find the lego house she was looking for. I brought it to her. She points at the display and says, “no i want it already assembled.” I told her they dont come assembled, and she was pretty livid. Told me I didnt know what I was talking about.
Now I’m really sorry I didn’t take part in this!
But to be fair, I’m not myself these days so I wouldn’t have been able to play at your level, Jenny.
I walked into an open house and the hand-out listed the price (very expensive) and details including “the scones in the dining room are not included”. They meant “sconces” but for a minute I walked around mumbling “at this price you’d think they could throw in the scones.”
My husband worked at a bank in college. He once a had customer who insisted she couldn’t be $200 overdrawn. He repeatedly showed her that the checks she wrote added up to X amount, and she kept repeating, “But I didn’t write any checks over 200 dollars!”
I’m still waiting to make the organism/orgasm slip in front of my students. So far, so good, but I’m getting older…
All of these are awesome. I have a couple: My mom once asked us if would like chicken soup without the soup. Um, isn’t that just chicken? And my dad once told someone about his gynecologist appointment. He meant Gastroenterologist.
My younger sister once told me that the L on my contacts case had a triangle around it so blind people knew which lens was for the left eye.
My partner and I are serious about splitting desserts, often resulting in well-meaning threats. But this times love-is scene in the movie we were watching came on so whenmy fork slid a little too far away from my half, my brain heard him yell “DON’T TOUCH MY HEART!!
He said “Don’t touch my part.” But now we have a fun new idiom…
Reading these at work, having silent spasmic laughter so my cubicle-mates don’t hear me!
Theres a few stupids in this story….
I was 12 and I was with my dad and best friend in a quiet family friendly campground in the woods. My dad told us that when my sister was younger she couldn’t pronounce “Mickey and Goofy”…instead she would say “Mickmee and DOUCHEY”.
Being young and stupid, we thought it sounded hilarious and decided to name squirrels, Douchey! Which we yelled out every time one ran by. My dad didn’t stop us…..
I worked in a amall company where everyone was packed into cubicles. A woman in the department, apparently on the phone to a hardware store, stated, “I need to winterize my house and I need some black caulk!” One of the guys nearby replied, “Yowza.”
This is absolutely incredible! I once had a roommate who enjoy “bacons” for breakfast and whose favorite animals were “quails,” which drove met nutty. I also once wrote a technical manual in which my first draft had a solid 10 pages containing “Sex 1” and “Sex 2” rather than “Sec 1” and “Sec 2″…clearly my mind was not on work that day.
My old cat had a habit of carrying stuffed animals to the bathroom and yowling until somebody came to see what she brought. One day, the toy she brought was a pink Care Bear, but when my mother tried to describe it, she called it “the pink love toy”.
So many mental images I can’t unsee.
Thanks for all the laugh tears – OMG – hilarious!!
A friend of mine once told me he thought my hair color was “chlamydia! No.. NO, Cyclamen! The flower, not the STD.”
Pretty sure Chlamydia isn’t purple.
When our younger son, then 14 or so, returned from having braces put on his teeth, I tried to demonstrate how hip I was by saying, “Dude. Show me your rack!”
He blinked a couple of times.
Sensing I’d gotten something horribly, horribly wrong, I performed a silent mental scroll through other options.
Shit.
“Not rack. Grill. I meant ‘Show me your grill.'”
My husband has repeatedly used the phrase “give up the goose” when something has died/stopped working (phrase is Give up the GHOST”). I just want to know where the goose is going and why that’s important.
I stand by “ends meat”. In ye olden days the serving class would get the leftovers from the rich folks, right? The “ends meat”. So you’d have to work hard to earn those left overs. “Working to make ends meat”
Totally sound. And makes more sense than the dumb rope thing.
I come from a heavily Italian family – Lasagna, ricotta, and thick, tomato meat stews runs in the blood.
In fifth grade, I get my first Human Health class. I notice a disturbing similarity between my Nona’s thick and nourishing POLENTA with meat sauce and birth byproduct PLACENTA.
Two decades later and I still can’t even…
A coworker recently asked if I could drive a visiting author from one event to another, but between them I might need to “facilitate his fooding.” Um, you mean take him to lunch?
Madame Ovary is probably by the same guy who wrote The Haunted Vagina.
Haha, thought that was going to be a quick read at work, guess I’ll come back to it!
Speaking of “come”…
I worked for a car dealership, and submitted photos/text to a local newspaper for our weekly ad. They are SUPPOSED to send us a proof, but didn’t on this particular day.
We were running a 14-passenger Econoline van, and the text was SUPPOSED to read, “14-passenger van. Carry the whole family, and then some.”
What was printed?
“14-passenger van. Carry the whole family, and the come.”
Yes… Yes, I guess that is a reason to need a 14 passenger van O.o!!!
I worked at Tower Books in the 90’s. Some snot nosed high schooler came in to get a summer reading book: “I need Lord of the Files.”
“Oh, is that an office drama?”
“…”
“Right. I think you mean Lord of the FLIES.”
“noooooo. I need Lord. Of. The. FI-LES.”
I shrugged and typed in “Lord of the Files. “Yeah sorry man, we don’t have that one.”
“WHATEVER.”
When I was a young lad, I used to think the expression was, “Go ahead. Knock yourself down.” It made more sense to me at the time. XD
When I worked in a public library, a patron who spoke English as a second language was trying to explain his living situation. “Is like partment, but is not partment.” “You mean a condominium? A condo?” With a huge grin of understanding finally achieved, he proclaimed, “Yes! Yes, I live in condom!” Somehow, both my boss and I managed to wait until he’d walked away before bursting into laughter.
90lbs Rottweiler runs past my husband and knocks his feet out from under him. He couldn’t walk, goes to the hospital and it turns out his “Achilles” tendons is messed up. Husband comes home, tells me our dog wrecked his “Hercules” tendon.
When I was about 6 years old, our family dentist asked me how my younger sister was. I said she was a kleptomaniac. My mom quickly explained I meant ambidextrous.
me, pretty much whenever something doesn’t involve me: “i don’t have a dog in that pony.”
it was completely accidental the first time, but the shocked pause and laughter after its first utterance means that will forever be the phrase i use. plus, i like it much better than “i don’t have a dog in that fight,” since i am against dog fighting.
My mom was trying to teach my then 3 year old brother then correct names for his junk. Sometime later that day he wet his pants. My mom grabbed the front of his pants and said “what’s this??” (obviously talking about the wet pants). He looked at her and said “My peanuts and my popsicles!”
For myself, like one of the tweets, I thought making end’s meet was making Endsmeat for the longest time. I figured it meant you were so poor you couldn’t afford the worst meat on the cow. (I was about 18 when I finally figured that one out.)
My mom worked with a woman for many years who was a wealth of malapropisms. My favorite story about her from many years ago(they worked in an small office supply store):
Paper Sales Rep: I’m sorry to say, the cost of paper is going up very significantly.
Co-worker: Why is the cost going up so much?
PSR: Well, the good pulp is in Japan. So it’s more expensive to get.
Co-worker: Oh great, so I’m supposed to tell my customers that because the Good Pope is in Japan, they’re prices are going sky high??
PSR: Uhh…no. PULP. Good PULP.
I work at a vacation rental company. I had a guest call to ask what time was check out.
10:00 a.m.
But, what if I want to leave before then?
I work at a law firm. We have free 30-minute consultations. Often people call wanting you make an appointment for a consolation. (Which is a brilliant idea, but it still makes me giggle.)
My boss once asked me to have someone clean up the bathroom because there was “fetus” all over the walls. Feces. She meant feces.
The local farm supply store used to have an event called Peanut Days where you could walk through the store and crack open peanuts, dropping the shells on the ground. I’m not sure why that was so appealing when we were kids but my brother INSISTED that mom and dad take us to Penis Days.
As an almost 40 year old, that sounds much more appealing now than peanuts…
I had just bought a bag of fiberfill to restuff a pillow. My eight year old son holds the bag up and asks what it’s for. “Well,” I said, “if we take that in the back yard, plant it, and then water it, in a few weeks it’ll grow into a beautiful pillow tree!” He looked at me for a moment and then rolled his eyes. “I’m not stupid, Mom!” he said. “What will it grow really?”
Some non-science people were telling me one day that there must be a pandemic of a disease because more than x cases had occurred in a country when the definition read county. They were reading an American definition and trying to transfer it to another country.
My grandma insists that when you go into a Catholic church, you’re supposed to ejaculate.
She means genuflect
I am extremely unsurprised that so many of these happened in libraries and bookstores!
I used to be an American Civil War living historian. One fine afternoon following a particularly enthusiastic canon demonstration, I had a lady ask me if we reused the canon balls. Before I could think of a suitable answer that didn’t embarrass both of us, her husband said “I told you there are No Canon Balls! They’re not ACTUALLY trying to kill anybody!”
When I was little, I came home from school one day all excited to tell my parents that we were going to have a “lunatic eclliption” soon. I’m over 30 now and they still reference it occasionally.
My mother insists on calling ibuprofen “i-bee-pro-pen” and pronounces faux pas as “foo-paw.” While my husband worked at Volvo Trucks, his mother often told her friends about his job at (you guessed it) Vulva. She also calls mushrooms “mushrunes” and bagels “baygos.” And a friend frequently talked about her “rockweiler.” I often wonder what they do when they see these words in print, like on a package or something. How do they not know?
I was talking with my teenage daughter when her boyfriend called her cell phone. She told him that when he called her phone he made a “very good vibrator.” I told her to quick, put the call on mute, and listen to me and explained what that word meant. Horrified, she asked him if he heard what she said. the boyfriend replied, “I am trying to forget it right now.”
I teach Life Science and gave a test that included the endocrine system. There was a word bank and my student was labeling a human body diagram. She labeled the testes with the word retina.
I planted a Hibiscus in my mom’s yard, and to this day she refuses to hear anything but “Hot Biscuits”. She will call me and tell me how pretty the Hot Biscuits looks.
It makes me supremely happy to know that my favorite blogger is at least vaguely aware of the game I work on. Fortnite does have a paid side — Save the World, which is cooperative and doesn’t involve shooting other players like the free Battle Royale mode. I’m way more interested in Fork Knife, though, because I’m a chubby chick who likes to eat.
Mmmm…. my granddaughter calls Chipotle “Pa-chot-le?”
My daughter returned from a trip to New Zealand.
Daughter: The eggs were different. They were more gray colored, larger, and just tasted funny to me.
Me: Maybe they were not chicken eggs.
Daughter: Do you think they came from a goat?
oooh, I almost forgot – I had to correct my brilliant engineer husband early in our marriage when he kept talking about the “blue herring” that lived at the lake by his parent’s house. “Blue heron, honey. Blue HERON.”
Wait ago wins the prize for today. Wait ago, Bloggess!
My former wife’s grandmother would look at a man who seemed to be in good shape and say, “He’s very viral, isn’t he?”
My sister when she was young used to think the song “Secret Agent Man” was “Secret Asian Man” took years to convince her otherwise. Still make fun of her to this day
When I was a kid I was trying to impress my mother with my new science vocabulary when we passed some roadkill on the highway. Instead of telling her there was a dead “organism” on the road, I told her there was a dead orgasm on the road.
And speaking of dead orgasms, my aunt once tried to tell us about a guy who was blowing all his money on stupid stuff, but she said he was “shooting his wad all over town”. My husband still cracks up about that fifteen years later. 🙂
I’m a lunch lady who fills in whenever somebody’s out sick or they need extra help.
One day, I was working at an elementary school when the kindergartners came through the line. One of the boys stood on tiptoe and said loudly, “Ma’am! LUNCH LADY! Ma’am!”
I bent down so I could hear him. “Yes?”
He held up his milk carton and showed me the drawing of the cow that was on the back.
“This is soooooo INAPPROPRIATE! This cow is (whisper)nekkid!”
I glanced at the picture again..sure enough, that dang cow WAS naked and her udders were hanging alllll the way out.
I found him a milk carton without a naked cow on it.
Overheard at the grocery store:
Kid: Mom, why do organic vegetables cost more?
Mom: Because organic chemicals cost more than regular chemicals.
My kids and I walked away cracking up!
Years ago the high school friend of my former brother-in-law informed me that it was a healthy practice to masturbate your food thoroughly before swallowing. (I handed him a dictionary and suggested he look up the word masticate.)
Just took a trip to New Orleans. My coworker repeatedly, loudly, in front of customers, asked me to bring her back “some of those Ben-Wahs” (spelling? Not gonna Google it.) I finally figured it out. Brought her back a box of Beignet mix, & she proceeded to loudly say how excited she was about her Ben-Wahs, again, right in customer’s faces. (Ben-YAY, Julie, like YAY! Ben-Yays!)
Thank you for the much needed laughs 🙂
Back in the ’90’s, my step-sister wanted the new Meatloaf album. My mother and I went to the record store in the mall to get her the album as a surprise, but instead of having me ask the sales clerk for it, my mother insisted she could do it herself – even though she had never set foot inside a record store – and sent me off to pick up something else in another store in the mall. When I got back to the record store, the all of the sales clerks were in absolute stitches with laughter. My poor mother had spent 20 minutes running around the store desperately asking each and every clerk and customer where she could find the new album by HAMBURGER. 🙂
A few years ago, my wife and I were driving around looking at Christmas decorations. At one point, she exclaimed “Ooo! Christmas Men!”
I replied, “Santa Claus?”
I told my son about this. He’s 15, a gamer, and his name is Kevin. So when I read this to him, he simply face-palmed.
Friend: What did you get up to today?
Me: Oh, just did some work, then went to the library.
Friend: Why did you go to the library?
Me: Is that a serious question?
My niece, who was four years old at the time, talking about a friend of hers who lived next door: “I went to see if he could play but him mom says his chicken pox are still outrageous.”
My favorite will always be when my younger brother and my dad were in an argument and my dad, frustrated, finally just says “Well that’s just your opinion, Matthew.” and my brother gets VERY offended and shoots back “I am NOT A PINION!”
I worked for an Internet provider when the interwebs were a new thing and one of our customers wanted to know if she had to have her computer turned ON to get her email. Seriously?
When my kids were little LA Gear Lights were a thing (the soles of the shoes lit up when you walked. Yes, I’m that old). My son was in the backseat of the van and what I heard him say was “Mom, I want some alligator lights”. I didn’t miss a beat, and promptly told him that alligators don’t have lights, don’t be silly. That’s still our inside joke to this day.
I used to work in a record store (yes, a dramatic pause for that to sink in how long ago that was). I had a couple come in and ask if we had any cds of Elvis, because they could not find any. I showed them where they were located. The man asked, “Why aren’t they listed under E?”
Me: Um, they are under P for Presley?
Him: Hrmph. Well, then why are they here under Rock and not Country?
Me: He’s the King of Rock and Roll.
One day when I was subbing an art class 2 boys were talking about a science question. One said ‘What are gonads?” The other boy replied “Traveling Africans.”
My daughter told me that our Parish Priest was on Maternity leave.
I work at a library and we obsessively proofread all emails/posts/printed materials to make sure we don’t say pubic rather than public.
My aunt was very excited that there was new strip joint opening on the highway. She meant strip mall.
My sister is nine years younger than me, and our brother is between us in age. Somewhere along the line, my parents, brother and I started calling that compartment in front of the passenger seat in the car the “glove department.” My sister grew up knowing no other name until she began driving and asked a friend to get her sunglasses out of the glove department. The friend had no idea what she was talking about.
My youngest brother has a connective tissue disorder and for a time he was on medicine to help with pain and inflammation. In fourth or fifth grade as he’s getting off the bus he yells to my mom, “This viagra is making me sick!”
My mom yelled, “VIOXX, you are on VIOXX!!!”
He said, “Vioxx, viagra, same thing…”
Nope, not even a little. 15+ years later we still give him hell about it.
In at least one of my classes we refer to Fortnite as Fart night because I’m sometimes a bit hard of hearing. “What the hell are you kids playing? Fart night?”
https://possumscatsthingsgnawingatme.wordpress.com/2018/04/29/kitten-season/
Since I can’t post anon or even semi anon on Twitter I will just leave this here.
My mom, who hardly cooks at age 81, watches all the cooking shows on television. So frequently she “needs” to buy something she saw on TV. Apparently a lot of variations on shish-kebab had been making the round and we bought her some skewers. At a large family gathering she said loudly to my brother who was working the grill, “I got some of those screw-ers in the kitchen if you need ’em for anything.”
There were many stifled laughs and downcast eyes. A couple of people even had to leave the area suddenly.
My husband uses “douche” when he means “douse”. He’s aware of the difference now but just thinks it’s funny.
My friend always calls petit fours pedophiles when we go to tea.
Also, my mom was at the hospital and is anti modern medicine. She’s a diabetic and won’t take care of herself and was on the verge of losing her foot due to infection related to diabetes. The doctor asked her if she took any medicine for her chronic illnesses and her response was: “I TAKE HERBAL SUPPLEMENTS – I’M NOT AN IDIOT!” Pretty sure “curing” diabetes with cinnamon pills does in fact make you an idiot – sorry mom.
I now need a parody movie called Hamburger Games where the character of Peta is extremely conflicted playing, because he’s a vegan.
Also, I need a sequel called Quentin Tarrantino’s Pope Fiction.
I went to a REALLY expensive spa once to get hair and makeup done and was offered fox fur lashes instead of faux fur lashes.
I read in a menu once that “Chef Guy does interesting things to fish” and cackled so loud, the waitress thought I was having a fit.
My stories on Twitter yesterday: At 17, I tried to buy an album from the new band Pistols & Roses.
Once, in front of a REALLY hot guy, I walk talking about those nasty, foamy, orange candies that old people buy at Walgreens. But instead of Circus Peanuts, I called them Circuit Penis. Yeah.
Finally, my roommate, being really religious, doesn’t know a lot of words and phrases are offensive or what have you. She told me I needed to Netflix & Chill and got super offended when I explained to her what that meant. Told me I was wrong and didn’t know what I was talking about. (She also says 6 of one, a dozen of the other. You cannot convince her otherwise).
I also used to think that orgasm was the fancy way of saying organism. The mom’s in my class were speechless and wanted to know where I heard it. I thought they were super impressed by my intellect.
My husband refers to popcorn kernels as popcorn seed. He asked a grocery store clerk for popcorn seed and I about died!
My daughter, who was 5 or 6 at the time, was singing along to “Escape” in the van: “If you like penis a-lot-a…” I nearly had to pull over.
I used to be a first grade teacher. Every year I’d begin the first day of school with asking the kids what they did for the summer. One of my little kiddos raised his hand and said that he and his dad caught herpes for the summer, but I’m pretty sure he meant humpies (pink salmon).
My youngest daughter is know for her confusing mixup of words. When she was about 8, she was wearing a pair of leggings and pointed down to her crotch and asked, “How’s my donkey foot?” (Meaning camel toe, of course). Then we couldn’t figure out for months why, at age 6, she would laugh everything I talked about my friend Bridget until one day, I accidentally called someone a bitch while driving (I didn’t cuss openly back them!) and she laughed. So I asked her what is so funny and she said, “You said Bridget!” No idea why those sounded the same to her.
My mother-in-law was visiting and I excitedly said to her, “You’ll have to come outside and see my chlamydia. It’s beautiful!” She gave me a strange look and said, “I dont think that’s what you meant to say.” I stopped to rewind in my head what I’d just said and then horrified I shouted, “Clematis!!! I meant Clematis!”
My mother-in-law was visiting and I excitedly said to her, “You’ll have to come outside and see my chlamydia. It’s beautiful!” She gave me a strange look and said, “I dont think that’s what you meant to say.” I stopped to rewind in my head what I’d just said and then horrified I shouted, “Clematis!!! I meant Clematis!”
My adult cousin received her first digital camera as a gift and called me over to her house so she wouldn’t be alone when she took photos of “the ghosts”. Confused and curious, I went over. She scrolls through all these photos sayin “ I had it on the paranormal setting, but I haven’t caught any ghosts yet.”
Oh honey.That’s PANORAMA.
This was as good or better than anything I ever read in Reader’s Digest’s humor columns.
SELL! SELL!
When my son was young he loved beef jerky. Which he called “eater meat”. To this day I don’t know how he got eater meat from beef jerky but I laugh about it to this day and he is 26 now
My daughter was attending veterinary school at one of our state universities. It was her turn to work in the clinic. A lady brought her dog in, saying he was very itchy. After an exam, my daughter informed the lady that her dog had fleas. Indignantly the woman said: “He can’t have fleas, we live in a gated community!”
You can’t make this stuff up!
Also, have you seen the video if the girl drinking Smart Water to get smarter?
https://youtu.be/LLM5DMpyK48
A lady in our town put an ad on Facebook wondering if anyone was interested in her beautiful pink perineal flowers….
I was struggling to get into my Spanx and my husband told me that I wouldn’t need that GIRDER if I didn’t eat so many sweets… this same man (learned English about the time we got married!) for years referred to the brown hair most people have over their eyes as EYEBROWNS. I could go on and on. I tell him that I’m laughing at him, not with him!
Had a former employee request a leave of absence. SHE was certain she had cancer and needed to get her prostate checked as soon as possible.. She was adamant that they were going to have to remove it….
Had a former employee request a leave of absence. SHE was certain she had cancer and needed to get her prostate checked as soon as possible.. She was adamant that they were going to have to remove it….
Thank you internet. I needed you people today. ❤️
I used to work at a busy reference desk at the public library. One of my co-workers brought in a plant to put on the desk. We received many compliments and questions about said plant. My co-worker -a very proper, older woman, kept telling people it was a chlamydia plant. Ooooo, what kind of plant??? It’s a chlamydia plant. Just ask for it when you go to the store. I finally pulled her aside and said, yeah, ummm, I don’t think that’s a chlamydia plant. I believe it’s a cylamen. No, no, I’m sure it’s a chlamydia plant! No, Cathy, it’s a cyclamen. No it’s not! I’m sure of it! She was actually becoming argumentative. So, I went for the jugular—Cathy! Chlamydia is VD! It’s a cylamen! She was horrified.
These were funny until I hit the wall of belligerent idiot customers and now I’m just having flashbacks and swearing.
My mother keeps pronouncing “Weimaraner” (a dog breed, for those who don’t know) as “war-a-meyer”. It makes me even more bonkers than I already am. lol
Me: Thank you for calling Greyhound this is Chandra.
Caller: Hi Heather, can you tell me what time the 5 o’clock bus leaves?
Me: … um…
One day at work, I asked one of the street guys where Phil was. He replied, “Oh, he didn’t come in today, he has Cialis.” After I fell off my chair laughing, we determined that he had cellulitis, not erectile dysfunction meds
My sister and I were once discussing my children’s upcoming trip to Miami, with my three-year-old feisty toddler listening to us. When my sister said, “Where will they stay in Miami?” my daughter stood up and put her hands on her hips and said to her aunt: “That is NOT your ami. It’s my mommy’s ami!” It took us a while. Ohhhh. MY-AMI.
My younger brother used to call zucchinis ‘bikinis’. And he would play baseball with the really big ones that never got picked. So, often it was, “Oh I played with bikinis today…”
Also, here’s a library story….once someone said they were looking for a book, but they couldn’t remember the title. I said, well, what was it about? They couldn’t remember, but it was ‘really good’. And I said, well what did it look like? And they said, “Blue.”
I worked at a bookstore when the book (and movie) ‘Water for Elephants’ came out. A man came in to pick up his wife’s book club book – Watering the Elephants. When I told him that wasn’t a book and I would guarantee the book club was reading the first book he called me a liar and stormed out. To this day I don’t know if his wife ever read that book.
My brother and I once had a huge fight in the 80s where we didn’t speak to each other for a few days, over the Duran Duran song “The Reflex,” which I insisted was “The Replex.”
Because Replex is a word.
When I was wee, I had a friend who had a little brother – his name was Spencer. I could not wrap my 6 year old mind around that name. I called him Expensive.
I think what I love most (besides laughing so hard, I almost peed myself) is that so many of your followers are librarians or current ot past booksellers. You hang with some mighty fine folks Jenny!!!
Back in the late 70’s, my mom’s best friend’s son had just been playing a newest video game, and was so excited…came out of the house screaming, “the hemorrhoids are coming! The hemorrhoids are coming! Um, Asteroids.
At the bookstore, a customer called and asked if the audio book she ordered by Frederick Douglass was actually HIM reading it. Gahhhhhhh
3-yr-old son proudly showed off his new stuffed animal armadillo saying, I’m-a-dildo!
Mother-in-law is famous for her mispronounciation. Hyderangelas (hydrangeas), twiced (twice), jonicals (jonquils), flusterarated (flustered + frustrated),
Lots of librarians and bookshops in here. Very “Notting Hill” This made my day marginally less shitty.
I once ordered a quesadilla, but forgot 1) I can’t eat cheese and 2) that’s what’s in a quesadilla. When the waitress came back, I just looked at her and said, “But that has cheese in it!” She was as perplexed as I was as to why I was stupid enough to order it.
Most “Americans” think the delicious Vietnamese Noodle Soup Dish is pronounced as it is spelled – “Pho” – “fo” but it’s actually pronounced “fuh.” There is a very popular restaurant in San Diego that everyone calls the “Fo King.” It is actually named Pho King which cleverly in Vietnamese allows us to say “let’s go to that Fuh-King restaurant.”
Here’s one more: A local church put this on their billboard a few months ago. “”Easter comes once a year. How often do you?” Pretty sure someone should’ve proofread that one.
After the last presidential election, I had become addicted to watching way too much news. I was all worked up about what I was watching and said to my elderly mom, “I’ve totally become a news whore”. Silence. I said it again. More silence. My brain thought I was saying “news junkie” and my mouth was insisting I was a whore. I then pretended my phone lost service and hung up.
Oh my gosh, I laughed so hard I cried through all of those. That never happens!
All I can think of to share is about my (late) grandfather. We were staying with my grandparents and there was a bad bushfire a distance away – it was threatening my aunt and uncle’s property. We were really concerned when we saw the smoke. My granddad loved old timey sayings. He said, “We’d better try to call them and see what’s cooking!”
BAD CHOICE OF WORDS!
I once mispronounced the villain’s name from a Series of Unfortunate Events as Cunt Olaf…in from of 90 middle school students. I just pretended nothing happened and kept talking and no one else seemed to notice, but I was DYING inside. #librarianlife
I used to work in the credit card department of a bank. We had a lady call about a charge on her husband’s credit card for a strip club called The Candy Store. She said it couldn’t be his charge because he’s a diabetic.
One of my best friends had apparently been pronouncing “faux pas” as “fox paws”. For 33 years. In business settings. No one ever corrected him until a few years ago. I like fox paws better.
Hubby and I had a hard time finding the church where a co-worker was getting married so we just got there in time to slip in before the bride. Thank goodness we were in the very back because the minister started out “Mawwiage. Mawwiage is wat bwings us togeder today.” I don’t really know what he said after that as I had my face in my lap giggling and trying very hard not to burst out laughing.
I was an adult when I learned that the clothes my older cousins outgrew were hand-me-downs, not handydowns (because they’re so handy).
In high school I handed in a paper and the revision of it describing a couple’s intense “heat-to-heat” conversation.
Thank you, thank you for your post on May 2nd. I laughed and laughed even more as I read through the responses. I’ve sent a link to a friend in hopes that she will follow your blog, too! Sandra S. WilliamsAugusta, GA
My father-in-law always refers to a catalytic converter as a Cadillac converter. My brother always says omit instead of admit.
My husband was telling my parents about getting an Oinks card. So la-dee-dah! Too bad he meant an Onyx card, which is actually a bit gauche to be bragging about even if you are pronouncing it completely wrong.
Awesome responses! Love this group 🙂
I used to walk my dogs Baxter and Angus around the neighborhood and there was a little girl who introduced them to her mother as Anus and Bastard.
So, my daughter was in a graduate program for Classics. She was learning Greek and Latin, French and Italian. In a phone conversation, she said she learned hieroglyphics. In one of those moments where you know you’ve made a big mistake as you say it, I said, “Great! now you can speak hieroglyphics!” Big silence. Mom, she says, “You READ hieroglyphs. Egyptians SPEAK Egyptian Arabic.” (I knew that…..)
Fantastic!!
These kept me so entertained that I was ugly-cry-laughing before bed for a good hour. Well done, everyone. Well done.
I so needed this! Thank you.
I’ve been following this on Twitter, and laughing out loud the entire time!
Sometime in the mid 90s my husband’s friend dragged us to an Amway recruitment meeting. The leader of the meeting asked one woman what she’d like to do with all the money she’d be making. She said she wanted to buy one of those new “Infin-NEE-tees” so she could drive around in style. She meant “Infinity”. Now every time we see one, we call them “Infin-NEE-tees”.
I don’t laugh very often; once a week is a lot for me. I know that nine of the last ten times I laughed were in response to this blog. Thank you.
My husband absolutely cannot stop saying “pacific” when he means “specific”
I’ve corrected him countless times, his mother has corrected him. He still can’t say it correctly. It’s really bad when he’s on serious work calls and I’m in the background trying not to laugh.
I have a friend from France and his accent just gets worse when he’s drunk. One night we were talking about kids and he starts going on and on about dick hair. It took us several minutes to figure out that he was really saying daycare.
I missed this but I have a couple good ones:
My father-in-law recently complimented me on my nipples. My husband and I were mortified. Turns out he said “dimples.”
I was telling my best friend about Pat Sajak being interviewed on the morning radio show I usually listen to. She seemed to have no idea who I was talking about. This went on for a while, with me finally saying, “You know, from WHEEL OF FORTUNE?” She thought I was talking about some character they had made up called “Passe [insert accent mark] Jack.”
My daughter came over to me all grossed out.
Her: “I can’t believe you guys just leave these lying around!!!”
Her: points at tiny red plastic thing on the floor
Me: “Oh, it’s a caulk cap!”
Her: “I know, that’s gross!”
Me: blinks
Me: “You roll it over the caulk so it doesn’t dry out between uses”
Her: “Ewww!”
Me: blinks
Me: realizes she heard a different word
Me: “Like the stuff you use to seal the tub or around the windows in the winter”
Her: “Ohhhhhhhhhhh”
Me: “Exactly how small do you think a penis is…”
https://smile.amazon.com/Little-Red-Cap-Canister/dp/B076CRG6WN/ref=sr_1_15?ie=UTF8&qid=1525360001&sr=8-15&keywords=caulk+cap
My parents and I are on our way out to dinner one night with my new boyfriend in the car when my dad yawns and says, “I think I’ve got that necrophilia.” Stunned silence until he realizes he means narcolepsy and corrects himself.
and I think to myself, “what a wonderful world”
these just made my day … maybe my week
My 6 year old daughter recently said “We’re going to whore.” Eventually I understood what she was trying to say and had to explain to her why “hor” wasn’t a good nickname for “horseback riding lessons”.
These are freaking hilarious. At least most of them sound similar so it’s understandable. For some unknown reason my brain mixes up the words tampon and condom. Nothing kills the mood quicker than whispering in his ear “do you have a tampon?”
In a giant coincidence, “Fork Knife” is trending on twitter, and your tweet got picked up by the gaming site Kotaku:
https://kotaku.com/teenagers-love-the-hot-new-game-fork-knife-1825743918
…only you’ve been reduced to “one person.”
Which means Kotaku is losing their nerd cred. I thought all nerds know The Bloggess is. Next they’re going to tell me they don’t know about the time Wil Wheaton collated paper.
I loved this post! While in court with Husband #2, fighting child custody against Husband #1, Husband #2 proudly told the court that my behavior was never erotic around the kids. I stood up and said “I think he means erratic. The other goes without saying I hope”.
I was waiting for the elevator in the public library when a little girl–maybe 4 years old–said, “Are you waiting for the alligator?” I only hesitated a second before replying, “Yes.”
I saw no need to disillusion her.
So. Many. Comments. In. My. Head. But I’ll just leave you with this one from years ago when I worked the front desk at a police department:
Me (answering phone) How can I help you?
Lady: All of the traffic lights are out at (this location)
Me: Yes ma’am. A transformer blew and the power is out in that area right now. The power company is working on it.
Lady: Can’t you at least put the lights on flash?
Me…………well, since that would require power, um no.
Tip. Of. The. Iceberg.
My mom called “Trunk or Treat”… “Trick or Trunk”…I told her that neither one sounded good.
My boyfriend brings me a book he thinks I’ll like any time he’s at the library. He brought me a book called Raptor; a Journey Through Birds and I asked him, “is this fiction or a fact book?” He could barely get out “non-fiction?!” Through his laughter. In my defense, I do know the word non-fiction but had a complete blank on it, so I explained it. Now we say fact book when referring to non-fiction.
My daughter-in-law was in a fairly nasty accident – the other driver ran a red light and crashed into her in an intersection. When explaining it to us later, my youngest granddaughter, who was 8, said “Mommy got T-Rexed in the Suburban” Hubby and I laughed and decided not to correct her, since she’s probably never seen a T-Bone steak in her life…
And you’re mentioned here 😆
https://kotaku.com/teenagers-love-the-hot-new-game-fork-knife-1825743918
Guess what? “Fork knife.” It’s a thing.
https://kotaku.com/teenagers-love-the-hot-new-game-fork-knife-1825743918?utm_source=lifehacker_newsletter&utm_medium=email&utm_campaign=2018-05-03
sometimes my thoughts get faster than my speak, and every now and then I forget the names of every kind of thing, but mainly kitchen utensils, like this day I was trying to ask for the scissors to my sister and ended up saying “can you lend me the Claudia please”
There are several websites devoted to comic interpretations of what Eddie Vedder of Pearl Jam is trying to sing. Subtitles along with the videos.
My husband’s Macedonian grandmother could not pronounce her first great-grandson’s name, Jonathan. So for all of us forever, he is Janitor.
When I was younger I went to a free clinic for my well woman exams. I was in one room and overheard a doctor talking to his pregnant teenage patient in the room next door. “But honey, you’re on the pill. Are you certain you took them every day?” She responds, “Um, well, I tried, but they kept falling out.” Doctor had to excuse himself from the room and shut the door behind him.
Try going into Home Depot and asking the cute male employee where to find the caulk. I thought I pronounced it correctly, but his smirk said otherwise.
texted my husband to remember to buy some Satan Wrap at the store. That’s Saran wraps new name forever.
I worked at a pizza restaurant and a mom and her two young daughters came in for dinner one night. The younger ordered cheese, and then the older ordered pepperoni to which the younger promptly yelled I want panties on my pizza too!! The mom, clearly horrified by the outburst, quickly corrected her but not before I was streaming tears of laughter!!
I worked at a pizza restaurant and a mom and her two young daughters came in for dinner one night. The younger ordered cheese, and then the older ordered pepperoni to which the younger promptly yelled I want panties on my pizza too!! The mom, clearly horrified by the outburst, quickly corrected her but not before I was streaming tears of laughter!!
My friend was making popcorn for her kids.
When it was ready, she called out;
‘POPCORN!’
And her little lad came running in shouting;
‘YAY! COCKPORN!’
I used to work at Chick-fil-a. We have a sauce called Polynesian Sauce. Here are a few of the things people would call that sauce:
-Pedestrian Sauce
-Polydactyl Sauce
-Pomeranian Sauce
-and, my favorite, Placenta Sauce
They couldn’t get it through their head that NONE of those are things that someone should eat, and that if they just asked “for the red sauce” if they can’t pronounce it, they’ll get it, and it’s the only red sauce we have.
But seriously. POMERIANIAN SAUCE.
When my son was 3 or 4, he insisted that the drink he wanted was Kepsi, and he was not having that Pepsi stuff. It was Kepsi or nothing. I gave him the Pepsi anyway.
My mother calls Alzheimer’s Disease old timer’s disease. We tell her it’s “Alzheimer”s”, but she insists that it is old timer’s. Not sure that is not sort of correct anyway.
I once asked a friend if her male/female twins were identical or fraternal. She looked at me and suggested that I think about that. In my defense, they do look identical. Well, almost.
My roommate in college showed me a corrected paper she wrote describing the pirates of the caribbean ride at disneyland. She had typed, “A small orange crap was crawling up the beach.” The teacher marked it with the words, “Oh, Jenny. Really?”
My little one was admiring some flowers I had cut from our garden when she got home from Kindergarten. She then asked, “Are these flowers non-fiction?”
She meant, were they real.
Her kindergarten teacher, when I told her, was impressed, and assured my daughter that she was absolutely right–they were, in fact, nonfiction flowers.
Every Christmas, my husband Kent and I go through the discussion of what the three wisemen brought the baby Jesus…and starting a couple years ago, I began to record the annual response. Because there are no words.
Kent: [If people believe the world is only 2000 years old because of the Bible], “How did they explain the dinosaurs?”
Me: “I think they say they existed at the same time.”
Kent: “That makes sense… ‘So here comes the three wise men and they give Jesus sassafrass, packinstance, and a stegosaurus’!”
Me (starting to laugh): “Sassafrass?”
Kent: “I can never remember what the Wiseman gave him. Packinstance? Happenstance?”
Daughter (trying to be helpful): “you sound like you’re saying Pakistan.”
Kent: “Pakistan, Afghanistan, and Mir! …I don’t know. It’s two names like frackinstance, happenstance, and an alloy.”
Kent: “Wait, what did the wise men give? Hackincense, parsley and myrrh? No wait, hackincense, polymers and what? Wait…hackincense? Happenstance? No seriously, what’s is it? Hasenpfeffer? Happenstance, binomials… No seriously!”
I just asked Kent what the three wisemen gave Jesus, and he said, “Oh God. I don’t know. It’s…it’s a trick question! It changes every year!”
He came up with: “The first one starts with a G, right? The third one is mulch. I fail this every year! It’s Goldenrod, frinklepod, and mulch! …No. It’s goldenrod, frankincense, and Mirren!”
…Helen Mirren? Okay!
Life is never dull with a man with a genius IQ
And by the way… my WordPress account “The Positive Page” got attacked and taken over by someone. I don’t know how to get it back. So if you click the link, it’s not my page! 🙁
God these are hilarious!! I haven’t laughed like this in ages! Thanks so much, needed this today!!!
I once worked in a long stay carpark as a receptionist. You know long stay carparks, they have barriers right? you pay at the machine or the reception, you get your ticket verified and you can leave yeah? So the intercom for the barriers goes.
“hello?” I say.
“yeah uh, the barrier won’t open.”
“oh, that’s strange, Have you put the ticket into the slot?”
“yeah, it’s saying I haven’t paid.”
“well uh.. have you paid?”
“oh… no.”
At this point i’m trying not to roll my eyes. “Alright sir, please could you come back to reception and i’ll get that processed for you.”
“where’s reception?”
“There’s only one building in the entire carpark sir, it’s the blue building with reception on it in large letters.”
“so you want me to back up?”
“yes please sir, if you go forward you’ll smash through the barriers.”
The woman listening to this exchange while she waited for me to process her reciept was doubled over laughing herself stupid.
Also at this carpark, the phone rang one afternoon.
“I’m on my way! I got up late but i’m on my way!” this flustered man tells me.
“uh.. that’s great but, this is the long stay carpark?” I say, thinking maybe he’s dialled the wrong number.
“yes yes I know! i’ll be there in a few hours! My flight’s at 12!”
“uh… okay? we’ll see you then?”
He proceeded to phone me every hour for the next three hours to inform me of his progress. Why? I haven’t a clue. Did he think I could delay his flight for him? “No you can’t go! Mr Smith isn’t here yet!”
Not how it works man, plus, i’m the airport CARPARK man!
When he arrived he threw his carkeys at me “can you park? i’m running late!”
I stared at him. “i’m sixteen. I can’t drive.” (uk, we can’t drive at 16 okay?)
“oh, you sure you can’t park it?”
“I don’t think that’d be okay no. I can hold the bus for you?”
“I’m gonna be late!”
“then you better hurry and park?”
Wierdo. I wonder if he managed to catch is flight.
as for misspoken words, I remember so vividly my old neighbour declaring loudly “well you know, we’re all living orgasms!”
Organisms, she meant organisms.
Not to mention my personal favourite. A school unit we did on how to deal with jellyfish stings. One of the girls was called up to the front of the class while the exasperated teacher demanded she read aloud what she’d written.
“Before anything else, remove the jellyfish testicles”
Her excuse? One of the boys sitting next to her TOLD her that was how it was spelled!
Shortly after another boy went up to the teacher “Miss, I need some help with my statestical investigation”
cue whole class laughing.
“I meant statistical!”
Ahh, statestical investigations.
My dad’s coworker: What did you guys have for dinner?
Dad: Chicken Cordon Bleu. My wife’s specialty.
Coworker: Man, I love Chicken Condor Bleu!
Came home from kindergarten proud I’d learnt a poem. Recited it to the family, finishing “… it’s amazling how it grows.” They fell about laughing, I was offended. Still haven’t forgiven them. It’s only been 60 years.
My grandmother of blessed memory, for whom English was a fourth language, once told me that I was skating on hot water.
Two: my sister once walked into a room and asked when the clock had stopped. And a former coworker used to refer to trivial matters as “third world problems.” Oh, and that something was a “mute point.”
I once had a loud, aggressive argument with my husband that Tim Roth was not in Hulk movie (the one with Edward Norton).
I couldn’t name who I thought played the character but I was so certain that it was not Tim Roth that I made him walk with me to a bookstore so we could locate the DVD (this was a while ago, before either of us had a smartphone.)
I picked up the DVD and confidently looked at the back…. Tim Roth.
My mother told me she is concerned about my niece’s diet. She doesn’t have much money and eats a lot of “Roman Numerals”
A coworker of mine told me the story of how she and a pregnant friend went to the grocery store to get some Peter Pan peanut butter. Not finding the size jar they wanted, my coworker turned to the male stock clerk who was working in the aisle and asked for a large jar of Penis Pan Peter Butter…
When I was a kid “he purged all but 26 of the central committee members” = “he threw up on all but 26 of the central committee members”
My mother used to wear a perfume called Opium back in the ’80s. My grandmother, wanting to buy her some perfume as a gift, went to Bloomingdales and sweetly asked the girl behind the counter where she might find some heroin.
I was talking to a customer on the phone and he asked me to repeat my name. When I did he said he thought Remy was a boy’s name. I told him it’s a bisexual name. I meant it’s unisex.
One day coming home from the dentist, my three boys were all fighting in the back seat of my car, I just listened to them argue (literally about nothing) the older one kept calling my middle one a huge (ahem) tampon, and then my baby who was six at that time yelled back, no your the tampon! And my oldest who was fourteen said “you don’t even know what a tampon is so shut it!” To which my six year old replied “Ah-huh I do know what a tampon is, it’s the tiny little bugs that live in puddles that become frogs, so you shut it!”. I had to pull over to the side of the road because I was laughing so hard I couldn’t drive, it was clear that my youngest was talking about tadpoles, not tampons.
Also years later while driving back from my mothers my middle and youngest were listening to my iPhone play list, and the song by Carly Simon “Your So Vain” was playing, after the chorus came and went my now 25 year old son turned to me to say “Ugh, that gross I hate grounds in my coffee”……..Again laughing I said that’s not what it says Michael, it says “I had a dream there were clouds in my coffee”…..ahh the innocence of being a child or in this case a 25 year old who can’t pay attention to song lyrics.
A few years ago, my husband went to the music store on an errand for me. I had asked him to pick up a certain CD.
Hubby: I need to know if you guys have the new Weird Al CD in stock.
Clerk: Bad Hair Day?
Hubby: Well, I just woke up …
The name of the album was, in fact, “Bad Hair Day”.
YOU MUST COLLECT THESE IN A BOOK!!!!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL BUY IT IF YOU DO!!!!!!!!!!! I WILL BUY A COPY FOR MY FRIENDS!!!!!! I WILL MAKE HUNDREDS OF NEW FRIENDS AND BUY A COPY FOR EACH ONE OF THEM!
My then 4 year told me at the check out line of the supermarket in a very loud voice: Wow that lady has a mustache over her eyes. Very thick eyebrows indeed…
My husband told me that he didn’t but appreciate me land blasting him. He meant lambast😳
Working at a dorm front desk:
“How much is a 39c stamp?”
“Do these stairs go up or down?”
carrying a traffic stoplight “Don’t worry, we didn’t steal this.”
Working at a national park:
“It’s amazing how many civil war battles were fought on national park property.”
“How much of the cave is underground?”