Inspired bythis.
I don’t mean you thought they were trying to pull one over you or you were full of disbelief but that you seriously thought they were being witty and had to catch yourself before you (or just after- even worse) started laughing.
I can’t think of any off the top of my head, but I know I have done it a few times with seriously embarrassing results. Perhaps it’s better I have forgotten (repressed) them?
Please share.
Yes – my ex-boss. To be fair, though, he brought it on himself.
If you think of Nigel Bruce in the role of Doctor Watson (but without the moustache), then you’ve a clear idea of his general personality as anyone needs – and one of his favourite schticks was bursts of mock outrage at minor irritations. All in good fun, and we all chuckled along at his entirely over-the-top blustering fury when his tea had gone cold, or he couldn’t work his computer.
Until one day, in a meeting, he bloody meant it. Something had gone wrong, he felt it reflected badly on the company, and he’d determined to give us all a good telling off. And we all sat around, smiling and chuckling at him – “Oh, he’s off again” we all thought.
Oops.
The one that comes to mind is when my ex-boss was telling us what the plan was in the case of a major earthquake. I was a fairly new employee, so was still in the shut up and listen, maybe you’ll learn something stage.
A background comment: I experienced the 1964 Alaska earthquake of 8.4, so know a bit about what goes on during that sort of event.
Anyway, she was nattering on and says: “Okay, so if there’s a big earthquake, everyone should run outside and stand behind the parked cars on the other side of the parking lot.”
This elicited a bark of laughter from me, and the room went deadly quiet (she was a bit of a tyrant). I looked up, and she was giving me the death glare. “Why do you think that’s funny?”
Me: “Oh, you’re serious about that?” People’s eyes were darting at the exits.
She: “Well, what would YOU do then?”
Me: “Well, what I WOULDN’T do, is stand behind a row of cars near a busy road, and under a primary transmission line. The cars will be lurching violently back and forth, cars on the road will be leaving same, and it’s likely the power lines could snap.” Dead silence in the room. “I would suggest that you crawl under your desk and hang on until the shaking stops.” (which eventually became the official policy)
About 25 years ago, I was in the grocery store back home. One of the well-liked cashiers, over on one side of the store, burst out in what I thought was laughter. Laughter’s kind of contagious, so I was kind of chuckling and said something to the person next to me in line about how that must have been a really funny joke or something. This person glared at me and said “She’s crying! Something bad must have happened!”. I felt about 2 inches tall.
Not me, but a co-worker–their office was Prank Central, so when their 40 YO boss died unexpectedly, my co-worker wouldn’t believe he wasn’t being pranked until he saw it in the Obits.
A woman I had just met was talking about her time in the Army to a group of us football moms but going on and on and on about how she couldn’t tell us exactly what she did. I piped up and laughingly said “well, you could tell us but you’d have to kill us!” She whirled around and glared at me and said “why are you making fun of me? I told you it was top secret!” Oooops.
We hiked up to Natural Bridge in Kentucky with a friend who turned out to be afraid of heights. When he first commented, we thought he was being silly. But he kept commenting past the point of humorousness, and we started to get a clue. And when we walked part way across one of the arches in nearby Red River Gorge and he balked, we took him seriously–Dad walked him back the way we’d come, and Mom and I walked with his wife the short (but apparently scary) route across the arch. The total difference in time was not huge, or we might all have gone back the way we’d come.
It wasn’t super serious, but it managed to piss my mom off. I was living in Chicago and my parents - both of whom have lived in California their entire lives - were coming to visit me, for Memorial Day weekend in…2004 or something like that. My mom in particular is very geocentric (when I was packing for my original move to the Midwest, which was to Michigan, she told me not to bring so much stuff, as I would “just have to schlep it back when you come back to California”; that was six years ago and I haven’t returned for more than a visit) and seems to have the idea that the Midwest is a dull and flat land, populated entirely by Republicans and cows.
Anyway, just before the trip, she asked me, “Do you think it will snow in Chicago this weekend?” We’re talking the last weekend of May here. I started cracking up, sure she was joking. My mom was not amused at all, apparently my laughter was deathly offensive to her.
After the conversation, I looked up the average temperatures for Chicago and San Francisco for Memorial Day weekend. Of course, San Francisco was the colder of the two. I sent her the link and warned that if she really wanted to avoid snow, she should get away from frigid California and visit the toasty Midwest.
Naturally it did not snow during their visit. We did have some exciting thunderstorms, though.
Not sure if this is exactly what you mean, but as a teenager I worked in a restaurant where the dishwasher didn’t speak any English except for a few cuss words (“you fuck you” for instance). I, on the other hand, spoke no Spanish except for a few insults. We’d usually start the evening shift with a friendly exchange of curses in the others native tongue. All good fun, until I found one that he took rather seriously… I guess that’s what happened, we’d worked together for months without the least sign of friction.
Anyway, “Out back” he said to me, and I laughingly went along. Nearly got the living hell beat out of me but one of the waitresses who knew him (and Spanish) quickly explained he wasn’t kidding and was really upset. He had a friendly face and never once looked truly mad. For a while I thought the waitress was kidding too.
Later I learned what the design on his jacket meant, but growing up in the suburbs gave me no experience deciphering Mexican gang colors.