A colleague of mine, in her early days as a Mathematics teacher had set some work for the class to do and was moving around the room helping people on a one-on-one basis. One of the boys had been trying to attract her attention for a while and, frustrated, started hitting his desk with his ruler. She turned to him and uttered the immortal words:
“You can keep banging as hard as you like, you’re not going to make me come any faster!”
A friend of mine swears this really happened:
He was on the debate team in high school. During a competition a girl was presenting a position about how something (I don’t remember what) would affect undersea organisms. Every time she meant to say “organism” she said “orgasm”. After she kept saying “orgasm” people started to laugh and she never realized she was saying the wrong word. After she finished she was very upset that people were laughing at her presentation but she had no idea why.
A colleague was speaking to a group at a leukemia fundraiser. Her intent was to mention an upcoming bone marrow doner drive. She called it, as clear as can be, a boner drive.
mmm
My story is more mortifying than all of the above.
I used to be the executive director of an understaffed membership organization, and was constantly dealing with stupid phone calls from members/random people that I really didn’t have time for. But as the public face of the organization, I had to be polite and at least pretend to listen. Long rant short, I was stressed and preoccupied and not at my intellectual best during a lot of phone calls.
So, one day I ended up on the phone with some impressario who thought she had a great idea … we were going to hire her so she could produce an advertisement for us, or something, or we were going to help her find actors so she could do a variety show, or … I forget, but whatever her idea was, it had NOTHING to do with the work of our organization and I was only half listening, while thinking about the fact I needed to call my husband.
When she wrapped up her irrelevant spiel, I said, “okay, thanks, you can send me some information and I’ll let you know…bye, sweetheart, I love you.” I had sort of mentally fast-forwarded through her call, to the call I needed to make to my husband.
I immediately realized what I had done and apologized in horror, but the damage was done. The woman was quite icy as she said goodbye. (Thank god I didn’t really give a shit. Hopefully she learned a lesson about haranguing strangers with irrelevant ideas from my OBVIOUS lack of attention.)
The only way I can live with myself is due to a similar story that a much-beloved boss told me. He was talking with a female subordinate, somehow got his mental wires crossed, thought of his wife, and said “that’s great, honeypie!” Oh…ow.
I was trying to get a friend to sign a petition, and she was hesitant. I blurted out “Look, it’s not like we’re asking for your first born son.” THEN I remember her first born son was a victim of murder/suicide by his father.
I suspect this may be outside the main topic, but it always amuses me when some woman refers to her son as a “son of a bitch.”
I went to visit someone once, got there, declared that I was “absolutely dying for a wee”
Yes, you’ve guessed it, I was visiting a terminally ill person.
cringe
The sickener is I never say “dying for a wee”, I always say “I’m bursting for a wee”
I love being around folks like you.
mmm
I once saved my managing editor from a horrific spoonerism. She was giving a speech to advertisers and board members about the redesign of our magazine, and asked me to proofread it. One of the lines read,
“**We at [magazine] hope to appeal to a bigger niche **. . .”
“Oh, no you are not!” I told her, and rewrote the line. “Well, of course now that you pointed it out, I would have made that slip,” she said.
Classroom full of students in Berlin for their English class.
I normally only spoke English, but class hadn’t started yet so I spoke my best German and apologized for my shoes that were soaking wet.
I wanted to say I stepped in a puddle.
Those umlauts are a bit difficult to pronounce.*
So, instead of saying, “I stepped in a puddle.” I had said, “I stepped in a cunt.”
Dead silence.
Then huge laughter.
*The German word for puddle is “Pfütze”, but the German slang word for cunt is “Fotze”. To American ears, they sound almost the same, but obviously not to German ears.
A friend was recently telling me he does the Denise Austin workout, but instead told me he does the Jane Austen workout, which had me giggling helplessly for a good half hour.
Basic freudian: Chatting with some co-writers about a swashbuckling script we were writing, and quotes from various films start coming out. One of said writers was a woman I was attracted to, and instead of quoting Princess Bride and saying, “And you’ve studied nothing but swordplay ever since?”… Foreplay. Yep. Not swordplay.
I quickly moved onto another topic.
Years ago I was negotiating with another lawyer over the terms of a deal our companies were about to transact. It took a few months, and over that time things had become a bit testy between us. One day he had presented me with a wrinkle in the deal and I was trying to come up with a solution that wouldn’t cost my company any more money than we were already paying. We were on the phone, and after he had explained the new circumstances I was making suggestions of how to deal with it. He shot down one suggestion after the other. At one point, I came up with what I felt was the perfect solution, and intended to lead into it by saying “OK, I think I have an idea, but give me a minute because I’m just spitballing here…”
Of course, instead of “spitballing” I said “snowballing”, which, if you watch any porn, you’ll understand why I was so embarrassed.
I think it would have been more fun if you had bald-faced it - “Yeah, I love you. Bye.”
I was using a development SDK the other day and when a coworker asked me about it the conversation went like this:
“It’s decent - it’s made by Black Ice”
“It’s made by who?”
“Black Ice.”
“Are you saying it’s made by black guys?!”
“Wha-NO! NO! Black. Ice.”
“Oh. Phew!”
I was about 11, my sister was home from her first year of college. Sister was telling our mom about a friend who was going to Australia for a summer job, and my mom wondered about how difficult it was for an Amerian to get a job there. I jumped in and said “it’s easy, you walk up to the first person you see and say, ‘gimme a job, fucker.’”
I had meant to say “sucker” or “fool,” but somehow combined them both and said “fucker” right in my mom’s face. I freaked out and instantly started crying. My mom did too, because I had confirmed her worst fear, i.e. that I had somehow become a free-swearing sailor. Meanwhile, my sister was laughing her ass off at the whole thing.
Oh! You just reminded me! You remember Ukulele Ike, a Doper from years ago? I was meeting him after work at a bar; I saw him across the room and shouted, “Hey! Uke Ike!”
Working at a radio/television station in the 90’s, the radio guy was giving out local HS wrestling results. Instead of saying ‘wrestling sectionals’, however, he said ‘wrestling sexuals’.
Is it wrong that I imagine this like the Electric Company opening?
In high school once, the principle sent out a message over the intercom warning us to “watch out for the black ice in the parking lot and around the school.”
Of course, we all heard black guys.