Brother & I went to dinner in Indy during Grand Prix weekend, either '02 or '04. After the waitress told us the Soup Of The Day, I asked what is Seaman Chowder. When I saw my brother’s not very successful struggle to stifle his laughter, I realized he of course heard Semen Chowder. The now flustered server was repeating Seemin Chowder! Seemin Chowder!.
Took a long time to figure out it was her accented version of Salmon Chowder…
Ah, the milk of human kindness. So many inappropriate comments just waiting to be made.
This slip of the tongue wasn’t mine; it’s my father-in-law’s. He’s (paradoxically) a career sailor and the sweetest, most decent, Christian human being I’ve ever met. A little of a joker, but only in the most innocent ways.
So he’s coming off a day on duty on his lovely ship and he stops into a diner for a drink. A drink of milk. (Yes, he’s a sailor. But he’s actually a milk-drinking sailor.)
He orders his milk, receives the order from the waitress at the counter, takes a big drink and compliments her:
“This is really good milk. Did you make it yourself?”
Not mine, but someone else’s…I was on the receiving end.
I had a horrible 3 months because a company I do lots of business with sold me some products with a design flaw that prevented them from…you know…working…which caused my customer and myself many headaches…cut to the chase, it’s 3 months later, the problems have been resolved except I am out lots of tuime and money from dealing with the problem.
So the fellow from this company calls me and says "We need to set up a meeting to discuss your retribution…( he meant restitution ).
I managed to say, without missing a beat…“I don’t want to slaughter your firstborn or plow your fields with salt, I just want to be paid for my time and trouble”.
This was one my mother kept up for ages- I have occasional severe eczema flare ups, and she’d read something about demodex mites, which can cause eczema, but are almost certainly nothing to do with the problem I have.
For weeks, she kept asking me if I’d looked up anything yet about those ‘Durex mites’…
I was walking with my sister one cool, fall day, and remarked to her, “It’s a little nippy today.” Passing us at the time, unseen by me, was a Japanese couple, who just stared at me.
Since someone else mentioned a newscaster: Cleveland weatherman Dick Goddard is famous for (among other things) his spoonerisms. In his early days, he was working as a reporter, and was covering an event at a prominent downtown hotel. What he meant to say was “We’re here at the Tower City Plaza Hotel”. What he actually said was “Sour Titty”.
We were at a lovely, tasteful Sunday afternoon christening party for the baby of some friends of ours. She’s a doctor, he works for the church. We are chatting with the maternal grandmother, a lovely, polite, well-bred lady of 60 or so. We mentioned how funny it is that the dad, name of Richard, has four daughters. Grandma laughs sweetly and says, “Oh, yes, we thought they’d have a son but he’s a tricky Dick.”
Then realized what she just said. We nearly choked trying to pretend we didn’t notice, she was so mortified.
Didn’t happen to me, but I was an eye- (ear?) -witness.
In my college genetics class, we were discussing generalities at the beginning of the course. In response to a question as to why genetics was important, the sweetest, most demure girl in the group responded “If you want to marry a guy, it’s important to find out what he’s got in his genes.”
If I heard the word “snowballing” in casual conversation, I wouldn’t immediately jump to the porn inteference. I’d take it as the referent - a snowball rolling down a hill and building up a larger and larger ball as it rolls. That’s a pretty conventional idiom without the porn connotation.
Not mine (thank goodness) but this reminded me of a video I saw of a youth pastor who was just starting into a lesson about Abraham and Lot. As set up, he was talking about how Lot pitched his tents close to Sodom and Gomorrah. Unfortunately for the poor guy, in front of a room full of teenagers, “pitched his tents” somehow came out as “pinched his tits”. Mortification ensued.
The wife and I were visiting a lesbian couple for dinner. They had a large Rosemary plant in the yard which was almost overpowering in smell. One the women was making a beef loin with rosemary poked into all over. Well my wife did not care too much for the beef wanting to articulate how strong the rosemary was she said “Its like I’m in the front yard eating Katherine’s bush”
Yeah it’s still a favorite joke today.
I’m caregiver to my mother, who has a form of Dementia. The last few days she’s been driving me daft going on about it being Paddy’s Day soon, she demanded that I take her into town so that she might purchase a dress in which she can go dancing on Paddy’s night (WTF?!?!) I take her down town, thankfully she couldn’t find anything, but I was completely addlepatted from her.
I left her in the car while I went into a supermarket, to get something for dinner, I see a woman I know and stop for a chat, she tells me she’s on her way to a neighbour’s Removal (preamble to a Funeral where the deceased is taken from their home to the Church), we chat on for a minute then go our separate ways, she bids me “take care” to whit I reply “enjoy the funeral”
So a few years ago I was chatting with two of my cow-orkers who happened to be married to each other. I went to the University of North carolina, and he was a big fan of Duke University, our biggest rivalry. I mentioned that she must be a big fan of Duke as well, and she said no, she was a UNC fan.
I asked how they liked being in a mixed marriage. About three seconds later my brain went, “Ummm, he’s black, she’s white.” Oops. Fortunately, after laughing about that, they forgave me and we moved along.
Several years ago a subordinate of mine came into work on Ash Wednesday after attending an early morning Mass, with the traditional smudge on her forehead. I was generally curious about the tradition and asked her how long she would leave the smudge there before washing it off. Unfortunately it came out, “When are you going to wipe your ash?”
I was also on the phone with a coworker idly chatting about work while we were both absent mindedly working on other things. As we wrapped up she said “okay. Love you.” and hung up. Five seconds later my phone rings - before I even say hello she shouts “I DON’T LOVE YOU!!”
When I was 14, one morning before school my mom asked me what I’d had for lunch the day before. I’d just waken up, and was also distracted by something else. The thought that flashed through the small working part of my brain was that I’d spent my lunch money on cigarettes, so I needed to lie. So I distractedly said “I had the… fuckin’… cheeseburger.”
Mom said “Excuse me?! You had the WHAT?”
Me, suddenly snapping to: “What? What? What’d I say?”