I’m getting flashbacks–you’re not the doper whose wife was mortally offended when her daughter wore the wrong color (or shade or whatever) to a college football game, and then got teary when one of the kids was threading the afghans together, are you?
That would be my guess too. “They need to make this place whiter” would be a rather awkward way of phrasing things even if one were a racist. I think the woman probably heard Charger perfectly well and thought he was making a crack about her size. “Just a couple of feet wider?” would only have made things worse.
Don’t worry about it, if you missed that thread you’re probably better off 
I used to golf, playing on public courses which were often crowded, so I usually checked by phone beforehand to find out if there was a long wait for a tee time.
Once on vacation I decided to play a local course, called up the listed phone number and when a woman answered “Leaning Pines Golf Course, how may I help you”, I asked “What’s your wait”?, expecting the usual “Half hour” or “If you get here in 10 minutes you can start right away.” Instead I got an indignant “I BEG your pardon!!!” followed by the phone slamming down.
I stood there in the phone booth for several seconds with my mouth hanging open before realizing what she must have thought I meant.
I was accused of being overly sensitive and “too easily offended” a few years back. I was living/working in Dallas, and my (very new) job was a “4/10” (4 ten-hour days) Sunday through Wednesday.
My oldest niece was getting married on an October Saturday in St. Louis, and my boss let me trade days with another worker so I could have Sunday off, as I didn’t yet have any vacation time saved up.
My plan was to drive up to St. Louis on Friday, attend the wedding and reception on Saturday, get a somewhat early start on the drive home on Sunday, so as to be back in time to get a good night’s rest before work started at 6:00 AM Monday morning.
I was going to stay at a hotel, but my Mom insisted (to the point that I knew her feelings would be hurt if I refused) that I stay at her house. She has a fully furnished basement more than suitable for overnight stays. I was leary, but I accepted. When I get there Friday night, “step-dad” (a courtesy title only; he was only my retiree Mom’s “man friend”) was talking about doing a BBQ on Sunday. I said “that’s nice, but I need to get back to Dallas on Sunday so I can be back at work early Monday morning.”
The reason I was leary about staying at Mom’s was because my (very flaky) cousin was coming down from Joliet with her two teenaged kids (son, 15, daughter, 17). She was scared to drive around the St. Louis area, and insisted that I give her and her kids a ride to the wedding and reception. I acceded to her demand, but warned her that I was leaving the recption around 10:00 PM, as I wanted to be on the road early the next day to drive home to Dallas, so I needed a decent night’s rest.
Well, come 10:00 PM at the reception, and my drunken cousin doesn’t want to leave. She’s telling me things like, “It’s okay , you don’t have to leave tomorrow!” and, “C’mon, just have a few more drinks!”
I finally (with the help of her kids) drag her wild, drunken ass out of the reception ( she was practically mauling some poor, bewildered tween), get her in the car, and begin driving back to my Mom’s place. It’s 11:30 PM.
Ten minutes into the drive, drunken cousin hurls. She got the window halfway down before she hurled, so her vomit is half-inside/half-outside my leather-interior car. She then begins ranting drunkenly at me and her kids, spewing the most vile things at all of us.
When we get to Mom’s place (she had left the reception at 9:00 PM), drunken cousin (band name?) is still in full-out rant mode, and is screaming like a woman being raped, refusing to step into my Mom’s house, trying to grab my car keys so she can go back to the party. The neighbors call in a noise disturbance. The cops show up. But we’ve got her inside and somewhat calmed down now. I get to bed around 2:00 AM. I set my alarm for 8:00 AM, 2 hours later than I had originally intended.
Around 3:00 AM, I’m awakened by a mother/daughter screaming match. It seems cousin’s daughter want to use the family cell phone to call her boyfriend back in Joliet, and cousin says no; she’s apparently sobered up enough to realize that a 17 y/o girl can talk for hours on a telephone to her boyfriend, and she doesn’t have enough minutes on her plan to cover that.
Hysteria ensues, and I’m back asleep around 4:00 AM.
Alarm goes off at 8:00 AM. I’m showered and packed and heading for the door by 8:20. Mom and “step-dad” are sitting in their bathrobes sipping morning coffee, and Mom wants to know if she can cook me anything for breakfast. Knowing how touchy she can be about “a host’s responsibilities” I very politely decline and say I’ll catch some McDonald’s drive-through. Unspoken, I was going to also hit the full-service car wash close to the McDonalds and see what they could do about washing the puke out of my car. I really don’t want to drive from St. Louis to Dallas smelling puke all the way.
She scoffs and says that’s no kind of breakfast, and says she’ll cook me up some bacon and eggs. But she otherwise makes no move to get up and, you know, actually start cooking anything. “Step-dad” then says he wants me to help him with the BBQ he’s planning on having this afternoon.
At this point, I’d had enough. Between drunken cousin at reception, drunken cousin in my car, drunken cousin on the street, drunken cousin and heart-struck daughter, stupidly obtuse “step dad” (who I don’t even like, but tolerate for Mom’s sake), I had had enough.
Without saying a word, I picked up my travel bag, stepped out the door, got in my car and left.
I dropped my car off at the car wash (they did an amazing job, and charged me more money than I could really afford, but it was worth it) and walked across the street to the McDonalds. I was on-the-road for Dalas by 10:00 AM.
About a week later, I got a nastygram from Mom, telling me how disappointed she was that I hadn’t any better manners than that, when was I going to grow up, etc. I fired right back, which caused a brief rift between us, until she was diagnosed with cancer that next spring.
I know you can’t be my Dad: his English wasn’t very good, he thought it was worse than it was so refused to use it when possible, and he’s somewhat dead… unless you managed to pull one on us? :dubious:
One of the least endearing traits shared by my mother and hers (I had a boss who did it too) is that they’ll take offense at things that haven’t even happened, and the way they behave when they’re offended. For example: Mom is Daily-Mass. At one point, I was living in the same town as her and working 4th shift, which includes 12h on Saturday and Sunday (6-6, one weekend days and one nights), so I couldn’t go to Mass on Sunday; I also worked mid-day shift on Tuesdays. Since Monday I’d often be way tired, Friday was the most convenient day to do laundry and Wednesday I went to do her shopping and have lunch with her, I figured that Thursday would henceforth be my Sabbath. My parish wasn’t the same as Mom’s, but anyway I went to a convent close to my house. The priests who would usually hold Mass there thought my solution was a great idea.
For several months, she was royally pissed about it. She takes any “religious cooling” (real or imagined) in our part as a personal rejection. She would greet me with a barked “well, hello there, I see you have decided to bother visit your mother, the shopping list is on the fridge. Hrumph!” Any attempts at conversation would be met with long-suffering, martyred sighs. I knew that asking “is there any problem?” would have produced “no! Nothing is the matter! I absolutely never have any problems!” (we need a :martyred: smiley, really, something like :smack: but with a halo) and more sighs.
The way I knew what her problem was is that sometimes she’d say something like “I didn’t see you at High Mass last Sunday!” “Well, I was working days last weekend and I haven’t figured bilocation out yet.” “HRUMPH!”
I just loved it when I went to her house and she greeted me with “oh, hi honey… uh, listen…” “yeah?” “I went to Mass at the nuns last Sunday and they said you’ve been going there on Thursdays?” “yeah. (see explanation above)” “oh. I’m sorry.” “Noooo problem”
She’s doing the exact same crap to my youngest brother (32, fer Og’s sake!) for exactly the same reasons, right now. So far the martyrdom has lasted some… uh… nine months? Thing is, if we tried to explain preemptively, she wouldn’t believe us, so whatever.
I swear those two are happy being angry.
“Everyone is broken by life. But afterwards some are stronger in the broken places.” -Hemingway
And some are weaker. For some, the pain never heals, or is just a light touch from the surface.
Yes Nava, there are a few who are happy being angry. But many more are simply angry, or jealous, or in deep pain, and for whatever reason, there is no end to it they can see.
Sometimes - like the people mentioned in this thread - they find refuge from life’s pains in petty expectations and hollow gestures, and instinctively rage when these are not forthcoming.
We fear weakness in ourselves. We despise it in others. But it is part of life.
Anyone met someone who got mad at you for something you did in a dream yet?
My ex-(then) wife. Several times.
Would never tell me what it was, but would hold it against me for days. Sadly, logic, compassion and normal ideals of love were lost on her.
A couple of exes. There was a thread about stupid fights with SOs a while back and that came up a few times.
This reminds me of the time I thought a customer asked me for “some ass.”
He was southern. He was asking for ice.
In my late teens I worked as a saleclerk in a casual clothing store. Our manager had taken some time off, so the owner (who had many other stores and only popped in now and then) had some of the more experienced salesclerks take turns doing manager duty (balancing the registers at night, making the night deposit, fielding customer complaints etc.), in exchange for a slightly higher hourly wage.
One afternoon I had a manager-type question so I went to one of the senior clerks and asked, “Are you the acting manager today?” and she flipped. “I’m AM the manager so you’d better watch your mouth!” and stalked off. I was dumbfounded until someone later told me she’d complained to them that I’d disrespected her by saying she was “acting like the manager today”. When they explained to her that “acting insert-title-here” is what you call someone who is temporarily assuming the duties or authority of another, she apparently turned red and again stalked off.
Heh – that story still makes me chuckle.
Comic Sans? 
Did he look really confused when you turned around and raised your skirt? 
I had the exact same conversation many many years ago. I was bring in carts to the grocery store and the guy stopped me to ask for ahce. I knew he couldn’t mean “ass”, but I had literally no clue what he was asking for until your post.
I was working at a gas station and a guy came in and asked, with a southern accent, if we had Beeman’s gum. I say “Excuse me?” He asks again. I say, “I’m sorry, what?” He says “How about I yank you right under that counter?” I say, “Oh! Beeman’s gum! It’s right over there next to the Juicyfruit.”
My wife and I went for drinks with a friend of hers. Friend proposed a toast to life. I say, “it sure beats the alternative” and drink up. Wife thinks I said something else – neither of us can recall what-- and we argue about what a jerk I am. Not only was she offended, but the people sitting next to us get mad at me too. I don’t think the friend got offended.
The gas station was in Ann Arbor, Michigan, which has a large hospital. People used to ask me for directions. Maybe the guy was coming back from there and maybe he was in town to see a sick relative. If you’re in Michigan and your local hospital sends you to Ann Arbor, you probably don’t have a case of crabs or a cold or even a broken leg. Or maybe the guy was just tired of yankees not knowing what he was talking about.
With the episode at the nightclub, it’s understandable that my wife would mistake my (IMO) innocuous countertoast for something smartassed. Nightclubs are noisy and the toast was schmaltzy, and my wife knows that I like to make smartass comments when somebody says something trite. The people at the next table made the assumption that if a couple is arguing it’s the man’s fault. IME that’s a reasonable assumption to make.
Did he ask, “How about I yank you right under that counter” because he was mad because you didn’t understand him?
HAAAA!!! I am cracking up!!
I once had a person get mad at me for something that she thought I was thinking.
My friend, a friend of this friend (known as FoaF for this story) and I were all hanging out together for the first time. We had just seen a movie and I suggested we go to Pinkberry afterward. She said, “Oh, no, I hate Pinkberry, it’s disgusting.” Fine by me, I smiled and said okay. We went someplace else for ice cream.
A week later, just friend and I are hanging out, and she tells me that FoaF doesn’t want to hang out with me anymore because she is sure I definitely hate her. Why? Because of the horrible way I treated her when she dissed my choice of ice cream! Bwuh? I hadn’t given the matter any more thought than the five minutes it had taken to choose someplace else to snack. But in her perception, I was hostile and cold the rest of the night.
I did that to my ex once. I dreamed I caught him kissing another woman and woke up crying and yelling at him. He didn’t have a clue why I was calling him a cheating bastard. :o Of course, I apologized once I realized it was just a dream.