Randomly hilarious moments

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
61

I had to sit in a meeting with a couple of complete idiots. How complete? The purpose of the meeting was for them to convey information about a camera catalog that should have taken about 90 minutes tops. It took them eleven fucking hours.

Idiot #1 starts talking about a function that adjusts a particular setting by three steps, effectively doubling its effect three times. Everyone on our side understood this weeks before this meeting, but he feels he needs to explain it to himself and idiot #2 (this happened with everything, which is why the meeting lasted eleven hours). Anyway, in trying to explain this, he starts saying:

Idiot: “so if you start with the setting at 2, it raises it to… uh, 4, and then to… uh… to…, umm… 8, and then… uhhh…, to uhhh…, ummm…”
Me (thinking): “My god, he’s about to take off his shoes.”

None of us laughed out loud at him, but none of us bailed him out, either. He never did make it to 16.

62

That reminds me of an arguement I had with my Dad back when I was 12 or 13. I don’t remember what we were arguing about but we were in my room and I was taking the sheets off my bed. My Dad said something that I really didn’t like. In a fit of anger I grabbed the pillow by the case and threw it…but only the pillow case went anywhere. The pillow case flew about a foot then gently drifted to the ground leaving the now naked pillow sitting on my bed. My Dad and I both stopped talking, looked at each other and burst out laughing.

That ended that arguement.

Slee

63

I’ll use this one, as the speaker did not intend it to be hilarious.

Vain Makeup-and-short-skirt-girl Student: Spanish is hard! It’s like this whole other language!

I had to duck down behind my desk because I was laughing so hard.

64

I was at an event with my dance company. We were in between shows, I believe, and went out to eat.

It was a casual restaurant with utensils wrapped in napkins and taped with little tapey things. I was talking and gesturing with my utensils, still wrapped in the napkin and the girl across from me said, “careful with that thing. you’ll put an eye out.” I said, “I’ll put YOUR eye out!” and pointed it at her. As I pointed it, the fork escaped from the napkin and went sailing over the girl’s head and landed safely on the floor. The director, luckily, was sitting right by us and was aware of the humor of the situation and not angry at me for throwing forks. Also luckily, there are twenty five of us (probably thirtysomething with the parents) so we had our own section of the restaurant and nobody but the group saw.

At another dinner (this one was during a rehearsal. It was pizza in the basement of the studio.) I was picking at my food, certainly not intending to eat it, and chatting with the other girls and hoping they wouldn’t notice. They did, though.
“Hey- eat your food.”
“I can’t. We have to go back up and dance.”
“Are you going to just waste it?”
“Well, do you want it?”
“No. I already ate mine.”
“Then don’t complain.”
“Why didn’t you just not get any?”
“[director] told me I had to.”
“well eat it. There are starving children in… in… bulimia!”

Since then, every time we get food, someone says, “save the children in bulimia!”

And then my dumb dog… once, she was sitting on the ground minding her own business (and ignoring us lazy girls calling, “MOVE! stupid dog!” because she was blocking the TV) and she farted. My dog has some of the most horrible-smelling farts known to man. I think it’s a weimaraner thing. Anyway, she farted and then stood up, all excited, and as everyone was howling, “don’t come over here! stay away from me!” the dog gleefully sniffed the floor when she farted and then recoiled as though someone had smacked her. Deinitely a “had to be there” thing, but it was hilarious.

And almost as hilarious was the next day when the dog was sitting in the same place and my dad made a farting noise. The dog jumped up like she was about to get a treat and sniffed the ground where her butt had been. She looked at my dad like, “where did you put it?” and then kept sniffing the ground, looking for her fart.

My dog is so weird.

65

A couple from high school that I just remembered. This one time at band practice (sorry, I couldn’t resist) the band director stopped us when we were rehearsing a piece, looked over at the drum section and shouted, “Drums, you’re a beat off!” Yeah, that’s exactly what you should shout in a room full of teenagers. Everyone roared with laughter for several minutes, and the band directior (who looked like Barry Mannilow) stood there with his head hanging down, shaking.

Another time, we had a student teacher in band class, and she gave one of the drummers instruction on how she wanted him to hit whatever percussion instrument he was playing. At the time, the drummer (Jeff) and I both worked for a construction company after school, and he had this very annoying habit of drumming loudly on everything he could find while he made these high pitched squeals. Without thinking, I turned to him and said (somewhat loudly), “You should be able to handle that, Jeff, you’re always beating on something.” Yup, another thing you shouldn’t say in a room full of teenagers. I was still laughing about it after class as I apologized to the poor gal about it.

66

Have mentioned this on the boards before:

I was in Germany in a large department store and they had a narrow escalator going up to the next floor. Well, an elderly man, with only one leg and using crutches, got on the escalator, but apparently he was afraid to get off and maybe fall when he reached the top.

So, just as he was about to reach the top, he turned and started to use his crutches and frantically go back down the up escalator. In the meantime, several other people were now on their way up behind him.

You have to picture an entire escalator of people, all frantically trying to go down the up escalator so they wouldn’t knock the old guy over.

I always thought it would make a great scene for a movie.

67

Ahhh… one came back to me the other day, as I was recounting the incident to my husband. It may or may not translate well, I’m not certain, since I just adored the girl who said these things, and she was dead serious. It may all be a very “had-to-be-there” moment, but I’m going to give it a try:

We were all sitting around at work in the deserted cafeteria, it being the graveyard shift and our work crew numbered only about a dozen people. One girl, let’s call her Courtney, was a very sweet girl with, what some might call, an “attitude problem”. She just had a habit of blurting out whatever was on her mind without thinking much about it.

So we were talking about cooking one day, and for whatever reason, Courtney spoke up and said she was a great cook. Our supervisor, who liked to poke bears with sticks, began to question Courtney on the veracity of this information. Courtney claimed that she was a good cook because her second job was at a local restaurant (in which she deep fried everything!).

Supervisor: So, do you know what a rutabega is?
Courtney, thinking hard for a moment: Isn’t that something you drive?

OF course, we all burst out laughing, and one of our operators came out immediately with the classic, “So, shall I call a cab, or should we take the rutabega?”

After the laughter had finally settled, and poor Courtney regained a little composure, our supervisor starts in again:

“Hey, Courtney, do you know what a kumquat is?”

Not missing a beat, Courtney exclaims in horror: “You* PIG*!”

Courtney, dear Courtney, if ever you read this, don’t be offended - I thought it was hilarious, but I don’t for a second believe that you are stupid in any way. We all make mistakes!

68

You win the thread.

Hands down.
:cool:

69

This one really gets me. Who would ever think that someone with an eyepatch would be standing there? I love this story.

Mine is -

about a month or two ago, I was in my room sewing, while the SO was doing something on my computer. I heard a clatter and turned around to see him knocking over a can of espresso, seemingly empty. I said, “Be careful, there might be something still in it!” And he said, “No, there isn’t, see”, and proceeded to upend the can right over his face -

where a great big drop of espresso promptly fell out and landed right on his glasses.

I fell over, I was laughing so hard.

70

Talking about fishing with some co-workers one day, one of the girls blurts out - “The only thing I’ve ever caught is crabs”

71

Playing City of Heroes (an MMORPH), me and a few people were doing a mission in a building to defeat an ice-related boss (Frostfire, if anyone’s interested). This building has large patches of ice on the floor, which mean when you step onto them you continue sliding in that direction. However, the enemies also slide.

So, we open the door to the room with the boss in; it has a lot of these ice patches. We stay in the corridor outside fighting the enemies that were near the door, so we don’t walk onto the ice and get sent flying towards the boss.

Every now and again while we’re fighting, an enemy goes flying sideways past the door, shooting at us out in the corridor. For some reason it was just funny to be in the midst of fighting all these goons, when suddenly one of them flies past in front of us, firing away, and then disapearing the other side again. Fun. :smiley:

72

Okay, since the work and fast-food stories are coming out…

First day at local chicken franchise whose name is a color. My manager tells me to take the next order that walks in, and she’ll watch to make sure I don’t have any problems.

The guy comes in, and looks at me. Then at the menu. Then at me. Lather, rinse, repeat. Just gives me this dead stare, even after I ask him what he’d like. Menu. Me. Menu. Me.

Finally, I sigh, “Look old man, I’m not in the mood for your shit.”

My manager: :eek:

My dad’s best friend, who happens to be the ‘old man’ : :smiley:

(He explains to my manager that he was, indeed, messing with me. I get a minor dressing down, but keep the job, which would lead to many other interresting adventures…)

73

Wow, your Courtney sounds a lot like one of my ex-girlfriend’s friends, also named Courtney.

She was twenty and (charitably) dumber than a bag of rocks. Unbelievably stupid stuff used to come out of her mouth on a regular basis. It was great fun.

One example that encapsulates what communicating with Courtney was like:

One time we were out hitting the shops on Robson St., and finishing up w/ some purchases. Courtney got antsy and said she’d wait for us outside. We got out a few minutes later, and she was nowhere in sight. Hung about for a bit, and then just wandered home alone, where eventually we reconnected with the young miss. When we asked her what had happened, she said:

“I waited for two walking men.”

“Huh?”

“I waited for two walking men.” :eek:

“For what?”

“To go home.”

I can’t remember exactly how it went, but there was quite a back-and-forth as we tried to puzzle out why she’d ditch us for a couple of random guys and what the hell that was about anyway, and what was she thinking, blah blah blah.

And then the light dawned: "A “walking man,” in the idiom of Courtney-ese, was a unit of time.

Of course.

She was totally unable to express it any other way, though – even when it was clear that we didn’t understand what she meant. She just kept repeating “I waited for two walking men,” and getting frustrated because we thought she was talking about actual ambulatory anthropoids. Her way of clarifying herself was to repeat herself more emphatically until the other person understood. :smack:

74

1994 or so.

I’ve just gotten off the bus in Vancouver after a 15-hour bus ride from Banff. I’m there to meet my friend who’d just moved to Vancouver.

We meet, leave the bus station, cross the park (in a gentle clear rain, which confirms to me that this is indeed the Wet, I mean West Coast), and go up the stairs into the Skytrain station. My friend is explaining the mysteries of the ticket machine to me, when I hear someone behind me asking me a question.

I turn to see a perky woman holding a microphone in my direction. It’s a local TV show asking people what their opinions of the Vancouver transit system are. Now, I’m a transit buff, and I love to give such feedback. I’ve never been asked before. But…

It’s my first time in Vancouver by myself.
It’s my first time in the Vancouver transit system.
I’ve been there for about two minutes, and haven’t seen a train yet.
I don’t even know where I am or where I’m going.

With a red face, I explain all this to the reporter. But after the train arrives, we get on and laugh about it.

75

And a couple of other ones I thought of on my way to the eye clinic this morning:

Another from work:

Being on the graveyard shift, we didn’t have access to most of the conveniences the other two shifts took for granted, such as refrigeration for our food, or for that matter, freshly prepared food from the cafeteria. We had to use microwaves if we wanted our stuff heated and we often froze our bottles of water ahead of time, so we’d have cold drinks all night during our breaks. Not a complaint, we got by fine, but just a little background as to why we had frozen water.

One of our operators took out her water bottle during our final break of the night, took a long, hard look at the ice inside, and began laughing. For all to see, she held it aloft, showing us the impressive penis-shaped formation the ice had melted into during the night. Suitably impressed, we all passed the bottle around, admiring the striking resemblence the ice had to a very (very!) large penis. I handed it off to the lady beside me, let’s call her Terri, who isn’t known for her mental stabilty. This is a lady we used to let leave the parking lot first at the end of the night so as to avoid being mowed down on our way home. She was quite… well, let’s be frank, she was a flake. A well-meaning, kind flake, but a flake nonetheless. She held the bottle up in front of her and ogled the icy, dubious objet d’art inside.

“Will you look at that!” she said in wonderment and awe. “Now, Shirley, how did you ever get that in there?”

Hilarity, not penis, ensued.

One time I was the passenger in a car with Lady Jesus (that girl I’ve mentioned before, she thinks she’s Jesus) as we were going through a busy Tim Horton’s drivethru. There was a very large, large pickup truck in front of us, and after he’d given his order, pulled up a little way, but it still did not give us room enough to reach the speakerbox to give our order. We heard the box crackle a few times, and a polite, female voice saying, “May I take your order, please?”, but alas, we were too far away. So we just sat tight until the line slowly moved forward, and the pickup truck was far enough ahead of us that we were now situated beside the speakerbox. Lady Jesus waits patiently for the voice to return. It does.

“May I take your order, please?”

Lady Jesus pauses… then turns to look at me, confused. I look back at her, wondering why she’s looking at me. Maybe she forgot my order? The voice came again:

“May I take your order, please?”

Finally, Lady Jesus turns back to the box with a start, then places our order. When she was through, she rolled up her window and looked at me again.

“What happened?” I asked.

“I didn’t know if she was talking to me,” she replied.

:smack:

76

Wow, Anastasaeon, those are some . . . exceptional cow-orkers you had.

77

Seriously. Do you work in a state-run basket factory? :wink:

78

This one is a bit visual, so it likely won’t translate the way I’d like, but here goes. I used to work in a local grocery store in my hometown. Our main back room was actually upstairs above the store so in the back we had a conveyer belt that would carry boxes on an incline up the stairs. In many cases, we would stock as many of an item as we could on the shelf and then return the rest to the upstairs backstock. This would be accomplished by loading the partial boxes onto the conveyer belt.

One time, a coworker (Chris) and I were loading the partial boxes onto the belt. We noticed that about halfway up, one of the half-full boxes of mayonaise jars was starting to tilt backward. Usually, we’d try and anchor the boxes against the ones in front of them to prevent this. It tilted a little more … a lilttle more … and then it was obvious that it was flipping. Well, it did and instantly we had six jars of mayonaise hurtling down the side of the conveyer belt (off the belt, mind you, so there was little friction to slow them). I rushed up to try and catch them, but no dice, they were coming too fast.

Chris was a quick thinker, so he jumped in front of the belt and laid his arm against the side to stop the jars from going straight onto the floor at approximately 120 mph. Well … it didn’t work quite as well as planned. Instead, each of the six jars flew down the side, hit his arm (with each one, he screamed “OW!”), flipped into the air, and shattered on the floor behind him. It was all over in just a second or two, but the image remains burned in my mind 12 years later. I must have laughed for a couple of hours over that one.

79

My family has local-policeman genes or something. My youngest brother thought we exagerated (sp?); then one day his class went down to Madrid for a day trip to El Prado.

He comes back glaring like he’s stepped on something nasty and it’s the world’s fault. We ask him “how did it go?” and he says “ok, y’all were right, we got cop genes.”

They’d arrived to the train station in Madrid; one of the teachers went to get directions - in the time it took the teacher to ask a cop, not only had my brother been able to figure out the directions himself from a wall map, he’d given directions to two people!

80

Sardine factory. 'Nuff said.
I used to work there. It’s been two and a half years since I’ve worked anywhere, but I have to admit, sometimes… when everyone around me is making perfect sense… I kind of miss that crew.