My husband and I were in Safeway one evening, and I wanted to buy a bunch of bananas. The bunches were too big, so I was going to split one and buy half of it. I was pulling really hard on the bunch, and it suddenly let go and the other half of the bunch went flying across the checkouts. My husband found this terribly entertaining (also because it was one of the very few times my husband has seen me blush).
I’m almost positive this will lose the impact of being there, but I’ll tell it anyway.
So at one time I am employed by Applebee’s as a dishwasher. And I have a nickname from the guys working the production line who are apparently big fans of the movie “Life”, so I am called “Can’t get right”. I am not offended by this nickname because in the movie, he’s the one who ends up boinking the hot white girl. But in general, we rip on each other, as guys do.
The restaurant has any number of differently sized plates and dishes and bowls and ramekins, and the cooks can’t serve food without these things being washed. So they call over to me and tell me precisely which items they are low on. And they have names for the items. Ovals for the large oval-shaped platters, large and small rounds for the circle-shaped plates, and the skillets are just called skillets. Why not.
When we get busy, the bus tub they have over on the line gets really full. And the head guy on the line, nicknamed “Skee lo” would call out that the bus tub was “gettin’ unruly” when it would overflow. So all I ever hear all night long is “Ovals to the line, cant get right”, and “Large rounds to the line, can’t get right” and “Bus tub gettin’ unruly, can’t get right.”
Well, one day Skee Lo calls out “Small rounds to the line, can’t get right!”
I shout back just as loudly “Check your pants!”
The whole line busts out laughing. All he could do is shake his head and say “Damn it, he got me.”
Later, he tells me the “bus tub’s gettin’ unruly!”
I fire back: “So’s your mom’s pussy hair.”
Second time that evening that everyone on the line had to stop working because they were busting their gut laughing.
I am also dead certain both exchanges were loud enough that the customers heard it. How we all kept our jobs, I never will know.
Long story, but I think it fits.
Years ago, I worked in a brewer’s warehouse. It handled all brands, and worked like a clearinghouse for all the breweries, both for outgoing fulls, and returned empties. I worked in what we called “the empty shed,” which was not a shed, just a name for a part of the warehouse. But it was where empty bottles that were returned got sorted, put in cases with their brothers, and put on pallets with other such cases; so they could be returned to their respective breweries for washing and refilling.
It was not a glamorous job. I needed it though, and so did Jack, a co-worker. Jack was a fire hydrant of a man, short, but stocky. He walked like he had tennis balls under his armpits. He was also as strong as an ox. And a nice, nice guy once you got to know him. If you could pull your weight, Jack was your buddy. I’m pleased to say that Jack was my buddy.
Well, one day, Jack figured that we could be more efficient if we threw cases of empties to each other. For example, if I had a pallet of Molson Export at my end, and Jack (at the other end of the sorting line) got a case of Molson Export empties, he could just throw them to me instead of carrying them down to me. We practiced, at short distances; and soon were tossing cases back and forth easily. Finally, we could toss cases about 50 or 60 feet with no mishaps
Note that unlike the cases of beer you’d buy at the store, these cases had their lid-flaps tucked inside. They were open-topped. This meant that you could not “put a spiral” on them. They had to remain level during their flight. But Jack and I practiced enough, and it was not uncommon for me to hear, “Hey Spoons, heads up” from the other end of the line, turn, and find a case incoming. I caught it like a football, hollered, “Thanks, Jack!” and put the case where it belonged. Of course, it worked both ways, and I sent enough cases of my own flying, yelling, “Jackie, comin’ at ya,” or similar. And Jack always caught them.
So one day, the PTB figured we needed help, so they got us a new crew. These were young guys, thinking highly of themselves, and they were of the opinion that if we needed their help, then we were somehow old and decrepit (Jack and I were both about 30). These guys were in their early 20s. They joined the line, and while working, watched Jack and me toss cases back and forth casually. They figured they could do the same.
Now remember, Jack and I may have started small, but we worked our way up to 50 or 60 feet. And the cases were open-topped, so they had to stay level. But the minute the new boys saw us doing our thing, they had to do the same. To prove themselves, I guess.
Problem was, they couldn’t avoid putting a spiral on the cases. Jack and I learned how not to; these guys did it naturally, like a quarterback or pitcher. The end result was a case of 24 lazily inverting at the top of the arc, spilling all 24 empties out, to smash on the concrete floor.
Jack and I just laughed. We kept our jobs; new boys who attempted to emulate us didn’t last long.
Some friends and I had been out at a bar, and we were heading back to our hotel. It was around midnight, and when we got to the train station it was deserted. One of the guys really needed to pee, and rushed for the bathroom as soon as we got to the station, but because it was so late, it was already locked. So we were waiting on the platform for the train to come, and he was squirming and moaning about how horrible it was that the bathroom was locked. One of the girls said “If you’re that desperate, just pee on the tracks!” He said “…Is that legal?”, in a tone of voice that suggested he might just be considering it. Before she could answer, a voice over the loudspeaker said “You can use the bathroom, I’ll unlock it.” We got the shock of our lives and doubled over laughing.
(It turned out that the voice on the speaker hadn’t overheard our conversation about peeing on the tracks after all, he’d just seen my mate’s frantic efforts to open the bathroom door on the security camera. Still, it was great comic timing.)
I will always cherish the memory of the oral exam of my bac de français (final french lit. high school exam for us Frenchies).
Back then the full exam was a two-parter : first you took a written test with a choice between text analysis or text summary and an essay ; then you had the dreaded oral exam, which is a 5 min talk on one text among 20-25 you’ve studied and prepped throughout the school year, ~7 of which being excerpts from a novel you’ve studied in further depth.
I was a C- student in the later years of high school. Didn’t find it in me to give a fuck any more and I was somewhat smart so eh. Didn’t listen in class, didn’t do my homework, coasted on the bare minimum effort, got enough high marks in the stuff that interested me to cover the disasters in areas that didn’t. Those squarely included French lit. As such, I hadn’t worked on 20-25 texts throughout the school year. I didn’t even have* a copy *of all of them. I had skipped many classes, played GameBoy for the rest. As for the novel, I had read mayyybe 20 pages. Back in September.
Thankfully a friend was gracious enough to let me photocopy some of his notes on the classes I’d missed, and combined with my own anecdotal ones I could make myself flash cards to cover about 12. I naturally started cramming for the exam like 2 days before, and only memorized about 6 of those cards before I figured I was doomed and didn’t even need to bother with the rest so GameBoy time - if Rome’s burning anyway whynot start fiddling, amirite ? Yeah, I was only *somewhat *smart :).
So I show up to the exam a nervous wreck, obviously.
Lady gives me my assignment, I get 5 minutes of prep time while she’s interviewing the previous contestant. Huge luck ! I hit the 1/3 shot : it’s one of those texts I *did *cram ! I can work with this !
So I go in semi-confident, start bloviating on that bit of Malraux and I must have reached the 2 minute mark by the time I’ve run out of flash card tidbits. She’s still taking notes, not asking questions.
I start filling the silence with odds and ends I seem to remember about that class, but now that I’m forced to pay attention to them the theories sound like bollocks even to my ignorant and literature-deaf ears : we had a teacher who saw Christian/Biblical parallels in every fucking thing. Then again I’m preeetty sure Malraux was a communist and L’Espoir is about his experiences fighting against Franco and the Catholic establishment that was backing him. If there’s one guy who wouldn’t be into sneaking The Jesus in, it’d be him.
So I start spouting this crap really hesitantly… but I gotta say something, and she tells me to go on, and that’s all I *got *so in goes the biblical allegory nonsense.
Now the examiner is smiling frankly, shit, shit, fuckity shit, I knew that was retarded.
Then she moves on to the questions, starts asking me about the general themes and narrative processes of the book, and I’m in full retreat. How am I supposed to answer that ? Again I stammer odds and ends I vaguely remember from class. Then I swing for the fences with a factoid I’d noticed just the day before while cramming the 3 of those 7 excerpts I prepped, which is that the focus seemed to widen from one to the next since the first excerpt was about one person’s feelings and opinions, the next was a battle scene over control of a city square, and the last talked about the presumed bleak future of the country.
So that’s what I tell her the whole book’s about, this zooming out from the specific to the more universal, build that argument I’m pulling straight out of my ass, and she beams at me from ear to ear. Stops asking questions altogether and for the rest of the exam time gushes on about how of all the students she’s seen so far I’m the only one to have really *understood *this complex oeuvre as a whole. A book I’d never read the once.
Thank the gods I was too awestruck and mortified by my own dishonesty to bust a gut *before *I was safely out the door. I’ve bollocksed my way through quite a few liberal arts tests since then. Sometimes it even worked. But that one was a genuine marvel.
That reminds me: when my husband and I went on our first date, we went to a little Mexican restaurant for dinner. As we were waiting for our food, the cook came out and started chatting in Spanish with the guy in the booth on the other side of us. My husband is not a very talkative guy, but he wanted to make a good first impression, so he was nervously and earnestly trying to have an engaging conversation with me when suddenly, he got smacked in the side of the head with a banana. We looked at the cook, who had a bunch of bananas in his hand. He stammered, “Sorry, sorry!” and mimed tossing one, then pointed to his friend in the other booth. We laughed and nodded, no harm done. Then I turned to my husband and said, “Well, you know what they say: Time flies like an arrow, and fruit flies like a banana.” Oh, and they let us keep the banana.
And on a completely unrelated note: one day I was waiting for the El. Typically, as soon as the train arrives, everyone on the platform crowds up to the doors, ready to shove their way in the instant they open. Inside, there’s another crowd ready to shove their way out. The result is a little like a mosh pit, but without all the lighthearted fun. But this time, the train pulled up and just sat there. The doors didn’t open. Then, after a moment, we heard a deep baritone on the PA say, “Let my people go!” Everyone laughed and stepped back from the train, the doors opened, and the crowd inside quickly and easily made their way out, no shoving required.
I attended a road company production of “Dracula” (starring Raul Julia as the Count) back around 1979. We were third row center, but since there was no orchestra, the theater had put extra seats in front of the first row. We were really close to the stage. About two thirds of the way through, Dracula is having a heated exchange with the other characters. Mr. Julia is really giving it his all–sweat flying, spittle projecting during lines, etc… As the scene reaches climax, Dracula screams his big line, the place goes quiet for 2 seconds–just long enough for the 5 year old seated in front of me to holler, “Mommy, Dracula spit on me!”
My husband and I stepped into a crowded elevator on a cruise ship.
Husband: “Okay. Everybody in here be on your best behaviour. You know what I’m talkin’ about.”
Big guy with a southern accent: “Ah sure hope that’s mah wife’s hand on mah butt.”
Lady in a singsong voice: “It iiissnn’t!”
Big guy again: “Well if not…I’ll catch up witchu later.”
Black guy in the back corner: “We got the best crowd all up in this elevator here!”
I grew up in the city, but when I was 13 my parents decided we were going to move, and we ended up on an acreage, near a small town. It was determined that we were going to have some horses, a cow for milking, and raise a couple of steers for meat. I was very ignorant of anything about these animals, but I wanted to look like I knew what I was doing when the whole family went to a large livestock auction, where they were selling cattle. I came across this very large black bull, but I didn’t know that it was a bull. I yelled across the auction lot to my family, telling them they really needed to come see this cow, because “it has a funny udder!”. The look on people’s faces and then the uproarious laughter made me realize my mistake. I don’t believe I have ever turned so red in my life before or since. My family still tells this story to my boyfriends. :o
Since first dates and peeing have both come up in others’ examples…
A friend of mine tells the story of the first date he and his now wife of 40 years went on. The lady in question was a country girl who might have been described as just a bit naive back then.
They were at a restaurant, and when he felt the call of nature he said, “Excuse me, I have to see a man about a horse” — to which she replied “Oh, I just love horses!”
This same friend tells another story about an incident I’m sure has been portrayed in comedy movies. But he swears it happened in real life to him.
He grew up in a small town in Pennsylvania, at a time when a kid didn’t have to wait till he was 16 to get a job. He was maybe 13 or so and helping out at the town’s only pharmacy when a customer came in and asked to buy some Trojans.
We’ll give my friend the benefit of the doubt and say he knew what these were generically but was unfamiliar with the brand name. So of course he shouts out in a very loud voice to the pharmacist, “Hey Al, where do we keep the Trojans?” — causing considerable embarrassment to the customer.
Nearly all of my real life funny stories happened to someone else. Sometimes I was present, but usually I heard about it afterwards.
Back in the early 80s, my mom took me grocery shopping. She sent me off after part of the list and started searching for African Violet plant food. Could not find it. Where was it? The store had it only a few months ago, but they’d moved everything around, and she’d been hunting for several minutes. African Violet food. African Violet food. African Violet food.
She was so engrossed, she came around the corner and walked right into someone, a very tall someone. A very tall, muscular, male, black someone. Startled, embarrassed, and completely thrown, she blurted, “I’m so sorry! Do you know where the Violent African food is?”
And just as the words she’d said began to sink into her brain, the man made a thoughtful frown and asked, “Watusi or Zulu?”
All I knew was that she came and found me, insisted that we forget the rest of the groceries, pay for what we had, and go home, and hang the damn African violets. She didn’t actually admit what had happened until we got home and she told my dad. He just about died laughing.
My dad’s story - which I was decidedly not there for - is from August 1945.
He was seventeen years old and had joined the Navy in July. One day, about two weeks into training, he and all his fellow recruits were marching in formation, wearing heavy, heavy packs. They’d been at it for at least an hour when the drill instructor came out and stopped them.
“GENTLEMEN!” he shouted. “JAPAN HAS SURRENDERED!”
And my dad and all his new buddies whooped and hollered and screamed with joy, jumped up and down, and pounded each other on the back. When they finally quieted down, the drill instructor spoke again.
“AND YOU DIDN’T HELP! TWO MORE HOURS OF MARCHING!”
That’s one of my favourite sayings! We’ll have to get together and fling bananas some day. 
Oh, I thought of another real life event that had everyone laughing. My in-laws were celebrating their 40th wedding anniversary a couple of years ago, and they had a dinner with their kids and their best friends who had been their best man and maid of honour at the wedding. They were lining up to take a picture of everyone who had been at the wedding, and since they had made no secret of my mother-in-law being a couple of months pregnant when they got married, I suggested that my husband (the baby in question) should get in on that picture, too. 
I met my husband online when we were in high school. We would chat every day and he was into super obscure emo/indie/punk rock bands, where I had just begun listening to those genres.
He IM’ed me one night and asked if I liked The Postal Service. I immediately answered, “Yeah! Getting mail is great!” He was making me a CD and wanted to know if I liked the band.
He still makes fun of me for it.
Oh wow… I’m just imagining the look of horror on his face as he sees shredded money, credit cards and wallet come flying out of the grass chute to land all across the yard.
Is THAT what the kids are calling it these days?
Ex-GF was reading a book about World War One. “Hey, El, it says here the during this one battle the French were using 75mm cannon.” “Yes”, says I. “That doesn’t make any sense”, she says. “How could they do any damage with tiny little guns like that?”