
Did you respond: “OH SHIT! It must’ve jumped out of the bushes again and rode my back all day without me noticing! DIE, CLOAK, DIE!” and then taken on your cloak in battle?

Did you respond: “OH SHIT! It must’ve jumped out of the bushes again and rode my back all day without me noticing! DIE, CLOAK, DIE!” and then taken on your cloak in battle?
You wanted attention and you got it, mission accomplished.
These are fun! Thanks for sharing your cod (and trout) slapping triggers.
Reading some of the posts reminds me that I get the “oh you must be (fill in the white European ethnicity here)” quite often. I’m blonde, blue-eyed, sturdily-built and very fair-skinned: in other words, generic. Strangers approach me to say that I must be Norwegian, Scots, Irish, Scots-Irish, English, Swedish . . . so on and so on. It depends on what part of the country I’m living in; in California I was Irish, in Ohio I was Scots-Irish and in New Jersey peoople think I’m Eastern European.
Curiously, I’m also frequently asked if I’m Canadian (?!!)
I’m a mutt, just a Heinz 57 mutt. My great-grandma was Dutch and my great-great-greats were Scottish (my brother likes to be Scottish and wears kilts). The other side is a mish-mash of riff-raff producing with servant girls ever since they descended from the steerage section of the Mayflower
.
My husband worked for a casino for six or seven years. He used to tell people, “You know the only surefire way of making money from a casino? Go the office marked ‘Human Resources’ and apply for a job.”
I’ve been getting that since sixth grade, maybe earlier. I have red hair, and the idiots have gotten quieter the longer I’ve grown it, although I’ve had two guys I’ve dated in the last year ask me if I dye my hair. One by asking “so, how often do you dye your hair?” Just about beat him. I hate it when people think they’re clever. And it never fails, a few times a year, some idiot who I haven’t even introduced myself to will ask “So, does the carpet match the drapes?” Had a radio DJ ask me that about a year and a half ago when I called the station.
Hahah, you said handphone. 
The next person to ask me if I can get them a cheaper plan/free phone/special discount/ is getting smacked. It’s the first thing anyone asks as soon as I tell them what I do for a living.
Yes, I work for a major telecom provider. You want my employee rate? Here’s a number for HR. Otherwise, all you’re getting is a wet cod in the face.
The next time I’m scooping a foot of snow off the sidewalk in front of the radio station where I work and someone walking by asks, “Think it’ll snow?” they will catch a cod to schnozz. It’ll probably be a frozen cod. Now I gotta’ find a place to buy cod …
That’s because the phone companies rip you off so badly that you’ll swallow your pride and grovel to any reasonable employee you find in the big greedy faceless corporation for a fair price that will allow you to both buy groceries and have a phone. You know the good prices are out there, the telco’s just won’t give them to YOU.
Yes, I’ve been hurt before.
Any of you complaining about having a “song” name…try being named Rhonda, and working on the Helpdesk. Uh-huh. Beat that.
Is that all you’re going to eat? Don’t they ever feed you?
I’m 5’2" and 107; that’s a perfectly normal size.
Smoking is bad for you…

Ah.
Nope, somehow never been asked that.
:::loads gatling gun with frozen goldfish:::
LIAR!!! Your use of the term “handphone” betrays your Nigerian-ness, Mr. or Mrs. Abacha.
(totally kidding)
Dammit! Years too late, I get the perfect line to use. Alas, I had to settle for “Is THAT what this thing is? I’d been wondering all day!”
In Hey Nineteen, the singer refers to the fact that a girl of the titular age doesn’t get his references to such “old school” figures as Aretha Franklin. Leaffan was suggesting that you must be much younger than he (who’d heard of Ritchie Valens’s top hit) is.
Meh… they’re just as busy trying to rip off their own employees. The only difference is that we have enough left over after paying our bills to afford 2-ply toilet paper (ah, the small luxuries).
…and if you think you’ve been hurt before, just wait until I’ve come back from the fishmonger with a nice big cod for ya.
Thanks for the clarity and the thought that I am young-too young to have heard about the Donna song. (I probably know it, but can’t bring it to mind).
And I never knew what Hey Nineteen was about–Steely Dan does not enunciate clearly. But now I’ve got “the Cuervo gold; the fine Columbian…make tonight a wonderful day” in my head. Which is worse?
Hey! Betcha lived in Rhea County, huh? Yeah? Huh? Yeah? Boy howdy, they’re all, well, you know… 
Ya gotta know me! Cows, Montana – we have to know each other! You’re the tall fella with the truck, right?
Oh… rough.