So I just went and filled up my work group’s coffee carafe with some hot water at the industrial-sized coffee brewer/hot-water dispenser. I was having trouble getting the lid to go on straight, and someone (who I’d never met before) walked by and commented on it.
And I said, “This thing never screws quite right with me. It’s probably my technique, but it’s too hot to mess with.”
Hmmmm. Not at all what I was trying to get across.
But at least it isn’t just me. A while back, I was on the phone with the salesman from Google that had worked with me as I purchased a search appliance for a company site. We were discussing the possibility of me taking some pictures of the appliance once it was in the server farm, and I said something about how lots of people were wanted to check it out around the company.
And he said, “Yeah, you probably don’t want a lot of guys touching your box when you haven’t had a chance to play with it, yourself.”
There was a long pause in which the professional side of my wrangled widely with my impulse to say something really risque.
Similar to your second one…I work for an industrial refrigeration company. The following exchange was reported to me by the receptionist who took the call:
Female caller: This is so-and-so from XYZ company. Is Bill there? (Bill was the chief service mechanic.)
Receptionist: No, he’s out of the office at the moment. Can I take a message?
Caller: Yes, I need him to come by. My box is getting hot.
I’m in the break room one day chatting with a physician’s assistant. We both start walking towards the stairs, he was going up to the fifth floor, and I was going to the first floor. He says to me, “going up?” to which I replied…
“Nope, I’m going down!”
He grinned and replied, “oh my…” which I found odd, until a bit later when I realized what I’d said.
I was at a company outing when a co-worker I hadn’t seen in a while started telling me about a new seafood restaurant called “The Shrimper.” I couldn’t help but reply, “I don’t think I want to eat anywhere called the Shrimper.”
Shagnasty, who was sitting next to me, nearly spit out his beer. I had no idea anyone would get my little joke but me. (This was in my pre-SDMB days. Maybe that’s why he pointed me here…?)
I was talking to the Painfully Beautiful Tech Guy at work about the specs on the new machine I’m building, and he was all impressed and said “Wow, that rocks!” We talked more about it, and I was all proud of myself and googly over him.
Female teaching collegue tells the following story:
She was teaching a senior maths class and had explained and demonstrated the work and had set some examples for the students to practice on. She was walking around the class helping those who were having difficulties when one of the students tried to aske her a question. She was busy with another student and, frustrated with having to wait, the student began to hit his ruler on the desk to attract her attention. Eventually she turned to him and said "George (or whatever), it is no use you banging so hard, you are not going to make me come any faster!"
How do you live that one down I wonder - it was 7/8 years later when she told me the story, and she still flushed bright red…
My mother, after comparing cell phone with her cat-sitter’s: “Allan pulled out his thing and showed it to me today—it’s so cute and little, and it unfolded and made noises!” Two-second pause till she realizes what she’s said, and falls off the sofa.
A female colleague was teaching an introductory course in Anthropology which included the obligatory lecture in basic Linguistics. The discussion began with an explanation of the voice/voiceless distinction which was illustrated by pairs of words with the two ‘th’ sounds - apparently “thick” for voiceless and “the” for voiced. She then went on to explain minimal pairs and began to provide examples. As she got to “thick”, you guessed it, the example was “dick.” She then proceeded to explain the concept of minimal pairs utilizing the “thick dick” example. Apparently it wasn’t until about midnight that she realized what the giggles were all about.
We have a gorgeous assistant at the main office that was entering my time for me since I couldn’t get a regular connection. Here’s the email I sent her…
"Might you be able to pet me down for 8 hours a day for each day possible over the last two weeks?
We have a gorgeous assistant at the main office that was entering my time for me since I couldn’t get a regular connection. Here’s the email I sent her…
“Might you be able to pet me down for 8 hours a day for each day possible over the last two weeks?”
Another one I remember, from eighth grade . . . First, you have to know that the British slang for cigarette is “fag” (you can see where this is going, already . . . ). My algebra teacher was from England. Two or three Bad Boys came to class late, sneaking in unobtrusively. Miss Doran stopped them in their tracks, snapping, “I know where you were—you were out in the parking lot with a fag in your mouth!”
Eve, I learned quickly that asking a police officer in San Francisco airport where I could go to smoke a fag was not a good idea.
Also, first time I ever met my In-Laws (who were getting a major kick out of the British usage of ‘fag’, BTW). We were in a bar playing pool when my father in law potted the black, losing the game. “Well Kal, you beat me,” he said. I replied, “You beat yourself” <pause> “Oh, that means something here, doesn’t it?”
Where I work, it’s very loud and most communication is done on radio’s that everybody carries.
The other day, one guy was working a crane, and this conversation came over the radio.
Dan: Teri, can you come over here, I can’t get this thing to work, I can’t get it up.
Teri: There you go Dan, it’s going up good now, you just have play with it a little.
The guys in the control room were just bustin up, and then one called down and said: Hey, what are you guys doing down there?
While taking my secretarial course, we had a fairly old lady for our typing teacher. We were all sitting at our computers typing away, and trying desperately not to completely lose it when the old lady teacher informed us that “stroking is very important. You must keep your rhythm and stroke, stroke, stroke,…” etc. We couldn’t look at each other, or we would have all been over the edge.
As an umpire, I had the pleasure of hearing my partner working the plate on an NCAA women’s fastpitch game declare a Dead-Ball, because “…the ball hit batter in the box”.
A few weeks ago I was helping a friend rebuild his deck. We were putting the finishing touches on. My back was to the house when I heard a voice behind me say “Hey, that’s looking really good!”. Well, being the smart ass that I am, thought it was my friends wife, and I yell back over my shoulder, “Thank-You, but you really have to stop checking out my ass!” There were five of out there working on the deck, and it suddenly got as quiet as a whore in church. I slowly turned around to discover that I very loudly just told my friends mom to stop checking out my ass.