Entertaining story, but… I’m really curious what sit-coms you watch 
The ones where the characters learn that everything works out more smoothly if we’re just honest with one another–and then go on to make the same mistakes again, week after week…
If the series hadn’t ended years ago, Panache45’s story would have happened to Jack, on Will & Grace.
No, Jack would resume the lovemaking, without missing a beat. Will would panic and run out naked.
I’ve had a tendency to affect this grumpy-old-man attitude for years (though I’m only 45 now) and when October is done I’m worse; I’m like the [dirty-rotten-] bastard son of Scrooge and The Grinch. In the early 80’s my friend Steve and I were at the mall. He was buying a geeky holiday gift for his father and I figured I’d like one of those, too, but I certainly wasn’t in a holiday mood. We were deep in conversation on our way out of the building, dodging and weaving between the Boy Scouts at one door, the Girl Scouts at another door, Santa-and-his-red-kettle at a third door, and the local church kiddy-choir lined up in front of all the doors on that side of the building.
We stepped onto the asphalt and headed to the far side of the parking lot. Steve finished his explanation as a man came walking toward us, and I took the opportunity to change topics.
“I hate it when they do that.” I grumbled, “Why do they all have to block the exits and gang up on you?”
“Yeah, I know.” Steve concurred as the man approached with a business card in his outstretched hand.
“Why can’t they just give me a leaflet or a card,” I continued, looking at my friend on my right even as I reached out to my left to take the man’s business card. “like this—“ but the man didn’t let go of his card, so I gripped it tighter and pulled harder, still looking at Steve while repeating, “THIS guy.”
Steve frowned at me sideways, but realized why I had half-yelled when he saw me tucking the card in my pocket without looking at it.
I was on a roll, so I continued my tirade, “Then I can collect all their cards, consider their cases, and mail something to their head office if I bloody-well feel like it. And if I don’t, I can just burn the damned things and be done with the whole matter.”
“Well,” Steve pretended to take the question seriously, “Eye-contact and a little talking probably gets a better return.”
“Mmm.” I grumbled, “Like I didn’t give that last guy?”
“Besides,” Steve continued because arguing with me is his idea of fun, “business cards probably don’t cost much, but you gotta buy ‘em in bulk and that eats into profits.”
By then we had reached my parking spot. Steve had given me good answers, but I wasn’t willing to let go of my grumpy mood.
“You know, it wasn’t a serious question.” I said as I unlocked the passenger door. As I walked around the front bumper, I continued, “I was just grumbling about the leeches. Get in the car.”
“This is a truck, Ron.” Steve grinned at me over the top of the truck bed.
“Just get in!” I ordered, then unlocked the driver’s door and plopped behind the wheel.
“So what’s it say?” Steve asked as he settled into the passenger seat and closed his door.
“What?” I asked while dramatically slamming my door.
“The card you got.” Steve said as he reached for his seat belt.
“What?” I looked at my friend in confusion.
Steve looked back at me and grinned again as he tried to increase my confusion, “You know, the card you didn’t get from that guy you didn’t look at.”
“Yes I –“ I started to argue and realized what Steve was talking about, “Oh!”
I reached into my pocket and pulled out a business card. I held it up at eye-level and read aloud:
“–oh, shit!”
I got out of the car and saw the guy across the parking lot, but as he saw me approaching with a bill in my hand, he headed quickly in the other direction. I’m sure people on the other side of the mall could hear Steve laughing at me.
My friend and I are at a Rennaissance Fair, just walking around. She tells me that the actors have to stay in character all the time. I tell her “I bet I can make one break character.” She says if I can, she’ll buy lunch.
About two minutes later, we see “William Shakespeare” on a bridge. My friend takes out her camera and asks if she can take a photo of him and me. He complies. She then asks if I would take a photo of her and him, by saying “I hope you don’t mind posing for a second photo.”
Without realizing it, Will gives me one of the all time classic straight lines (see spoiler box below). Forget the bet, forget lunch. No way in hell could I let that line go unanswered. So I give the only possible answer.
Will cracks up with a very un-Shakespeare-type laugh. He does recover quickly, and I get a photo of Will with a huge grin and my friend trying to keep a straight face. And, yes, she did buy lunch.
Will: Surely I be loving doing this.
Me: And don’t call her Shirley
One of my sisters and I had gone into town, probably to see a movie, and were just getting in the door when the phone rang. Turns out Mom & Dad had also gone into town and Dad’s car had died.
Cue flashback squiggly dissolve to:
Mom & Dad standing on the side of the road, noticing my sister’s rather distinctive Ford Maverick with the huge rust hole at the bottom of the passenger door and the (not personalized) license plate that began “HA”. Mom calling out the license plate and desparately trying to get our attention, followed by Dad camly waiting about 20 minutes then making a call from a pay phone.
Definitely B-plot material, but about a year or two ago, I suddenly started getting many, many phone calls from Chinese people who spoke barely any English. Eventually, I figured out they were asking about a Chinese restaurant that was for sale. Apparently my number had been posted in an ad in a Chinese newspaper in the New York City area. The phone calls continued unabated for about a week. I tried to track down the original number, but never figured it out - in a real sitcom, this probably would have led me on some humorous quest that ended with me in a Chinatown basement talking to a wise man who’s a mix of Confucius and the Dalai Lama
So I love my Primary Care MD, she’s cute, smart and young. After I’ve been having problems with anemia and the usual tests don’t turn up the usual suspects, she tells me “I don’t want you to freak out, but I’m referring you to Oncology. I’m pretty sure you don’t have Multiple Myloma, though”.
So I go meet the oncologist, more tests, and sure enough, I don’t have Multiple Myloma. I have something badish, but not nearly that bad. (A good Oncologist can tell you you have cancer and you leave the office feeling good about it).
Next visit to my lovely young PCP, who is clearly uncomfortable with the idea that she might lose her patient to cancer, and she greets me with:
“That’s great news, that’s an illness you can have until the day you die!”
I waited just a beat or two, and just before she heard herself I replied “Well, you could say that about any of them…”
Had a minor one just tonight.
I work in the call center for a large, well known cell phone company. Tonight I had a gentleman (I use the term loosely) from L.A. call in and proceed to yell and scream and curse at me hecaue he has had dropped calls. As I am required, I sat and said nothing, just letting him yell.
He finally says everyone has been yelling at him for not answering his phone when the calls don’t go thru, and do I know what it’s like to have someone yelling at you for no reason at all?
Very calmly, I replied “Yes sir, I understand completely.”
The phone went utterly, completely silent. In a very meek voice, he said, “That’s what I’m doing to you, isn’t it?” I could not respond to that without losing my job so I let the silence speak for me.
He began apologizing profusely, saying he is not normally like that over and over. I ended up giving him a nice credit for the crappy service he had been getting.
Now, if that *was *a scene from a sitcom, we would have been from the same city and ended up dating or some-such…
Reminds me of the night that another sister set her pillow on fire. Accidentally, of course. She was reading in bed and didn’t want to disturb the other girls so she set her lamp really close to a foam pillow. Dad rushed the pillow outside and perched it on a metal clothes line tower, where he drenched it with the garden hose. When told what happened, Mom declared, “At least she’s reading.”
Cue laugh track.
The pillow was still smoldering some 12 hours later. It was my job to give it the hose whenever it started smoking again.
The Christmas after my grandmother died, no one really wanted to be at home in Michigan so we hopped into my Grandfather’s new Lincoln and drove down to Florida to visit Disney, the Space Center, etc.
I was a bored six year old, who also got violently motion sick, trapped in a LONG car ride with my Grandfather, Uncle, Mom and Father (who was in a cast from toe to groin). At one point, I was in the front, sitting on my uncle’s lap and looking through the glove compartment and I said, “What does this button do?” and pressed it. It was the trunk release and it released going 70MPH down the freeway with everyone’s winter coats sitting on top of the luggage. We had to chase down a van that caught my mom’s coat in the undercarriage.
I still get shit for that and I’m over 40.
Just the other day, for some insane reason, I decided to walk to the store instead of drive. Now, when I leave the house, more often than not I wear a baseball style hat. Well, this day happened to be pretty windy, which made a bad idea even worse, and sure enough, as I got to the parking lot, my hat blew right off my head and I had to go chase after it.
Not as good as a coat in an undercarriage, but it felt sitcommy to me.
It will quit smoking or else it will get the hose again.