I’m so relieved I’m not the only person who’s done the “regular dish soap in the dishwasher.” There were suds overflowing everywhere from all sides. I was a poor college student at the time and paper towels were not in the budget, so I was trying to mop everything up with sheets from the phone book, smearing black ink all over the floor. The suds kept coming and coming and coming and I eventually upended my dirty laundry onto it. It was seriously like an “I Love Lucy” episode.
When I worked at a movie theater I was working the ticket booth and sold a couple a pair of tickets and ripped them. Since they were kind of early they decided to go get a cup of coffee and I said “Yeah just keep your stubs.” It ended up being a slow night and I remembered them when they came back. I went to wave them in and the guy said “Do you want to see my stub?” and I have NO IDEA WHY but I said “Are you sexually harassing me?” and his girlfriend SHRIEKED with laughter.
When I lived in San Francisco with my (not-yet) husband we were having sex and it was one of those times where it’s kind of a dud and not going anywhere and there was an actual earthquake. We just looked at each other and collapsed cracking up.
The family was all meeting at the Olive Garden for my birthday. I was driving my housemate and Grandma. It’s about ten miles there. We arrive and go in and I tell them I forgot something and will be right back. Fifteen minutes later I come back, this time with Grandma.
Same dorm, different roommate. An ex-girlfriend walked into our room at the exact moment that my roommate had demanded that I visually inspect a growth on his buttock. That was a fun one to explain.
This thread has infected my life! Just today at work, a co-worker brought round cake (mm cake!) that her sister had made, telling us that she couldn’t name the flavour of cake as her sister always changed ingredients -
“She just chucks in anything she can lay her hands on.”
In my slice, I found … oh go-on, what’s the most unexpected thing you could think of?
Nope. Not that.
Or that.
A cotton bud, or at least, *half *a cotton bud.
Surprisingly, no-one else had a slice after that so we never found out where the other half was. It would have been weird, but with the whole "just chucks in anything’ build up, we were in hysterics for most of the morning.
I once was standing on a corner when a car hit a puddle and a perfect arc of water splashed up and soaked me head to toe. I’d have been mad but it was so hilariously movie fake-looking - does that count?
NETA - and for Seinfeldian, I had a cleaning lady come in a few months ago, and I hid most of the day in my (not on the cleaning list) little office - I went out to ask her a question and found her peeing in my toilet with the door open. Of course she was welcome to use my bathroom, but what do you say after that? I went with “pretend this never happened”, but I had her back last month and I still felt weird and awkward about it.
My (now wife) pulled a move straight out of a sitcom when we met, in university.
We first met through a mutual friend - he was interested in her, but she wasn’t interested in him (long story). Let’s call her T. Point is, she got my number, but never bothered to call. I liked her looks and company, but when she failed to call, I forgot all about her.
Flash forward several months - I was sitting in class next to another attractive woman, let’s call her L. We had exchanged small talk, but nothing more. By coincidence, this lady was friends with my wife-to-be, and they got to talking about me … the lady who sat next to me (L) in class asked my wife-to-be (T) if it would be a good idea for her (L) to invite me to her dorm party, & seduce me there.
My wife-to-be (T) said, “naw, I know that guy, he’s a real freak. Forget about him”. Or words to that effect.
Then she (T) quickly invited me to her dorm party, much to my surprise (as I hadn’t heard from her for months) and well, we’ve been married since 1995.
L never talked to T again, and I kinda wondered about that at the time … but it was a long time before I heard this story
When I was an undergrad working on campus, I had a graduate student coworker, in all apparent respects a nice and upstanding guy, considerate, thoughtful. We had a few good conversations; he seemed like a great guy to me.
Turns out that he had (years ago) been guilty of sexual assault of a minor child. Maybe that’s too dark to be sitcom-y … although in telling I’m reminded of the Community episode in which a new friend of two major characters turns out to be an unrepentant — and vocal — participant in ethnic cleansing in the Balkans.
When I was a kid, we packed the family van for Christmas and drove from Illinois to my uncle’s house in Florida. Along the way, I bought some firecrackers as they’re illegal in Illinois. I didn’t get anything huge, mostly just the kind that spin into the air and shoot out sparks. We got to my uncle’s house and that night I was setting them off the diving board of his pool and my sister made some kind of smartenheimer remark about how I’m remote controlling them so I answered “Shyeah, and this one’s going to bounce off the diving board, go across the concrete to the door and go in the house to start a fire.”
It almost did that. The firecracker got stopped at the door, where it was spinning and bouncing at it while throwing out pretty sparks and smoke. My uncle, unfortunately, was standing over it on one foot, plastered against the sliding glass door with a look of absolute terror on his face.
I walk into the living room carrying a glass of soda with ice cubes. I go up to my sister and, standing behind her back, ask for the change she owes me. She has it in her hand, so she swings it back without looking, hits my glass, whereupon an ice cube pops out and smacks me square on the nose.
It would probably take a sitcom 97 takes to get that scene replicated.
A variant sort of happened to me … I used to have several male friends named variations on Eric/Rick/Tariq. Someone called my apartment when my Mom was there housesitting while I was in hospital. She took the message that someone named Rick called. I called every person with an *ic name but never found out who it was that called me.
Another thing that I don’t know if it was more sit-com or slapstick.
This was years back, when pay phones were all over the place. My brother had borrowed some money from me, I was broke and really needed to be re-paid. I stopped at this pay phone to call him, and got his damn answering machine. Just what I needed, broke and the answering machine just ate a quarter.
Just out of habit, I hit the coin return.
It started making this “chunka-chunka” noise and the coin return filled with coins. I scooped them out, and it kept filling. I forget how much I got, but it was well over five bucks.
Came in handy. I had no idea pay phones had a jackpot.
If I’ve shared this before, sorry but I couldn’t find it in a quick search.
At my niece Ellie’s seventh birthday party my sister was at the door letting the last couple guests in and realized the last kid through the door looked about four years old. She was a bit put out that someone decided to drop off a younger sibling and didn’t even bother to say anything.
She pulled Ellie aside and quietly asked who the kid was.
“I dunno.”
“Well, she came in with Kayla and Moriah, which one’s got a little sister?”
“Moriah’s sister’s blonde and Kayla only has brothers.”
Sis pushed a little but Ellie insisted she had no clue who brought the kid. The party went on, everyone had fun and the parents started showing up. One by one the guests left. And the little stranger stayed. And stayed.
Finally a frantic woman came racing up to the house to claim the kid.
Apparently her grandmother was supposed to drop her off at a classmate’s party two blocks over. When she spotted balloons and other kids, she dropped the girl off. Mother showed up after the right party ended only to be told the kid had never arrived. I have no idea how she worked out where her kid was.
