I once, in a setting and context that made it perfectly reasonable from my perspective, asked a complete stranger (and a customer) “Do you have a woody?”
Took me a minute to realize what he thought I was asking!
This reminds me of one time when I was with some friends and we wanted to play volleyball, but the ball was not inflated. So we found a bicycle pump, and I was holding the ball while this girl was using the pump. At some point she asked, “Is it getting hard?” I said (stealing a Monty Python line), “That’s a rather personal question, isn’t it?” She was quite amused.
I was in a professional training course over the last two days. At one point I got a major, MAJOR, case of the giggles when the teacher said that ASME (American Society of Mechanical Engineers) didn’t allow rolled joints.
I came home from work one day long ago, and my tap water was cold. After checking a few things, I turned on a few burners on my stove. Nothing. I checked the oven. Nothing.
I walked dwonstairs and knocked on my neighbor’s door. When she answered, I asked “Hi, do you have gas?”
She gave me the oddest look before figuring out what I was really asking.
While having a difficult time trying to repair a jewelry box with a very small wood screw, my high school girlfriend asked her mother if she was any good at screwing.
Her mom was in the other room and had no idea what prompted the question.
One day at work, my wife and a coworker were trying to remember the name of the company that they had seen at a trade show that made a line of soap products called “Dirty Girls”. So they started to Google “dirty girls” before one of them realized that, hey maybe that’s really not a good idea, especially at work.
Not by me but to me. Sitting in the college cafeteria in my young and naturally fit days.
The girl next to me pokes me in the arm to get my attention, notices how solid the muscle is and exclaims loudly without thinking, “You’re so hard!”
Same girl a few weeks later walks up behind me and attempts to goose me, landing exactly on top of a rib. Again loudly and without thought, “Is that your bone?”
Group of friends having dinner, we’re all single. One girl is pouring wine for everyone, and the two or three people before me had held a finger on the glass indicating where they wanted the pour to stop. She got to me and as she started pouring asked “aren’t you going to finger me?”
Not quite as accidental, but a woman e-mailed me a few days ago and ended it with “xx.” Then she asked to make sure that x meant kisses, and not that she was crossing me out. I replied that it did mean kisses, and that I would see her that night and give her a couple of X’s and a big O.
I too once did not make a remark that, if I had actually had made it, and the context had been quite different, might just possibly have been misconstrued as a double entendre.
I used to supervise a man whose first language was not English. He was a fine human being, but his grasp of English-language idiom was wanting, and the quality of his work was not as high as it could have been. My boss and I had called him in for a meeting to discuss an error he’d made (the latest in a series). As we sat down, he asked:
“What did I screw?”
Yes, we explained the importance of the missing directional preposition.
I had fixed a computer problem for a co-worker. She was impressed with the speed and ease of the fix, which seemed miraculous, even magical, to her. She smiled and asked excitedly:
“Are you a fairy?”
I stared, mentally debating whether to say “Yes” or “There are other terms I prefer.” She noticed my puzzled expression and continued:
“You know, like with a wand?”
I thought to myself, “Don’t you be be asking about my wand at work,” smiled, and bade her good day.
My nephew was a little kid when the first Toy Story movie came out. That year, they were doing some Christmas shopping at a toy store, wheny he saw a large doll/action figure of the cowboy character frin the movie. This sent him running a around the store yelling “I WANT A GIANT WOODY! I WANT A GIANT WOODY!”
Many years ago, I was in an applied statistics class in college. We had a rookie professor and he assigned a homework that required simulation, manually. the task itself was easy, but very tedious and long.
The next class, one of the gals complained that she was doing hand stimulation for 4 hours last night.