Many years ago my friend Charlie and I were wqlking across the college campus and we came upon an elderly, well-dressed man staring at a building that was being constructed. When we got closer he turned to Charlie and said “Excuse me, sir. You look very intelligent. Perhaps you can help me out.” He pointed to the building and said “What keeps those bricks together?” Charlie, in his most helpful voice, said “The cement keeps them together.” And the man looked at Charlie and said “No, the cement keeps them apart.” Then he walked off.
[Thumbs up] Koxinga likes this.
10 months after giving birth to my second and last child. At a public pool breastfeeding on a lawn chair. Woman comes up. Moves my legs over gently and sits down at the edge of the chair. Stares at my breasts and baby girl and comments, “Aww, what a sweet little baby. Is this your grandchild?” WTF!?! No, I did not look like a 36 year old lactating grandmother! She was crazy as a fox.
I was the WTF stranger in this storyette.
While leaving a restaurant, I hold the door open for a dignified looking old Southern lady. She thanks me very much, where-in I randomly, and to this day for the life of me have no idea exactly what prompted me to say this, bust out in a loud impression:
“I always rely on the kindness of strangers.”
OK so I sorta botched the line, but the lady started cracking up laughing. After a good 5 seconds, she said I made her day, and we then went on our merry ways. I’m weird.
You’re right. I should have. I should have just lead the other two to the very end of the reception line, said,“It was a beautiful wedding, and we didn’t mean to crash it. We were looking for Joe & Karen’s wedding and I think we came to the wrong church.” If I’d done that, I think we’d have been fine.
If we’d just slipped out the back & said “My friends are engaged and were looking at churches. We’re very sorry. But You Two had a Beautiful wedding!”, we probably would have been OK. But the taking back of the gift tore it. The roommate fished around the gift table for that bottle like trick-or-treater in a bowl of lollipops looking for a Snickers bar. That coupled with no one knowing us or why we were there made the guests & ushers think that we were stealing wedding gifts. :smack: The priest/father/reverend/pastor/minister/ being an oar-up-his-butt Asshat didn’t exactly help.
Granted it was youth and inexperience that lead us to run out of the back of the church like a hall scene in ‘Breakfast Club’ instead of slipping out quietly.
…And once the mob had 2x4s, the negotiations were pretty much done.
I actually did bring that up to him afterwards. “Why the Hell did you go back for that bottle of champagne? What were you thinking?” “It was an $80 bottle. If I’d left it, I wouldn’t have a gift for Joe. You’re really being too sensitive you know.” :rolleyes: :smack:
You know, I still keep in touch with him. He grew up a lot since then and is actually a pretty terrific person. He became an analyst for the government.
Heh. This one’s pretty cute, actually.
I’d have done the same thing. Why in the world do you need to be so close to the person in front of you? Do you think that it somehow will make the line move faster? What if she needed to bend down and pick up a coin, or tie her shoe? Why can’t you leave a little breathing room instead of jamming in right behind someone?
It’s only the price one pays when there are rude assholes behind them.
Heh. After the youngest of my two nieces was born, we’d make this joke with her father. “Are you sure she’s the mother?”
So I popped into a mini mart type place to grab a newspaper and there was this senior lady, prolly around 70 or so, standing in line to checkout. I’m next to the line hovering over the newspapers with my back to her when suddenly someone unmistakeably grabs and squeezes a fistful of me bum. I started and turned and she just sort of turned and looked at me. She was the culprit no doubt. I left rather quickly. WTF!?
I think that is a fair point.
I’m not sure if I was the WTF stranger to the dude I’m going to call a WTF stranger. I’m at a large sized ethnic grocery (which is like a small, chain supermarket). The place had just opened, and there’s only one register available for the first hour, because it’s a slow time for them. It happens to be the lane that’s labeled “express lane” with an item limit. There were no hours posted, but obviously it’s not exclusively an express lane whilst being the only open lane.
So I’m behind some mother for a while while they scan her WIC coupons, and as much as my stuff that I can fit onto the conyer is there. There’s no one else behind me in line, but then some stinky old geezer comes up and starts putting my stuff back in my cart. “Express lane,” hey says, and tries to cut in front of me. We have an altercation which I won’t go into. No one is arrested.
I was raking leaves in my front yard, and my kids were playing near me. It was a very mellow scene. One was writing in the dirt with a stick, another was helping me put the leaves into the trash, another was building a little house with rocks.
This lady pulled up in a car, rolled down the window and shouted, “CONTROL your children!” and then sped off.
I still can’t figure out what they were doing that she thought was out of control.
This is stupid, but dirt common. At least fewer people make jokes about milkmen than they did when my mother was a kid and was the only one in the family to have red hair besides her grandmother. Now a days you could *almost *think people weren’t aware that they were implying infidelity.
My dad has brown hair, and I have red like my mom. When I was little and people asked him where I got my red hair (Dad has always enjoyed grocery shopping more than Mom, so he often had one or both of us without mom when we were small) he liked to mess with me by insisting that I have red hair because of him, not mom.
I didn’t like this joke because clearly it wasn’t true. So, one day in typical four-year-old fashion I finally got fed up and corrected him. “No! I have red hair like Mommy. He’s bald. Take off your hat and show her, Daddy!”
I don’t remember him making that claim much after that 
You win 
Just had one tonight, at the supermarket. Another woman and I got out of our cars at the same time, just as the rain went from sprinkle to light downpour. We both hightailed into the store, and as we both wrangled carts, I said “didn’t expect that rain!” (Or words to that effect.) The woman took her cart and I was fiddling my phone out of my pocket so she got a few yards ahead of me, then stopped, turned back and put one hand on her hip and said, in an angry voice “Who ever expects rain, anyway?!” She then turned and stomped into the store.
Had I the opportunity, I would’ve retorted “meteorologists!” But I was too taken aback at the moment.
Tide goes in, tide goes out. You can’t explain that.
Jeez, you’d think it was the Spanish Inquisition.
I always mentally wince when I recollect this story:
I was once having breakfast in my hotel in Paris, when a Texan family entered. I knew they were Texan, because the father was huge, and dressed in full Texan drag (yes, he even had a holster and spurs). His complexion was bright red, not as from a tan, but as from aggression and anger, like he was about to have a coronary event. Throughout the meal he dominated the conversation, in a huge booming voice. Though the meal was a buffet, he was in constant need of the room’s only attendant. He made this need known by snapping his fingers and bellowing “Parlez-vous, boy, parlez-vous!” His butchering of the French language was exceeded only by his lack of manners. I felt like announcing to the room “That man and I are not from the same country.”
This was repeated the following two mornings.
That only makes sense if it’s the kind of cover you put on by hand and she thought the car belonged to someone else.
And here I thought that the Texan guy on The Simpson’s was just parody! That’s the dude I imagine when reading your anecdote!
Drag is right. I’ve never seen anyone wear spurs in Texas, not even on a ranch; and why would you have a holster if (this being France) presumably you’re not able to carry a gun? I would have laughed at him. (Quietly)