I was helping some people move some furniture around in their house and when the teenager and his father were moving the couch, they had to hoick it up over the baby grand piano. At this point, the teenager says, “What now?”
I knew the teen was a HUGE “Friends” fan so, in my fog-horniest Ross voice, I call out, “PIVOT!”
Got big laffs. And a Don’t do that! And an almost busted piano.
Did you get to pull off something great? Did someone pull one off on you? Did you witness someone do it to someone else? This will count as half your grade.
Maybe not quite as good, but here’s my story of the one time I instantly had the perfect(to me anyway) response/comeback.
I was in my junior year of high school, doing an oral presentation in front of the class, a report on a poem. It happened to be “My Last Duchess”, by Browning.
After doing some research on the background of the poem I found out that the Duchess referred to was Lucrezia Borgia. So I included some family information on her, including the fact that her father was Rodrigo Borgia, who became Pope as Alexander VI.
One poor soul in class who was even more innocent than I, raised their hand and asked “If he was Pope, how could he have children?”
To which I replied “Weeellll, just about like any other man I guess.” The class erupted in laughter and I felt good that for once I had looked cool.
Of course he did sire the kids while he was a cardinal, before he became Pope.
Having breakfast with my brother a few years ago, and I noticed he was occasionally frowning and rubbing his temples. So I asked him what was wrong, and he said, “Oh, I have a headache.”
Gleefully, I said in the creepiest kid voice I could muster, “it might be tumor.”
And my poor brother stopped and stared at me for a second before he got it and said in his best Ahnold voice, “no, no, id’s nod a tumah. Id’s NOD a tumah.”
His story is from an expensive lunch his office went to. A coworker ordered a full pork loin, but couldn’t finish it, and then when the dessert menu came by, he ordered the bread pudding. To which my brother responded:
“You can’t eat your pudding if you don’t eat your meat! How can you have any pudding if you don’t eat your meat?!”
I once dated a woman who used to be the girlfriend of a dirt bike riding aquaintance. He and I and some other guys were out riding not long after her and I started dating and during a stop for water and b.s., one of the other guys mentioned to him that I was dating his ex. He took the opportunity to make a dig at her, saying “That pu**y’s all worn out anyway”. I countered with “Only the first inch dude”. The other guys were doubled over with laughter and he was silenced on that matter forever. Sometimes the universe just hands you one.
I worked with a woman whose husband was a funeral director. She came into the office one morning and said, ‘Guess what, everyone! My husband got a promotion!’
I said, ‘Really? How many people does he have under him?’
I was listening to the morning radio show, I don’t remember if it was the locals or if it was after they had switched to Bob and Tom (I think it was the locals, don’t think I ever listened to Bob and Tom). Anyways, one of the people did some goofy, ditzy girl character from time to time. She’d play it for about 10 minutes. All ad libbed. One line though, was either perfect, or set up to be handed to her. The two DJs were talking and one of them mentioned that someone else couldn’t come in that day he was “under the weather” and ditzy girl said “Yeah, under Jim Weather” I’ll sneak that one in once in a while.
Another one I try to use from time to time almost no one ever gets is “The curtains”. My dad owns a store and I work for him. At least once a month my dad and I will be talking to someone and that someone will look at me and say ‘someday this will all be yours’ and I’ll say ‘the curtains’. You have to be a pretty hardcore Monty Python fan to catch that line. Most people just say ‘what?’ and then I have to say ‘what, I didn’t say anything’ because it’s not worth explaining.
At the time the last Harry Potter books were coming out, on youtube was a bunch of Potter themed puppets with goofy songs. One called the mysterious ticking noise will lodge in your brain for days.
So it’s past midnight walking out the door with a fresh new Harry Potter book I happen to be following 4 twentysomethings who start singing the song. At just the right cue I rumble out in my bass voice “Dumbldore.” Scared/shocked the hell out of them then gales of laughter.
A friend of mine (female) from Seattle was spending a few days in New York City, so I traveled down there so we could hang out and see the city together. We got lunch at a food cart; might have been hot dogs, I don’t remember. So I paid for the food, and I knew I’d need both hands to carry the hot dog and a drink, so I grabbed a straw and some napkins and put them in my pocket. We got the food and walked away to find someplace out of the way to eat. We found a spot that was out of the main pedestrian traffic and started to eat. She said “you have a straw in your pocket.”"No, I’m just happy to see you."She keeled over laughing.
Long time listeners will know I’ve told this one before.
At work we were having a circus-themed promotion. It was early, things were getting set up. I was in a meeting when a co-worker popped his head in the door and announced, ‘the clowns are here’.
I had a roommate in college who was a huge John Lennon fan. I was joking with him one day, telling him that Lennon was a no-talent hack who just happened to get into a band with three musical geniuses.
I was in the staff room at an English Language School and they were doing some repairs. A workman walked past carrying a large fence, and everyone went quiet as he made his way through.
I piped up, “we should take a photo and use it as an example of ‘taking offence.’”
Second day of a camping trip with friends of the family, and we were standing around, trying to figure out what to have for dinner.
Faye: “I have chicken breasts.”
My Dad: “We can’t all be perfect.”
Working technical support at Target, I called a store because their WFW training computer was off the network and needed to be rebooted. I asked to speak to the TRL:
Me: Hi, this is me, from Headquarters.
TRL: Headquarters? What is it?
Me: It’s a big building with a lot of computers, but that’s not important right now.
Aw, that’s great!
Once, as a teenager, I was consuming a large amount of alcohol with a new boyfriend. We were both beyond schnockered when he looked at me all pie-eyed and slurred, “Will ya love me forever?” I was forced to reply, “Well lemme sleep on it, baby baby, lemme sleep on it!”
I lived in the flat above a female friend for a while in the early 00s. Fairly attractive gal. We would on occasion go to the laundromat together and do our laundry.
She had a dinner party one night, with about a dozen of us sitting around drinking it up. Out of the blue she asked me “Are you doing a white load tomorrow?”
I said, “I wasn’t planning on it sweetheart, but if you put on something sexy, I might reconsider.”
It reminds me that I have to bite my tongue whenever someone asks, ‘Are you coming?’ Most times, it would be inappropriate to reply, ‘No, I always breathe that way.’
Probably the best straight line I ever got was when I was at a party helping inflate a volleyball, and the girl doing the pumping asked, “Is it getting hard?” Borrowing from Monty Python, I replied, “That’s a rather personal question, isn’t it?”
I had a group of guests staying in a hotel. All kinds of confusion with their bookings, not least of all because they all had the same names I left messages, called etc.
Finally I got through to one of them and at the same time another returned my call on my other line.
The dude I called explained he was the son of the man whose room I had called, and he didn’t know anything about the booking. On the other line was the one who did know what was going on and was explaining. The son explained his grandfather was the one who knew everything and that his grandfather must be here in the hotel room somewhere because he could hear his voice.
I didn’t have Michael the father on the phone, but I had Michael the son and Michael the holy ghost!
In middle school, I was getting ready to do a presentation on black holes to the class for a project. I wanted to start it out by saying “Black holes really suck” but got nixed.
