# Your attempts at witty lines that bombed **URL:** \ **Category:** Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share\ **Created:** [August 22, 2012, 4:24am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250 "2012-08-22T04:24:54Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 3:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/41 "2012-08-25T03:50:34Z")
Showing group of tourists the sites: Me: And that side of the island is uninhabited. Tourist: Why is that? Me: Because nobody lives there. Tourist: I see, and when was this fort built? Checking people off the guest list: Chancer Dude: I’m Alfredo Garcia Assistant: Let me see, Garcia, Garcia \ Me: He’s already here … well, his head is anyway Assistant: ??? ---
**Author:** ![Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/8c91f0/32.png) [@Bam\_Boo\_Gut](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bam_Boo_Gut)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 4:02am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/42 "2012-08-25T04:02:33Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > When I did tech support I would say this pretty often: > > “OK, now type $p$g. That’s dollar sign pee, dollar sign gee. No, pee as in pneumonia, gee, as in gnome.” > > No one EVER got it. But they always typed in the right thing. I have to take peoples names over the phone constantly. Sometimes all I can hear is the “as in as in” bit. They bobble along with their cute little “as in this and as in that.” I want to say well, actually “O” is in box, B is not actually IN box, but on the outside edge of the word. Tell me your name first before you spell it out otherwise you’re Mr. & Mrs. Asin. ---
**Author:** ![Queen\_Tonya](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/q/4491bb/32.png) [@Queen\_Tonya](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Queen_Tonya)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 10:22am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/43 "2012-08-25T10:22:11Z")
My parents were staying at my house, they’d come to town for a birthday party for my great-aunt. As we’re cleaning up after dinner, my mom muses “What do you get for a woman who’s turning 90?” I replied “You don’t get any green bananas, that’s for sure!” My parents were aghast, looking at me like I just disemboweled their puppy or something. Not a complete bomb, though, my boyfriend was in the other room out of sight, covering his face with a couch pillow so they wouldn’t hear him laughing. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 10:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/44 "2012-08-25T10:50:03Z")
> [@phouka](#): > > Long ago tech support job. My neighbor had a habit of walking away from his desk and not locking his machine. After the umpteenth time someone (not me!) had done shit to his computer, he threw a hissy fit. > > “You don’t mess with another tech’s machine! It’s the code!” > > “Well,” says I, in a pirate accent, “the code’s really more guidelines than actual rules.” > > “NO, IT’S A RULE!” > > Someone else three desks away got it, but my neighbor never did. Genius. > [@Taomist](#): > > I was tech support for HP, along with about 100 others in the same call center. It was a VERY big deal to leave your desktop unlocked. So when a friend of mine left his unlocked during break, I snuck over, made a picture of The Tic his background, and scootched all of his icons off the screen. He was a very funny guy, and loved the Tic, and I figured it would take him exactly 3 seconds to figure it out. > > Apparantly it took a whole room full of techs, and even higher-up tech support, to figure out how to get his computer back to normal. I would apparantly have been in huge trouble if anyone’d figured it out. Needless to say, I did not step forward when questioning began, lol. Reminds me of something. I must have dropped some pretty big bombs in my time but will need hypnotic regression to remember them. However, once when I was at school in an IT lesson I “realized” you could send messaged to people standing by the printers by typing something and hitting print. I saw a female friend over there so for some reason I wrote “SLAG” in big letters and sent it. Honestly I’m not sure why I thought she’d find it funny at the time, but because of the print queue she never saw it anyway. The female teacher covering that lesson did, however, find it and took it personally. So there was a lot of questioning about who did it, and of course it was actually possible to see which account had been used to print that particular gem. So I was accused and questioned, but had already worked out that teachers were quite powerless if you denied everything. ---
**Author:** ![Spice\_Weasel](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/spice_weasel/32/5435_2.png) [@Spice\_Weasel](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Spice_Weasel)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 12:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/45 "2012-08-25T12:59:51Z")
> [@tdn](#): > > I’ve had the opposite of this happen. > > One night I came home from work to find out that my stove didn’t work and I had no hot water. After fiddling with things a bit I determined that my service was out. To find out if it was just me or if it was the whole neighborhood, I went downstairs and knocked on my neighbor’s door. > > When she answered, I matter of factly asked “Do you have gas?” > > The mortified look on her face was priceless. At my new job I was planning a trip to a local convent/retirement home and one of my coworkers was explaining to me what a beautiful building it was. She described what she considered its most unique attribute (and I still don’t totally get this) but somehow the bathroom was a part of the wall. Enter my boss, who was coming with me. As me and my boss stepped out the door, my boss mentioned he had been there once before. With complete earnestness, my coworker asked, “Did you go to the bathroom on the wall?” ---
**Author:** ![Hampshire](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/hampshire/32/4887_2.png) [@Hampshire](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Hampshire)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 3:59pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/46 "2012-08-25T15:59:08Z")
You’d think I’d learn after the same line has bombed several times, nonetheless I can’t resist using it since in my own juvenile mind I think it’s a gem. Every time I’m in a Kohls department store with someone I point to the men’s Sonoma line of clothes and say “I hear they also make a womens line… Sonoma Bitch” Never once did I get a single ‘ha’. ---
**Author:** ![Bozuit](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/edb3f5/32.png) [@Bozuit](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Bozuit)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 10:06pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/47 "2012-08-25T22:06:18Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > Every time I’m in a Kohls department store with someone I point to the men’s Sonoma line of clothes and say “I hear they also make a womens line… Sonoma Bitch” Ha. ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 25, 2012, 10:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/48 "2012-08-25T22:57:38Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > You’d think I’d learn after the same line has bombed several times, nonetheless I can’t resist using it since in my own juvenile mind I think it’s a gem. > Every time I’m in a Kohls department store with someone I point to the men’s Sonoma line of clothes and say “I hear they also make a womens line… Sonoma Bitch” > > Never once did I get a single ‘ha’. I couldn’t figure out the joke, then realized that it only works when written and not when spoken, due to how “Sonoma” is pronounced typically. :smack: ---
**Author:** ![Scribble](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/scribble/32/3317_2.png) [@Scribble](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Scribble)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 12:42am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/49 "2012-08-26T00:42:13Z")
> [@Ferret\_Herder](#): > > I couldn’t figure out the joke, then realized that it only works when written and not when spoken, due to how “Sonoma” is pronounced typically. :smack: Yeah–maybe I’m dense, but I’m still not getting it. Maybe it’s a regional thing. How do you pronounce the word “Sonoma”? ---
**Author:** ![Ferret\_Herder](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/f/e47774/32.png) [@Ferret\_Herder](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Ferret_Herder)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 12:47am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/50 "2012-08-26T00:47:24Z")
> [@Scribble](#): > > Yeah–maybe I’m dense, but I’m still not getting it. > > Maybe it’s a regional thing. How do you pronounce the word “Sonoma”? My guess was that he pronounces it more like “Sunuma” so the joke is that it kind of sounds like “son of a bitch.” In comparison, I have always heard it pronounced with two long “o” sounds (like in the word “no”). ---
**Author:** ![Dendarii\_Dame](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/bbce88/32.png) [@Dendarii\_Dame](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dendarii_Dame)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 7:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/51 "2012-08-26T19:00:15Z")
I was talking to a teacher who was the advisor of the Model U.N. Club at her high school. Her students were going to represent the Soviet Union. (This was in the 80’s.) I joked, “Well, don’t let them bang their shoes on the table.” She didn’t have the faintest idea what I was talking about. (Khruschev, a former Soviet leader, was famous for losing his temper during a speech at the U.N. and doing that.) ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 26, 2012, 10:33pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/52 "2012-08-26T22:33:45Z")
Someone brought doughnuts to my class one day. A very religious guy in my class said he didn’t want any doughnuts. A girl in my class asked him if he didn’t want any because of a religious reason, and he said no. I said, “But doughnuts _are_ religious. They’re holey.” The religious guy didn’t laugh at my comment. Well, at least the girl thought it was funny. ---
**Author:** ![AWB](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/bb73d2/32.png) [@AWB](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AWB)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 4:27am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/53 "2012-08-27T04:27:20Z")
The worst one I can think of is when “Polack” jokes were popular in the 1970s. I told one on a camping trip, not knowing that the wife of one of my parents’ friends was of Polish descent. Forty years later, I still feel like a complete ass about it. ---
**Author:** ![Dickerman](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/d/8baadc/32.png) [@Dickerman](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Dickerman)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 6:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/54 "2012-08-27T06:53:44Z")
> [@Hampshire](#): > > You’d think I’d learn after the same line has bombed several times, nonetheless I can’t resist using it since in my own juvenile mind I think it’s a gem. Same here. Whenever I’m checking out at a store and the cashier asks if I have a penny or two or three to make things easier change-wise, I respond by shaking my head and replying with some variation of “I haven’t any cents”, in an utterly deadpan manner. One of these days, someone will at least give a smirk. ---
**Author:** ![AaronX](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/7bcc69/32.png) [@AaronX](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/AaronX)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 3:01pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/55 "2012-08-27T15:01:21Z")
I heard this song on the radio the other day. I think the singer’s name was Crazy, but she wanted people to call her Maybe? ---
**Author:** ![EmilyG](https://sea3.discourse-cdn.com/straightdope/user_avatar/boards.straightdope.com/emilyg/32/364_2.png) [@EmilyG](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/EmilyG)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 5:05pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/56 "2012-08-27T17:05:54Z")
> [@aaronx](#): > > i heard this song on the radio the other day. I think the singer’s name was crazy, but she wanted people to call her maybe? … 🙂 (I actually find that pretty funny.) ---
**Author:** ![Any\_Other\_Name](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/a/f17d59/32.png) [@Any\_Other\_Name](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Any_Other_Name)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 7:37pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/57 "2012-08-27T19:37:14Z")
Had a problem with my [amazon.com](http://amazon.com) account one time, I got customer service on the phone, the young woman helping me explained that she would reset my password to “12345”. So I said, “I have the same combination on my briefcase”. She said “You do?” ---
**Author:** ![Wargamer](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/w/df705f/32.png) [@Wargamer](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Wargamer)\ **Post date:** [August 27, 2012, 8:34pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/58 "2012-08-27T20:34:58Z")
Two co-workers who were marries to each other and I were in the snack room one day discussing an upcoming basketball game between UNC and Duke (bitter rivals). I’m a UNC grad and he was a Duke fan. Assuming she would be a Duke fan also, I made some comment about whether she would be pulling for Duke, and she said no, that she went to UNC as well. So, feeling witty, I said, ‘Ah so you two are in a mixed marriage then?’ About two seconds before it registered on me that in fact, he was black and she was white. Fortunately, they were more amused at my faux pas than offended. ---
**Author:** ![MyMack\_1](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/9fc29f/32.png) [@MyMack\_1](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/MyMack_1)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 3:53am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/59 "2012-08-28T03:53:22Z")
> [@Any\_Other\_Name](#): > > Had a problem with my [amazon.com](http://amazon.com) account one time, I got customer service on the phone, the young woman helping me explained that she would reset my password to “12345”. > > So I said, “I have the same combination on my briefcase”. > > She said “You do?” I don’t get it. It flew right over my head and just kept on sailing. Ha Ha sorry but it is Midnight. Maybe I’ll get in the morning! 😛 ---
**Author:** ![Mosier](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/m/7ea924/32.png) [@Mosier](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Mosier)\ **Post date:** [August 28, 2012, 3:58am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250/60 "2012-08-28T03:58:59Z")
Him: Are you ready for your class? Got your pencils sharpened? Her: Nope, I bought pens. Me: Wow, you must be really confident. (zing!) Everyone: (confused, awkward silence) Me: Y’know, 'cuz of the pen thing. (silence) Me: 'cuz you can’t erase 'em…c’mon, really? Her: That was really bad. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/your-attempts-at-witty-lines-that-bombed/632250.md?page=4)