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I was not expecting that. What have I done now.


Lion_of_the_Midlands

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So I went to the funeral of a friend of mine last week. It wasn't a sad occasion he had been an ill for a while with cancer, and it was the 2nd time he had it. 

Anyway, I went to the funeral and all the way through it was a pretty standard funeral. Hymns, readings, eulogy all the usual things, but right at the end there was a massive curveball. 

He had decided to have a cardboard coffin, and I've no problem with that at all, it makes sense. What I was not expecting was just before the end of the service the vicar says "It was the deceased's wish that everyone who came today to his funeral should sign the coffin and write him a little message" 

At this point as you can imagine there was quite a murmuring of shock from the mourners, but the vicar starts to pass out marker pens to the front row of the church and we all line up, waiting our turn to write something.

Now I wish that I had written something funny or profound, I really do, but I didn't. I'm stood in line and my mind is blank, not from grief, just from the sheer oddness of the situation. Panic is starting to set in now, I can feel my heart starting to beat faster. My mind is blank. The next thing I know I'm giving the pen to my friend who had gone to the funeral with me and I'm heading back to my seat. I've obviously written something but at this point I couldn't tell you what. 

I sit down and I can see my friend Nick walking towards me and he is trying not to laugh. He sits down next to me and says "Why did you write that?" Through a stiffled laugh. It turns out that what I had written was

"Best wishes for the future"

In quite large letters, and signed my name underneath like he had got a new job. Everyone was looking as they carried the coffin out to see what other people had written, except me and Nick who were trying not to laugh at what I had done. 

 

So feel free to share any moment where your brain has just done exactly the wrong thing in a moment of panic, or don't and just laugh at my stupidity

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A load of blokes I used to work with went on a lad's holiday to Spain, taking one of our colleagues who was a bit... thick. The day they flew back was right after Diana died, and the nation was still in Griefamania. There were condolence books at the airport for people to sign, and after he'd gone up first, the rest of them signed their messages, and saw what he'd put, which had been written completely without irony.

"Get well soon."

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It's not exactly what's been asked for here, but an unfortunate use of language none the less.

A few days after the 7/7 bombings, with racial tensions in the country at a volatile high I was walking along when a car pulled up alongside me - inside were a muslim couple (and their kids) asking for directions.

They'd just missed a turning, so in order to get to where they wanted to be, they simply had to perform a u-turn and travel another 50 yards.

To this day i'm baffled as to why I chose, under those circumstances, to articulate that instruction as "For a start mate, you need to turn around an go back where you came from"

Not helped of course by the fact that much like many beta-males, with a voice lacking in any authoritative tone, I adopt your typical Phil Mitchell-esque persona when put in a position of responsibility like that in order to offer a greater degree of credibility and reassurance.

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Similar to John Matrix's unfortunate use of language after a terror event, a kid at my daughters school got into trouble. My Mrs and my daughter were both ath the Ariianna Grande concert at the arena in Manchester, and if it wasn't for the fact my daughter had forgotten a bag(so had to go back to her seat) would most probably have been stood right next to the cunt when he blew himself up(proper sliding doors stuff).

Now, as you could imagine it really effected the daughter(baing12ish at the time) and was prestty shook up. At school, they had a meeting with the other kids in her friendship group to discuss what they could do to help her throuhgh things. Well, this lad suddenly pipes up with, "we could have a whip around and buy her something, I see Arianna Grande has a new Bomber Jacket on her web site. It was totally innocent, but his teacher didn't see it that way and he was put into isolation and his parents called for a meeteing. We had to go into school and fight his corner for him as they were talking about excluding him for ate speech or something like that.

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While I wasn't directly responsible, I had to field the complaint call. I can't remember if I told this story before on here...

I used to work for a company that sold bedding plants mail order, and at Christmas would sell bouquets of flowers for delivery by Christmas, and allowed for a personalised message to be included. Christmas was one of the busiest periods, so involved a lot of temps in the call centre, and inputting mail orders, with next to no interview/vetting process, so you got some utterly useless types and some complete wrong 'uns.

It was also an extremely busy time, with a huge workload, and an emphasis on getting work turned over quickly to get orders shipped on time, so for as many actual idiots as there were, there were perfectly competent people making genuine mistakes, and small typos.

One such - I can only assume - genuine typo was brought to my attention two days after Christmas, when a complaint came in and reached me in my capacity as de facto customer service supervisor, being the most senior person in the office at the time. Their recently widowed aunt had received a bouquet of flowers, on which the message was supposed to read "have a lovely Christmas".

It didn't say that.

Instead, the recent widow, living alone, on Christmas Eve, received a bouquet of flowers, with a card giving no indication of sender, reading simply, "Have a lonely Christmas".

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My ex, when pregnant with our first, in total “baby brain mode” as they call it, once was getting frustrated with not being able to find something in Boots. She screamed out “God, am I blind or something?” completely oblivious to the actual blind person with a cane sat down collecting for charity right next to her who meekly replied: “No, but I am”.

Ive never laughed so much at anything in my life. A once in a lifetime situation. 

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A few years ago my brother moved down to Surrey/Godalming for a job. His now wife had to stay up in Sunderland due to her job at the time, but it was a short term plan and they planned to move in together after 3 months.

Anyway, due to this, he couldn’t afford to live on his own, so he searched for a while and moved in with a couple who were subletting a room in their rented house. (We’ll call them Mike & Sue).

He has stated a few times that they were pleasant enough, but always stayed in and monopolised the living room. They weren’t that interested in chatting either so after assuming that they weren’t interested in being sociable with him, my brother either stayed in his room or went out with new work pals.

However, after a couple of months of this being the norm, he was caught off guard when they invited him by text, to the pub. His wife was visiting and he thought they might as well, as it was a canny gesture after two months of solitude.

So they went out and things were going alright. All 4 were having a reasonable enough time but then my brother receives a text from a work mate.

Work mate: “A few of us are heading out now, are you coming?”

Brother: “I can’t mate, I’m stuck in the pub with my bellend house mates Mike & Sue. I’m bored as fuck.”

After pressing send, my brothers guts dropped, he felt as sick as a dog and fear covered his face. 

It was at the point Mikes phone beeped to let him know he had received a message. Yup, my brother had sent the message to Mike ‘the boring bellend’ and not his work mate.

So he did what any reasonable, logical, sane person would do. He stood up chucked his pint on the floor and screamed “AARRRRGGGGGHHHH, AARRGGHHHH” at the top of his voice causing everyone in the pub to stop dead and stare, as he ran off as fast as he could down the road, still screaming. 

You see, his immediate logic was to cause a distraction and plead insanity. Yup.

10 mins later, whilst walking down an unfamiliar road he looks at his phone and sees around 10 missed calls and several texts from his wife saying, “WHAT THE FUCK? ARE YOU OK?” who was still sat with the couple. She had no idea about the text message, or why he had lost the plot.

He phones her and explained what had happened and agreed to meet back at the house.

When he got home he told the couple that the message was meant as a joke and that the outburst was due to his ‘ongoing problems’.

He moved out 2 weeks later.

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I used to work in an open plan office and opposite me over the divider was a middle aged woman named Lisa. We used to crack a few jokes here and there and got on really well. 

One day she was eating her lunch and said “this sandwich is a bit dry” 

Now try and imagine a worst reply then what trickled out of my mouth. I feel sick just thinking about it. I have no idea what made my brain think it, let alone say it.

I replied.... “You’re a bit dry”

What the fuck? Straight away I knew that she would think I was talking about her bajingo. It happened in slow motion. I immediately went beetroot and just wanted to have a heart attack and die there and then. Without a doubt the most awkward moment of my life. 

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In the early 90’s me and my brother were messing about while walking to the local shops. After my mum had told us to stop messing around over and over she snapped and shouted at us Stop Bloody Fighting! At that moment a man turned around who was a few feet away from us and it was the original Dark Destroyer, Nigel Benn. She apologised profusely and explained who she was aiming it at and he saw the funny side.

 

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a few years ago, at work, the entire office were taking part in the two minutes silence for Armistice day - we were around half way through when a colleague walked in, and in response to the solemn silence he was greeted with, said, and I quote "bloody hell, has someone died?"

 

I'm not entirely sure, to this day, how I maintained the silence for the rest of the period without cracking up.

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I don't have a standalone decent anecdote but I've got an unfortunate habit of mouth bypassing brain and trying to express compassion with the phrase "I know exactly how you feel" when I couldn't possibly know how they feel. Wife having affair with the milkman? Sleepless night because Brexit is affecting your ability to get cheap staff in? Hamster off his food? I know exactly how you feel.

"Everything OK Emma?"

"Not really, raid. Terrible period pains today."

"I know  exactly how you feel."

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