Saying the wrong thing!

[paddykafka]

Many years ago, the sister of my then girl-friend went inter-railing around Europe with her boy-friend. I can't remember which country it was in, but while trying to jump onto a departing train - for which they had arrived very late - she mistimed her leap and, most unfortunately, went under the wheels instead.

Thankfully she wasn't killed, but the poor girl was terribly injured, losing most of the toes on her feet as a result.

When my girl-friend related this story to me, I said: "God, that's awful. Of all the most stupid ways to be hurt. She must have been kicking herself afterwards."

[grthink]

I'm always saying stupid things, mostly becasue my sense of homour is kinda divergent from other people's. Like, me and my wife were bickering while paying at a supermarket and she said 'If you carry on like this I'm leaving you', which is apparently an OK thing to say. My reply of 'I am going to pay to have you killed' was not, even though I DIDN'T REALLY MEAN IT.

As for the question about giving up your seat on the train -- I commute on the tube everyday. For the first year or so I used to anguish about the different situations in which it's OK to give up your seat. But in the end I gave up the anguish for 'If they look like they need a seat, offer it'. That stands for whether they're a little way away, there's other people nearer, I'm not sure if they're preggers or not* and so on. Just offer: if they refuse then that's up to them, but I've done the right thing. I'm a grown man -- I can stand if I have to.

[judda fett]

A few years ago in the cinema an attractive lady with big hair sat in the seat in front of me slightly obscuring my view of the screen. I tapped her on the shoulder and innocently asked if she wouldn't mind "slipping down a few inches".

[opaque]

Is that the wrong thing because you were with your wife/gf at the time?

[TordelBack]

I've trotted this one out here before, but I have a very dull past so forgive me...

I was living Way Out West for a few years doing unpaid research and was stony broke, and had to get to Dublin most weeks for a postgrad seminar (and more urgently to canoodle with my GF before the sheep started looking too good).  This generally meant the day-long process of hitching, but one week a decent old fellow who I had become friendly with offered me a lift most of the way there.  Only issue was that he had a business association meeting to go to on the way.  Not a prob, sez I. 

When we arrived, he said I could wait, or I was welcome to come in and avail of free coffee and sandwiches,and I might find it interesting anyway.  Naturally I trotted hungrily after him. It was in a standard midlands hotel function room, and there was a sign-in book on a low chair outside.  Everyone ahead of us went down on one knee to sign it.  'This is like the bloody Masons!', I quipped. 

It was the bloody Masons.

[Hoagy]

I'm a virtuoso ill apropos verboso. But my zenith has to be when working in Cosgrove studios as a cleaner, where they animate Postman Pat. Gray the Puppetmaker worked there for a while too. Or he consults. Anyway he's vacates this place every so often.

I'd been there ooh one week, I think. And one of the animators got to chatting with me as I showed an interest in the set design for one of the house interiors. Saying how amazing dollhouse hobbyists could actually make a living, something like that and that's when he says;

" Yeah, but those curtains are a bit shit don't you think?"

To which I shrugged. And moved on with my Henry.

I later clean up the textile design room having no knowledge that here was the creator of the curtains in question.
She politely asks how my first week was going and I conversationally told her of my conversations, then joked that the curtains were a bit shit on one of the sets.
Well the air turned blue and a sea change happened. Her face becomes stony as she informs me she has never been spoken to like that in all her days. Like I was criticising her work and especially with way above my pay-grade comments. I learnt my position right there and then. I didn't stay more than a few months, the atmosphere was atrocious. I dreaded cleaning her room up every day after that. I tried sucking up with getting her cups of tea or could I do anything to reconcile my out of order remarks but was met only with gumption.

She was old school and my encounters with this breed are never success building.

[Patrick]

A friend of mine (and I'm sure he won't mind telling this story as he tells it himself all the time), when he was a student, did a project of some sort with a fellow student of the ladyperson persuasion (who he insists he had no romantic feelings towards whatsoever). After it was over he made her a meal. Main course goes very well. As he's clearing away the plates, what he meant to do was suggest they leave it a little while before he served dessert. A break between courses. What he actually said was "would you like to take an intercourse break?"

[Spikes]

Did it work?

[Patrick]

Given that he insists he had no romantic feelings towards her, it worked perfectly. Apparently the laughter susbsided and enough for her to regain the power of speech some time later.

[Definitely Not Mister Pops]

It would have worked on me, but I am a fierce slag