That thing where you think you're being polite but really it's just a bit mad

One that perhaps only west coast of Scotland types might get. When we first bought a house together one of our Christmas cards from a neighbour arrived addressed to Whisky and Tim. A wee bit of investigation revealed the card sender didn't know DH's name, asked another who said "l don't really know him but he looks like a Tim!"

He is not a Tim (of either variety) though I am; why it should matter, and how you look like one, is beyond me.

On our old road, there was a lovely chap called Ian, who was always tinkering with his car outside the house so I passed him every time I walked anywhere. He had a friend named Alec who was almost always with him. They were both a bit over-chatty and it was always awkward when I was in a hurry, so I developed a strategy of bustling past at thirty miles an hour and trilling "morning Ian! Morning Alec!" at top Jolly Hockey Sticks volume on my way past, beaming like mad, and then I was gone in 2.5 seconds.

After eighteen months I found out Alec's name was Toby

There was no way of concealing my error. I just seamlessly started calling him Toby and moved house

Where did I get 'Alec' from?! Who the heck is called Alec anyway, I've barely met a single one in my life!

So let's get this right Page

You used to pay someone to take you to the wrong part of town (where she thought you lived) whereby you then had to pay to catch a bus to the right part of town?

yes

page you had me in stitches at catching a bus from wrong drop off. Tears started at your badge and a and e story.
I'm now finished after reading you use to pay her

lurking that's fab. You should have started conversing in fluent French as yiu left thanking the lecturer for such an amazing lesson and saying how much you'd learnt

My DH would say the same lurking. But this comes from the man who would chew his way through a very well done steak despite ordering one that is still mooing. He doesn't have a leg to stand on

I am howling at Page.

I know! I'm such an arse! My DH (who never suffers from this affliction and will just speak up when required to) laughed for about a month when I told him and just kept asking "BUT WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST HAVE SAID 'WRONG CLASSROOM' AND LEFT AT THE BEGINNING????" He just couldn't get that it is much better to endure ongoing hideous embarrassment for hours/days/months/years rather than draw attention to yourself for ten seconds, once, and then live an easier life.

So, so British. I'm heartened to learn that I'm not alone.

So let's get this right Page

You used to pay someone to take you to the wrong part of town (where she thought you lived) whereby you then had to pay to catch a bus to the right part of town?

badge well deserved despite the blood

I have two lovely cleaners who come as a pair. Let's call them Mel and Sue. They have worked for me for over two years.

I'm still not confident about which is which, although I can usually work it out if I think really hard about it .

U2hastheedge I get this too - not just from the elderly! I used to work in a shop and was crouched down sorting a shelf and a mum told her kid to 'mind the man'. Bus drivers seem to call me 'mate' a bit too much for my liking, when up here it should be 'pet' or 'love' for a woman..

I didn't actually confess the most embarrassing thing about the whole "lift" debacle...

... I used to give her petrol money

Page

lurking, Quelle embarrassing, n'est-ce pas? , I just can't stop laughing at that. You embody Britishness, you really do.

There are so many posts that I have to go back up and read as I think I might have missed lots of them... I love this thread!

I thought of another one, A year ago or so not long after id had ds, i was sat in my mums house waiting for a parcel to come for her whilst she was at work.

There was a knock at the door, and a young lady stood there asking for Helen (my mum's name), she said they had arranged to meet so i invited her in saying she wouldn't be too much longer, I made her a cuppa she cooed over ds and helped feed him, then she said shed never been to my mums house before so I showed her around, took her in the garden showing her my mums plants she was so proud of then we headed back in. she was actually really lovely to chat to.

about half an hour later my mum comes home with shopping bags and asks me to help her, i go out to the car and tell her her friend is here waiting for her, "what friend", sarah i replied..... "I don't know any Sarah", so she goes in to get to the bottom of it and it turns out the lady had knocked at the wrong house, she wanted the one 3 doors away, my mums newest neighbour - also called Helen, who also had a newish grandson ... Id shown a perfectly nice stranger around my mums house. Luckily she laughed and blamed herself but I was mortified that i could be so stupid!

I was home for the summer after university and waiting for my degree results. I had set myself up reading in the porch in the sun to wait for postie. For some reason he assumed it was my A-level results I was waiting for and started chatting about what my plans were. I was too polite to correct him so told him I was hoping to go to [the place I went] University and study [the subject I studied]! I will always, always go along with an awkward lie rather than embarrass someone..

First meal at future in laws.
MIL is actually a brilliant cook but boyfriend (now husband) that I like curry so to impress me she made a curry for the first time ever.
She made it so hot it numbed the inside of my mouth and tongue within 2 forkfuls but I was so desperate to be polite I are the whole thing while necking water like someone dying of thirst and spent the restnofnthe might in agony on the toilet. We've now been together 19 years and she still thinks I eat the worlds hottest curries! I've never had the heart to tell her that I only really like medium curries.

I shared an office for about 8 years with a woman who was the most terrible 'embroiderer of the truth', she would tell the same story repeatedly to whoever came in. Each time it would become increasingly elaborate (this wasn't just one story, it was pretty much anything she told!)

Her daughter played the cello - first thing in the morning she was in a school concert, by the afternoon she was in the Royal Philarmonic. Her son was in the sea cadets at 9am, by 2.30 he was captain of a warship.

Never once in 8 years did I call her up on her bullshit.

lurking love it! The effort needed to sound like most of the rest of the public!

I've just caught up on these as I was out last night and I've been rolling around laughing

Page I am awarding you a Britishness badge and hats off to Cubes DH for soldiering on working at Pizza Express . Siscaza love hearing what it's like "from the other side" as it were. Poor FB bloke

lurking that is face-hurtingly hilarious!

Years ago I decided to take an evening class in Drawing for Beginners - thought it might be quite a nice thing to do. On the evening of the first class, in I go, take a seat and wait for the teacher to start. He begins by saying "Welcome to Beginner's French for Travel".

I speak fluent French. I have two degrees in French. I lived in France for 10 years. I have worked as an interpreter. I can read classic French books in French. Basically, I can do French. So you'd think the obvious thing to do would be to say at that point "Oops, sorry, wrong classroom - can you point me in the direction of Drawing for Beginners?"

Of course I didn't do any of that, but stayed put for the two-hour class, pretending not to speak French and hesitating over every simple phrase like "Je m'appelle Lurking", complete with deliberate mistakes and a terrible Allo Allo type French accent. By the end of the two hours I was sweating buckets with the stress of NOT speaking French, my fellow classmates thought I was a loon and the teacher actually said something to the effect that he'd have his work cut out with me.

Naturally I never went to the rest of my Drawing for Beginners course either

A few years back my DH and I were having a meal in Portugal at a small family restaurant we'd tried once before and liked. We'd ordered steak but on this occasion it was really tough and I wasn't enjoying it at all but decided to eat the chips etc. because the restaurant owner was so nice and I didn't want to 'upset' him.

Unfortunately he noticed and was so upset that he whisked my plate away to exchange it - but I'd filled up on the chips by then and there was no way I wanted another steak. Sure enough, back came my plate - complete with not just a new steak but the whole meal again. The guy looked close to tears and I felt compelled to try and eat it. But the final straw was when the insane man he decided to run out of the kitchen with a massive fried egg and slap it on top of my steak!

This was the point that I almost started crying. I spent the next hour or more pleading with DH to eat it for me whilst smiling gratefully at the hovering close by lunatic who owned the restaurant.

Still have nightmares about that fried egg.

This is not mine but my sisters story, she has a food allergy and was on holiday in a restaurant trying to speak to the waiter about what she could eat.
He was going back and forth between her and the kitchen and she was getting a bit embarrassed about making him run around.
He eventually said the kitchen have said that squid is ok for you to have so she accepted and assumed he meant calamari rings.

Well, out came the squid and it was indeed 2 massive whole squids on a plate, tentacles and all. She doesn't deal well with food with eyes and 8 legs so naturally thought it would be best to just shove the whole squids in her bag when nobody was looking and tell the waiter they were delicious

She had to throw the bag away because it smelt of squid.

Makes me laugh everything