Your worst faux pas

[AtChoService]

Reading a coronation menu just reminded me of this, it was 20 years ago and I still cringe 😬

I was in my first proper job, first posh Christmas party and the food had servers but you had to go up to the table, get a plate and go along the line.

The starter had a few options, ham, melon, compote stuff, a few other things.

I moved along the line and stopped and held mh plate out at each server, thinking this doesn't ago, this is a bit odd, got an odd look but thought nothing of it at the time, 🙈 you weren't supposed to take a portion of everything, you were supposed to choose melon OR the other thing, not all of it 🥴

I doubt anyone but the servers noticed but I still cringe a bit now.

In a group of people I used to work with, I had one who I got on well with, jokey relationship. Let's call him Nigel.

One day early on in knowing each other we all started sharing more personal info. Nigel had a daughter.

'Oh, what's her name?'

'Nigella.'

'Ha ha, good one.'

'What?'

'Well only an absolute KNOB, I mean a complete BELLEND, would name his only child after himself. Especially as she's the other sex.'

Of course, her name was Nigella and I'd just ripped him about it in front of everyone. I was mortified!

I went with then girlfriend to collect her fairly new car after a warranty repair. The service manager said that it was in the yard and the keys were in it. GF asked me to get it while she sorted the paperwork out. I was just about to drive it round to pick her up when she came running over to tel me that it was not her car. This was a surprise to me as I had driven it several times. It turned out that there were two identical cars in the yard; same make, model, colour and almost the same registration number, (ABC306N and ABC316N).

Actual tears and belly laughing and snorting at this! Thanks OMAA.

Reminds me a bit of an anecdote told to me by an acquaintance.

Her (quite elderly) father had severe diabetes and following complications had to have both legs amputated.

He was on a phone call to a medical practitioner about something else and they were doing some basic health checks, asking about his diet, weight, etc. The person then asked him, "and what height are you?"
His reply was along the lines of "Now, or before I lost my legs?"

A mum at school I vaguely knew split up with the dad of her child. A couple of years later she met someone new and got pregnant with twins and saw it on Facebook. At parents evening I saw her and her fella and went up to him and went "congratulations twins hey!" Obviously it was the ex. I had to sit next to them for the next 15 minutes as we waited to see the teacher. Not one word was spoken.

I was a local councillor and one of our group died. A much loved colleague by all parties. Someone asked me outside the crem how I was - my reply - alive and kicking thanks, and I blithely moved on. Just didn’t realise I until a friend pointed it out. In my defence, I’m autistic.

Forgive my (innocently ignorant) terminology but you get my drift…
All of my Dad’s side of the family are religious (Dad isn’t but the rest are)…catholic to be exact. My mums side aren’t
and they are now separated. I’m not christened or anything and other than weddings and funerals, don’t go to church. A few years ago I attended a cousins christening and all of the family got up to take holy communion - my dad told me to go with them and the priest would bless me instead…everyone lined up against the wall and the Priest brought the bread and wine around…he took my hand and said something to which I replied ‘pleased to meet you too!’…it was only when everyone started laughing that he repeated himself louder and said ‘although I am pleased to meet you, I actually said PEACE BE WITH YOU’.
I WANTED THE GROUND TO SWALLOW ME UP

In Spain I ordered some sort of prawn dish and ate them all with the shells on. I didn’t know that’s what the small side plate was for. I felt like an absolute dickhead when the waiter asked where the shells were

I bet you are glad you never worked for Bob Bastards used cars in Norwich

@GrimDamnFanjo OMG 😆

My mother is queen of the faux pas

Mis-hearing someone saying they were competing with their dog in ‘Scruffs’ (it was obviously Crufts)

Assuming someone was having surgery on their face to remove the big ugly mole on their nose (no the surgery was for something else)

Taking a hair off someone’s face when it was actually attached to their cheek (still cringing)

I’ll think of some more howlers.

You WIN. That is hilarious 🤣

I asked for one pint at the pub and helpful used a hand gesture to emphasize I wanted one drink. The hand gesture I chose was my middle finger

This reminds me of the time I was struggling to open my little hatchback boot to load with a supermarket shop.

A voice called out: " I think you'll find that's my car if you don't mind!"
The real owner was just behind me.
My own car? miles away at the other end of the vast car park 🤭

I cried laughing at this and a few of the other posts. After a stressful day, it was much needed so thank you. I'm still chuckling away.

I was at a concert ten years ago and the support act was a female singer who’d had a huge hit in the early 80s. I was talking to the woman next to me and said how good it was to see the younger people in the crowd singing along to her as well as us older ones, implying that she was around the same age as me (I was sure that she was). I was 42 at the time. As we talked some more during the break between the support and the band we’d come to see she mentioned that she was 23.

Another more recent one, our neighbour’s son and his girlfriend were visiting his parents with their newborn baby. I was convinced that my husband had said they’d had a boy. They were getting out of the car with the baby as I was leaving our house so I went over to congratulate them and was telling them what a handsome boy he was and how wonderful little boys are and they stood there listening to me.
I found out a week or two later that it was a girl.

Keeping with the royal theme.

Many years ago I worked for a body whose Honorary President was the Duke of Edinburgh. During my time there I had to organise a couple of small formal dinners with the DfE and prestigious members of our body. This entailed meticulous planning of who should sit next to who, what the DfE ate and what he didn't, what was appropriate to discuss and what wasn't and most important was the formal photographs so he could brag to all his friends.

When I was organising one of the dinners for a reason I still cannot fathom to this day, I invited someone who wasn't on the guest list. My boss was furious as this person wasn't prestigious enough to be at this formal dinner. Of course the wrongly invited person immediately accepted as he couldn't believe his luck.

For years I had to suffer looking at a large framed formal photo of the dinner in our office and each time I cringed when I saw the wrongly invited guest smiling like a grinning cat!

Wait what?

My husband and I work for the same organisation in different client facing roles. There's one colleague we both have to work with who is pretty useless, we pass leads and have to keep checking in to make sure they've been followed up. My husband did a check in with said colleague enquiring as to where things were with client. Colleague made lots of crap excuses but basically had done sweet f.a. Which is frustrating and makes us look bad. Husband thought he'd hung the call up and then shouts along the passage to me along the lines of 'what a useless fucking arsehole' colleague is. You've guessed it, colleague heard every word and sent hubby an email telling him how upset he was, thought we were friends etc. No choice but to apologise profusely and own the faux pas, blaming stress for the outburst. I was only glad I hadn't replied and agreed

🤣🤣🤣

Yes, my son and I have often had people remark on our family resemblance even though we're not biologically related. It's amazing how much our facial expressions, which we unconsciously learn from those around us, account for our appearance.

I once slagged off someone at work who I couldn't stand. I later found out that the person I'd been slagging them off to was in fact their spouse. I'd had no idea that they were married!

At work I showed a partially sighted meeting attendee to the toilet. They got to the door of the male toilets, pressed their face up to the sign and asked me "is this the men's toilets? why have you shown me to the men's toilets?". It was then I noticed the lipstick, woman's clothes and jewellery. They were trans! I felt awful, and made up some excuse that I kept forgetting which toilets were which.

Worst of it was, it was a meeting about equalities and gender discrimination.

I was walking to work in the pouring rain in my early 20s. A car stopped nearby and gestured at me to get in, so I did. Except they hadn't meant for me to get in at all, they were just waving at a friend.

It was a mum and daughter, and daughter looked at her mum with a "WTF" look on her face, and the mum was so lovely she pretended this was totally normal!

They dropped me off in the center.

It was in a small town and I had not long moved from abroad and had generally had the impression people were quite friendly. But what possessed me to think a stranger would just stop to give me a lift having no idea where I wanted to go anyway!

It honestly makes me cringe so much I've never told a soul, it makes me feel sick remembering!

There's a dandelion on my front lawn, and a passer by saw it and remarked on it, so embarrassing