What's the most ridiculous thing anyone has said to you?

[chimamandafan]

I occasionally volunteer at a local community centre. It's managed by a woman who tells anyone who cares to listen that she has a medical condition that means she can't eat. She looks well-nourished but I've always been too polite to ask her questions about her condition.

I volunteered at an afternoon event today. I get the seniors to their seats and make pots of tea. Cake was served. The woman who never eats was standing there eating cake.

'Look at you, eating cake! Are you better?' I said. 'Oh,' she said, 'you know me, you know I can't eat because of my medical condition.' 'But you're eating...' She walked off and is apparently really pissed off with me. Apparently I'm rude.

There are some real weirdos around, aren't there?

I was on the bus , wearing a headscarf and a man was getting off. A real riff raff. I think he was drunk too.
He turned to me just as he was about get off and said I know you're Muslim but I have heard you like pork sausages in you. And he said it in such a sleazy manner in front of my children.

Another lady I used to attend church with, I saw her on the bus after I reverted to Islam. I said hiya, wow so nice to see you, haven't seen you in ages. She said I didn't even recognise you with THAT THING On your head. Again, said in front of my children.

At the barbers having my sons hair cut. He was about 7 or 8. And a woman turned to me and said You look like the Taliban with that scarf on.

I'm used to it now, I have been a revert Muslim for years now, and I suppose I do stand out as a white Muslim, but I am very happy and don't bother anyone. A lot of these people are small minded and prejudice and judge by what they see on the news etc. I get used to the stared and nudges, asked if I am bloody stupid Isis, or if I want to dress like a Pakistani . And does my husband force me to wear that!
I just say first of all isis are evil and kill Muslims too, Pakistani people are not the only Muslim people in the word and then for a laugh I say yes, but my husband did superglue this hijab onto me this morning!

We moved into our delightful little social housing bungalow in a little village on a street with 48 properties (24 bungalows along the one side and 24 3-bed semis on the opposite side.) It was built as a private estate about 45 years ago and the company went under when it was about 80% of the way through and the local authority took over. So yeah, we've got basically what should have been private houses as social housing... Around half have bought on right to buy over the years.

Then there's three large detached bungalows built up on a bit of land at the top of the road - 3 and 4 bed ones. Probably cost 3X more than ours as they're 3X bigger, and they have bigger gardens etc. We moved into a bungalow at the end of the road, and our garden is separated from the garden of one of the big £500,000 bungalows.

A few days after moving in, we got a lady (from one of the half million £ bungalows,) come over with a smile and a soft voice, coming to us and asking if it would be OK if she could come and paint the other side of her fence that faced into our side garden... (about 30 yards from our bungalow.) We said 'yes absolutely.'

We spoke quite a few times when she came out of the side door to walk down the road, (over a few months,) and she seemed quite pleasant. After 3-4 months, she asked us if we wanted to buy part of her land ... 1/4 of an acre ... she said 'that will make your garden nice and big!'

I said 'I would love to but this is actually owned by the council, so we wouldn't be allowed to buy the land.'

She looked absolutely crestfallen and then shocked, and said 'I can't believe it. You rent it. You're a council person? I thought you'd bought it!' 'No, no,' I said, 'we rent it. It's long term social housing and we will be in a very long time because we absolutely love it..' She frowned and said ... 'But you don't SEEM like you are a council person.... I mean you don't look or act like them.' I was gobsmacked.

She had been there a year apparently, and she literally looked devastated that she was living next to 'council renters...' All of a sudden she seemed to walk out of the front door and not the side to get out of the property, to avoid us, and didn't make eye contact with us anymore. I was actually so upset and hurt.

She realised she had bought a half a million pound bungalow at the end of 48 'social housing' homes. (Obviously around half were sold off on right to buy, but she didn't realise it at the time... even so they were previously social housing - so probably still not good enough for her ladyship!😆) She thought they were just all private! Oh dear what a shame living next to council scuzz like me!

She did sell up about a year later and move - because I think she realised how many people are 'renters.' Also she made a tit of herself!!! Funnily enough, all the 'renters' in the road keep lovely homes and lovely gardens and are all really respectful to the people that buy and yes, even the people with half a million pound bungalows!!!

But yeah 'you don't look or act like council house renters' is right up there with one of the most ridiculous things anyone has ever said to me!

I had a similar thing once at work - was I sure we weren’t the CoOp bed department? (Showing my age there…) I said I was absolutely sure, we’re a printing company… she very huffily replied “Well this is the number they gave me!” So it couldn’t possibly be that they gave you the wrong number, or you noted it down wrong or misheard, noooo - I must have completely missed the dozens of beds surrounding me!

My elder brother and sister (not twins) were in the same school year - that would have really blown their brain!

I reported them, we had to have another appointment with them, they clearly knew we had reported them bur couldn’t say anything. That was fairly satisfying.

I was once looking at the ducks in a pond with my DD and there was one swimming around with a few ducklings. A man and a woman were also looking when she suddenly reaches into the water and lifts out one of the tiny ducklings - with mum duck furiously quacking. I confronted her with a “what on earth are you doing that for, how would you feel if someone suddenly grabbed your child” and she just looks at me and shouts “it’s only a F…duck!” Words failed me…

I have a friend who tells everyone she'll be hospitalised if she eats anything other than sausage rolls or tuna in brine.

Another pub quiz one, the answer was read out as King Edward the eleventh which was odd as we all had Edward the second (II) !

Name the three Scottish football teans with Thistle in their name. After much puzzlement in the interval I went up to the delighful 80+ year old who ran the quiz and said You do realise that Inverness Caledonian Thistle is one team, don't you? He amended his question to two teams after the interval!

bil insisted that me and DH had 2 staircases in our previous house.

BIL: You had 2 staircases when you lived in xxx of course.
DH: No, only the one.
BIL: No, no, I'm sure you had 2.
DH: FGS, we lived there 8 years, I know how many bloody staircases we had!
BIL: Hmmm, well, you might be right

Family meal at my parents house a week after my FIL had dropped dead aged 54.

My Dad ‘Isn’t life wonderful’

I think I and my wife were too gobsmacked to say anything.

“Who is our prime minister?. Is it it Donald Trump?”

Woman next to me in the hairdressers.

Hope you told them It's Not Unusual !

Oh, bravo, madam, bravo!

Years ago, my friend had her birthday meal in this Chinese place where you played a flat rate and could order anything on the menu - basically an All You Can Eat, but not buffet style. One of her friends looked at the menu doubtfully and said “It can’t be everything on the menu” (even though that’s exactly what it said at the top of said menu) and “This chicken dish here - that alone would cost more than this price”.

I said “Yes, but it’s a promotion isn’t it? They’d be half empty on a Wednesday night otherwise.” She carried on “But how can they make money? That chicken alone…” I said, “Yes I know, but if they don’t sell any full price chicken, they don’t make any money. This way they get people in and spending - anyway, there’s a huge mark-up on these things, and most people won’t order loads of high price dishes anyway. We’ve got two vegetarians here; all our dishes will be cheap, it evens out.”

I thought that was that and we all got on with choosing what we wanted. Everyone was happily debating between chow mein and peanut satay when suddenly we heard a sigh and “I just don’t understand this. How can they do it? How are they not losing loads of money?” We all tried to explain the principle again, but still she sat there looking like a stunned mullet.

At this point the waiter came over to take our order and before any of us could say anything, she jumped in and said “Can I just ask - is it REALLY everything on the menu?! Really?! Even this chicken?”

She very nearly got a spring roll up each nostril 😬

A very dear friend was celebrating his 50th by visiting his mother across the Atlantic but she was puzzled, Why are you celebrating your birthday on the 19th, you were born on the 17th! He then discovered, 50 years on, that when they registered his birth on the 19th that date had inadvertantly been entered as his date of birth and they hadn't bothered to get it corrected!

A friend insisted she hadn't been invited to my wedding, many years before. I knew she was in one of the official photos so I got my wedding album, found the right photo & showed her the picture of my wedding with her, her DH & her DC in it.

She looked at it, thought about it for a while & then said, "How can you have a picture of me at your wedding, when I was never there?".

😂

Love this! Agree with you though it’s ridiculous

I may be able to explain the woman who doesn't eat yet looks well nourished.

I have a condition where I can't eat food because I can't digest and absorb it.

I had a feeding tube fitted into my small intestine (jejunostomy). My full nutrition comes from feeding at night.

So I was using a home donor, but not conceiving for many years. And worst of all, it was a nurse who said it to me.

completely missed out the ridiculous remark, said, “you need to change your postcode ! “

I had a random woman in a call centre correct me (several times) on how I was pronouncing my own name.
For context, it's a gaelic name which CAN be pronounced differently, dependent on spelling (MY spelling = pronunciation IS correct!).
And jeez would she not let it go! 😂

That isn't a ridiculous statement, though. I don't agree with it, but people are entitled to beliefs. It's not the same as thinking that Cardiff is in Scotland or there are no Hindus in the UK.
It's just a different stance. I think that's problematic.

Young woman who thought chickens were breast fed.
Because of chicken breasts.
She studied A level biology and went on to become a primary school teacher.

My husband had a history teacher who told the class that people used to be very superstitious and unscientific, for example they thought the moon influenced the tides.

That isn't as stupid as it sounds.

Selling it to a gypsy it auto suggestion, which can work. Remember that 'nasty red medicine' you had as a child that cured everything? - it was probably a sugar solution with red dye and bitter aloes in it.

My late mother's number was one digit away from a taxi firm's number and she was plagued with drunks asking for taxis late at night. I stayed over a few nights to cheerfully say 'Be with you in ten minutes' a few times, the taxi firm must have got so many complaints! Eventually BT agreed to change my mother's number.