This was weird, right?

[Grumpasaurus]

So I am walking up my road the other day, almost at my front door. This lady is walking towards me, and asks me to stop for a minute, which I did. The conversation goes as follows:

Her: are you Portuguese?

Me: no, Canadian (thinking, I am blond and so pale I am almost transparent and have a thick Canadian accent)...

Her: oh (silence). Do you have family in Portugal?

Me: no.

Her: I have family in Portugal but I grew up in America. I am still half Portuguese though.

Me: oh.

Her: so when did you visit Portugal?

Me: never been.

Her: but last year, when you hung your laundry up in the garden, I noticed you had a tea towel from Portugal.

Me: nope I have never been. (panicking slightly- I had never seen this lady before yet she seemed certain she knew me AND my laundry!)

Her: that tea towel is definitely from Portugal, I recognize the cockerel on it.

Me: maybe! Maybe some friends gave it to us, I don't remember where I got it.

Her: you got it in Portugal.

Me: I have never been to Portugal

Her: launches into a five minute tirade about how I should go and that I really should learn how to speak the language.

Me: alright then, see you later (secretly hoping not to ever see her again and considering buying some sort of private-fence system)!

Weird, non?

Ha I love it when people challenge you on something you know to be true.

When DD1 was a baby I had dressed her in a little reversible navy/lemon hoodie-cardigan thingy.

Woman in a post office queue referred to her as him.

"Tis a girl" sez I.

"NO it can't be", sez she, "He's wearing NAVY!"

"Um, I saw her come out of my body and have checked since, she's definitely a girl" sez me.

"No" sez she, "only boys wear blue".

My face was like this ---->

Actually I've just realised people have accused me for years of being from new Zealand and my dad bought me that tea towel. Maybe he's trying to tell me something

So many people in denial on here he he.

We've still got a Christmas tea towel out. Does that make me Mrs Claus? It would explain the large belly that and the biscuits

Learn 4 words to appease her.. Do fuck off dear.

I have my late Cornish grandmother's set of English China…can I claim to be Cornish? No? How about Chinese, then? No? Ok, I'm American (slinks away)

Bom dia Grumpasurus

OP, how nice of you to be so understanding of a lady with apparent mental health difficulties.

I have a tea towel from the Lake District but I am from the West Country.

Is this why I feel so conflicted in everyday life? It may explain why I am dithery and hopeless. I am deeply torn at a sub conscious level and ache for my roots in the north.

Also, there is lady at the swimming pool who is often there at the same time as me. She calls me Deirdre and reminisces about when we worked together. This has been going for some years, but I stopped correcting her a long time ago as she wouldn't have it. I now answer to Deirdre and laugh along with her at our 'antics' in the past. She is very nice but away with the fairies. It whiles away the time whilst the DCs swim, so I'm happy enough.

That must have been some Secret Service employee making a daft mistake. International espionage. Definitely.

"The cheese is in the trunk."

I was in a night club years ago when this big muscular bloke bounded up to me and excitedly said" omg, how are you ? Do you remember me from school?"

To which I could only reply, no mate, I went to an all girls school.

How we laughed at his failed chat up line!

OP is definitely Portuguese but in denial.

Olá colega mulher português. usar sua toalha de chá com orgulho em sua cabeça!

I've got one of those school fundraising tea towels with badly-drawn pictures of 100-odd kids on it. Who am I?

Oh, no! I know! I'm Badly Drawn Boy

OP you need to reach out and embrace the Portugeseeness. Think of the custard tarts...

Erma you have a tea towel with other peoples kids on?

one of the weirdest encounters I've ever had with a stranger was when I was about 12 at a train station. He seemed to be having a conversation with a teenage lad and then came over to me saying 'do I look like a paedophile to you?' totally out of the blue, I hadn't even noticed him prior to that. very unnerving too.

kelper

Dh "borrowed" a teatowel for me from Jamie's Oliver's restaurant rectly, does that make me or him jamie Oliver?.....

For one moment I thought you were telling us the manner in which your H managed to smuggle the teatowel out of the restaurant...

If we come from the same place as our tea towels, I come from my parents' house.
Which is true :o

I have an Australian Tea Towel (bought when in Aus)
I have a Canadian Tea Towel (bought when in Canada)
I have an American Tea Towel (bought when in the US)

I'm British. Honestly.

Just realised that nobody has said, "Canadian, eh?"

I'm American and was once in a restaurant in Munich with a Belgian friend. We were speaking French. Suddenly this woman at the next table touched my arm and said, in English, "You know, the vorst vine I hev ever hed came from America. It was from the XXX winery in Arkansas." Which was very weird, because that's where I lived as a teenager, and Arkansas is not at all known for its wines (and rightly so, the woman was spot on,m they were pretty crap 20+ years ago, couldn't say now).

Ha ha I just returned to this and it made me laugh even more at how absurd it all was.

And, it made me realise there are a fair few funnies out there :).

Dierdra (if that is your real name) don't you remember all the fun we had working together? Some of the best times of my life, those!

Catfish- FFS, if I promise that I spend proportionally more time telling self deprecating stories about my own questionable mental health than I do regaling strange tea towel stories, will you forgive me for my blatant lack of compassion and understanding?

This is making me chuckle, I have had a couple of bizarre encounters myself!

Reading festival - 1999 - I was dancing in the rave tent and this guy keeps looking over at me like he recognises me...eventually he comes up to me and says

"I'm a really big fan, I've seen all your movies"

To which I reply

"Movies? What the fuck are you on about mate??"

"Oh I thought you were Swedish"

"Swedish? Eh??!"

"You're that porn star aren't you?!"

So yeah, apparently I have a Swedish porn star doppleganger out there somewhere...

I was also once accosted at a bus stop by a man who wanted to try on my knee high boots...

For goodness sake Catsize the OP was perfectly civil to her (more so than some would have been!)

I have a tea towel with a Welsh dragon on and a Guinness tea towel, I must be of mixed Irish-Welsh decent!