What's the funniest misunderstanding you've had?

[CuriousLadyBird]

Do you have a funny story about a misunderstanding where it be you've misunderstood something or another person has misunderstood you?

I'm just starting this thread because I thought about something that happened last week and giggled to myself.

I'm currently under the community mental health team as my mental health is not where I want it to be but next year I've been accepted on to a mental health nursing course and can start If my mental health is stable enough (just a bit of background).

So I had a home visit off someone from the CMHT and we were chatting and discussing my future etc and they asked what my goal was and I said "I think my long term goal is to be sitting where you are" and I meant like becoming qualified as a mental health nurse and helping people but this person must not have understood what I meant and said "Well you live here so you can sit here anytime you want".

I was a bit like what? But didn't say anything and carried on with the conversation so I don't know, I think maybe this person thinks my long term goal is to sit on the other side of the sofa (and I appreciate people with other mental health conditions may have issues sitting in certain places so maybe that's where we've got mixed up) but thinking back to it has really made me giggle.

Next time they come I might sit on that side of the sofa and they'll think I've reached my long term goal

Wedding dress shopping with DM. Although we are from the South, I was living in Hull at the time and DM had come up for the weekend. We were in the bridal shop and the assistant showed me a dress saying “This one is boned.” DM (not familiar with the East Hull accent) looked horrified and said “Oh no thank you.” She thought that the assistant had said that the dress was burned.

DH family used to collect milk bottle tops for blind dogs. They laughed when they told me but I thought it was perfectly reasonable!

Oh yes! People used to call guide dogs “blind dogs”! Rather weird really.

Err nerr!

Can someone explain how milk bottle tops help anything?

Similar to collecting used postage stamps 'for charity'. Is it in the hopes of making a good collection to sell to someone interested?

Love love these.
Ive so many..
Ended up in the wrong country I only looked at the codes not the actual name. Was in my own world on autopilot.

Told to spit it out as a child when I refused to speak so I literally spat.

Asked by reproduction clinic when going for pill what I do. I was a student and answered em just normal sex. She meant for a living.

Every day the world is a bit confusing.

I just found this interesting article, as wondered the same.
Collecting Silver Paper for the Blind Dog?! (zyra.global)

I remember my DM saving silver foil for a guide dog charity when.I was little , presumably recycled or something to raise money for it, @ThatFraggle

Sorry I'm not sure if I'm being dumb here, but had they actually brought back a kilo of Hash in their suitcase?!

I was dating someone who suffered from narcolepsy. I was telling my sister about him and she looked really disgusted and said 'he sleeps with dead people??'. Turned out she'd confused narcophsy with necrophylia😂

My friend not me. She had a Saturday job in a chemist. It was just before the AIDS epidemic led to it being easier to buy condoms and they still kept them behind the counter.
One day a man came in and asked for condoms and she said ʼWhat size?’ meaning what size packet.
He looked puzzled and said, ‘Well normal I suppose.’

Told DP we were out of bay leaves so could he pop them on the shopping list and get some at the supermarket. He came home with a big bottle of Bailey's.

I've just remembered another one - when DS was about 7, he went to a friend's house after school. The friend's dad brought him home and his first words were 'It was brilliant at J's dads house! We watched black men in bed!' There was a horrified silence, and then J's dad hastily explained that J had a new bed in the shape of a fire engine and they'd sat in it and watched 'Men in Black' 😂

I'm just remembering one of my own, more a misunderstanding than a mishearing though. We were checking in to a hotel and for some reason they did a sort of risk assessment that included the question "In the event of a fire would you require assistance?" I was flabberghasted. I thought hell yes, help me, don't leave me to flail about! What I said was "yes", at which point my dh laughed and said "No", meaning we do not require extra help. We still laugh oer that one.

Thank you!

This and the emu one are my favourites!

Priceless 😂😂😂

Yes. Walked straight through security without batting an eyelid, because they were genuinely ignorant about what they’d bought 🙈😳😂

A kilo would be a lot though- in the thousands rather than hundreds of pounds according to the inter web (it’s a long time since I knew this stuff).

I wouldn’t know

My husband did the same to a waitress on our first date 😆

Df is a prison officer. When dd1 was small she used to tell everyone her grandad was in prison 😀

These don't quite reach funny but they are literal misunderstandings which make me cringe. Sorry if they sound very pretentious.

As a teenager, I had never learned the exact meaning of "sartorial" and decided it was vaguely something to do with "sardonic" or "sarcastic". Someone at a fairly formal event, etc. would kindly start a conversation with me, complimenting me on my "sartorial style'. I wasn't dressed sardonically. In reply, all warmed by their attention, I'd excitedly burble on at length about the general concept of irony. There would be a long silence.

Also, just before I went to university when talking about doing so with older adults they would ask me what I was reading. I would reply with whatever book I was reading at that moment, which, again would result in long silence.

Now I think about it, I did know what the phrase meant I just thought the phrase was ambiguous and it was pretentious to use it instead of "what subject." ok, not funny, wrong thread.

@chrystlha , as an American-educated woman, I would have answered this question the same way you did. Over there, you read a book or a newspaper, and you major in a subject.
"Also, just before I went to university when talking about doing so with older adults they would ask me what I was reading. I would reply with whatever book I was reading at that moment, which, again would result in long silence."

Did he explain what he was thinking? Was he thinking about you, Freudian slip?