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AIBU?

Share your dilemmas and get honest opinions from other Mumsnetters.

Original poster

AIBU to shrivel up and die of embarrassment?

363 replies

redbusbeepbeep · 13/08/2025 19:58

I am quite honestly never going to get over this. It was my birthday yesterday and as my partner works away he arranged for something to be sent to the house, along with flowers and a helium balloon.

A few weeks ago we had a leak from the bathroom, pretty bad, leaking down the walls and through our light sockets. The plumber came and fixed the leak, however 2 days later it’s leaking again, no where near as bad luckily as we caught it in time. He comes again and haven’t had an issue since.

Today I’m sat having a coffee and I notice a patch around the same area. Furious I phone the plumber to tell him the problem STILL isn’t sorted and he needs to come back as soon as possible, as I’m meeting friends in another city at lunch time and I wouldn’t dare leave it like that.

Plumber comes, it’s not a fucking leak, it’s the shadow from the helium balloon.

OP posts:
MaryBerrysFannyHammock · 13/08/2025 22:26

ThePure · 13/08/2025 21:01

I once took my baby to the GP because she had a new mole on her foot. I had got myself wound up that it was an acral melanoma but actually it was a perfectly ordinary mole.

‘It’s a NEW mole though Dr’ I said and I could see him switching into ‘this one is hard of thinking’ mode as he patiently explained that new moles are only a concern in adults. Babies and children get new moles all the time. This was a concept that had actually never occurred to me before

The most shameful thing about this whole anecdote is that I am a Dr and had managed to get all
through medical school without realising that it’s normal for babies to get new moles Blush

How can anyone possibly know if they get a new mole? I must have at least 100 all over. I don't remember if they were there before I became an adult or not.

Bluecat7 · 13/08/2025 22:27

I once called the police in the middle of the night because I thought there was someone in the house shining a red torch around. It was in fact the smoke alarm light and apparently it shining in the dark can make it seem to waver about, like an optical illusion. So embarrassed.

Dweetfidilove · 13/08/2025 22:28

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Hillrunning · 13/08/2025 22:28

Not long after the belly button incident, both cats had watering eyes and endless sneezing. So again we took them into the vet. He was talking us through the medical possibilities and as an aside said 'it's not like you'll have been doing something silly like letting them be around while you do the plastering' . Yes, that's exactly what we had been doing.

I promise when have been much more responsible pet owners since

Campingisnexttogodliness · 13/08/2025 22:29

My dh is fab with cars. Mine stunk of eggs. Dh started meticulously dismantling parts of my car.

Until he came to the hard boiled egg under the driver's seat..
Escaped from a recent picnic..

Franjipanl8r · 13/08/2025 22:29

Hillrunning · 13/08/2025 22:24

DH and I had had our cst for about 3 months when we noticed a very concerning patch of missing fur. We dutifully took him off the the vet and spent a good 6 minutes rummaging about on his tummy to find this worrying patch. The vet looked at us pityingly and said 'that's his belly button'

I’m crying at this one 😂😂😂

Jellycatspyjamas · 13/08/2025 22:30

I called an emergency plumber out one Sunday morning because my heating boiler wouldn’t fire up. I had completely forgot I had turned it off for some unknown reason. The plumber had a good natured laugh at my expense and proceeded to service the boiler so that I got value for money for his, very expensive, out of hours call out charge.

Tuesdayschild50 · 13/08/2025 22:30

🤣😂🤣 your all leaked out .

BunnyLake · 13/08/2025 22:31

YouBelongWithMe · 13/08/2025 22:25

I was once rushed to hospital by my mum, pregnant, after electrocuting myself with a light switch.

Baby was fine but the nurse asked me if I had any exit wounds from the shock. She checked my hands and feet and was horrified at the size of the large circular mark left on the sole of my foot.

A doctor was brought to examine me.

It was a chocolate button I had stepped on.

🤣🤣

Notmyrealname22 · 13/08/2025 22:33

I once got an electrician to rewire the switch for our bedroom light as it was in the off position when it was on and in the on position when it was off. I’m pretty sure I asked him why anyone would be that stupid to put it in that way. It turns out there was another switch behind the bedside table that was in the on position, resulting in the main one appearing to work the opposite way around. 🤦‍♀️

LeftieRightsHoarder · 13/08/2025 22:33

Thanks for all these mortifying stories! I’m laughing at you all, and myself too.

I have learned, over the years, that the more assertive and self-righteous I am towards someone who has caused a problem, the more likely it is that I am mistaken and it was actually my fault. And I can’t usually creep silently away …

One of the great and awful truths of life.

PInkyStarfish · 13/08/2025 22:34

Years ago I gave away quite a lot of items on Freecycle.

One chap responded to everything I offered, asking if he could have it.

I noticed he had a very unsavoury email address that started with welshtherapist@

I replied rather snottily that I didn’t want him coming to my home and he wasn’t having anything and that I thought his email address was deeply unpleasant.

He wrote back that he was very sorry to have caused any offence and was puzzled as he had been a therapist in Wales for many years and had not upset anyone before.

I then realised with horror that I had been reading it as ‘welsh the rapist’!

ChangingWeight · 13/08/2025 22:34

Did he charge for the call out? If so no need to be embarrassed. Probably the easiest pay check he’s ever received.

BondAway25 · 13/08/2025 22:36

redbusbeepbeep · 13/08/2025 19:58

I am quite honestly never going to get over this. It was my birthday yesterday and as my partner works away he arranged for something to be sent to the house, along with flowers and a helium balloon.

A few weeks ago we had a leak from the bathroom, pretty bad, leaking down the walls and through our light sockets. The plumber came and fixed the leak, however 2 days later it’s leaking again, no where near as bad luckily as we caught it in time. He comes again and haven’t had an issue since.

Today I’m sat having a coffee and I notice a patch around the same area. Furious I phone the plumber to tell him the problem STILL isn’t sorted and he needs to come back as soon as possible, as I’m meeting friends in another city at lunch time and I wouldn’t dare leave it like that.

Plumber comes, it’s not a fucking leak, it’s the shadow from the helium balloon.

😂😂😂😂😂😂

don't worry, it'll give him a laugh with his mates!

you'll always have that 'cringe' moment when you think about it, but you'll think about it far less often in the near future!

Happy Birthday.

Jellycatspyjamas · 13/08/2025 22:36

Hillrunning · 13/08/2025 22:24

DH and I had had our cst for about 3 months when we noticed a very concerning patch of missing fur. We dutifully took him off the the vet and spent a good 6 minutes rummaging about on his tummy to find this worrying patch. The vet looked at us pityingly and said 'that's his belly button'

I have had cats all my adult life - no idea they have a belly button, though it makes sense given they’re mammals.

Sodastreamin · 13/08/2025 22:36

It was that horrid winter in 2010 and I’d just passed my test the week before. I’d gone to photograph a building in the middle of nowhere and was reversing in order to turn round, when I heard a crrrrunch. Shit. Tried to pull forward a bit so I could check the damage but the car wouldn’t move. Double shit. I must’ve hit that old dilapidated fence whilst reversing and got a piece wedged underneath! I’d better call breakdown…No signal on phone…. TRIPLE SHIT!!! Full on panic mode I’m looking round for signs of people and all I can see is a tractor in the field doing……farming things(?!) so I decide to run over and ask to use his phone. I do exactly this, only once he’s finally understood my panicked gibberish, he kindly starts walking towards my car to see if he can help - result!
10 mins later and he’s had the bonnet open, he’s been underneath, no hint of what’s stopping it moving. Then he looks in the window and says “Handbrake’s on love….”

🫣🫥

RafaFan · 13/08/2025 22:37

My Dad, a farmer, used to raise turkeys for Christmas. One Christmas Day he took our turkey out of the oven to take to a customer who'd phoned up to complain that her turkey had no meat on it when she tried to carve it, and she had a houseful of people to feed. When my Dad got there he pointed out she was trying to carve it upside down...

BondAway25 · 13/08/2025 22:38

Gliblet · 13/08/2025 20:15

Brilliant 😁

My DM once took her car back to the garage after a service and complained about it making a knocking noise, going on at some length about the fact it hadn't been doing it before the service and all she'd done since was a 12 mile round trip for groceries.

After the garage had removed the rogue tin of beans that was rolling around under the passenger seat she did apologise...

😂😂😂😂

BondAway25 · 13/08/2025 22:41

Toddlerteaplease · 13/08/2025 20:16

I called my kitchen fitter back as I couldn’t shut one of the cupboards properly. The boxes inside were sticking out. I was mortified!

Edited

🤣🤣🤣🤣

usedtobeaylis · 13/08/2025 22:42

Idstillratherbepaddleboarding · 13/08/2025 20:07

I’m sorry but 🤣🤣🤣. We once called out an electrician as the living room light wasn’t working only to find that my step son had turned the dimmer switch all the way down and we didn’t think to test it as we never used it as a dimmer switch 😂.

When I had my first flat I called out the council because I couldn't get any of my lights on. I had never heard of the trip switch 😁

Hyperbowl · 13/08/2025 22:43

My washing machine recently started making the most horrendous machine-gun like sound any time it was turned on and I was dreading having to replace it.

Handyman came round and within about twenty seconds pulled out my tiny drain unblocker pipe cleaner type object (no idea how it got in there to begin with) that had got stuck inside one of the holes. I had previously asked DH to look inside the drum to see if anything was in there and he said he’d given it a thorough inspection so I stupidly didn’t bother to look myself. 🫠 I was mortified I’d wasted his time over something so simple and looked so daft.

TheFinePrintess · 13/08/2025 22:46

Spookedbythespiders · 13/08/2025 21:42

Thirty years ago I got BT out as our phone kept beeping, it was the smoke detector above it, the battery was dying.

@Spookedbythespiders
I used to work for BT on the fault reporting call centre, customers would regularly call us and INSIST it was the phone beeping! We would politely tell them to change the batteries and then ring back…

spiderlight · 13/08/2025 22:46

I got a new printer at work, unplugged everything to plug it into the back of the pc (this was before USB, when everything had to be unplugged from the mains to add new hardware), plugged everything back into the four-way extension lead, and nothing would turn on. Called IT down. The guy looked round the back of the computer and fell about laughing. He eventually composed himself enough to show me that I had indeed plugged everything back into the four-way extension lead, including its own plug that should have been plugged in at the wall 😳

ComfortFoodCafe · 13/08/2025 22:47

Oh my god 🤣 Sorry but that’s comedy gold.

BondAway25 · 13/08/2025 22:47

Strangerthanfictions · 13/08/2025 21:08

I have a fairly rare but kind of well known Scottish name, someone academic once started telling me the history of the name and I was utterly amazed to hear it was from Persia, I love history so I was blown away but this as I always thought it was totally Scottish, i started asking loads of questions, cradle of civilisation and all that, saying my dad wouldn't believe it etc etc - -they let me finish and then politely told me they'd actually said Perthshire... About 40mins away from where we were. Cringe

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣gasp for air 🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

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