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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:
ComfortFoodCafe · 13/08/2025 22:49

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’!

🤣😂😂

salcombebabe · 13/08/2025 22:52

Zanzara · 13/08/2025 21:12

I can make you feel better OP....

Many years ago, DD had to go to the dental hospital in the city to have two back teeth extracted under anaesthetic. It involved an early start, parking some distance from the hospital, and all the trauma of the extraction with a young and nervous child. Once it was all over, we gratefully drove home to our village and I made her some lunch.

Two hours later she came to me, highly distressed, and showed me her mouth. At the back of her mouth, where the teeth had been extracted, she had two nasty looking boils or abscesses, and was very upset. So we duly got back in the car, drove back to the city, parked a mile from the hospital and walked back there.

The dental surgeon and the team were very concerned when they examined her, and mystified as to what was happening. It was all very worrying. Eventually one of them asked what she had had for lunch.

A cold, clammy hand of realisation seized my heart.

She'd got a baked bean stuck in each cavity.

I couldn't get out of there fast enough...

🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣

Saponarium · 13/08/2025 22:52

This was around the time of the terror attacks in London. I was staying at my boyfriend's flat in central London. He was in a ground floor flat with mysterious neighbours above that always seemed to walk around in the middle of the night. One night, along with the heavy footsteps, we started hearing some awful fizzing and popping sounds, as if someone was mixing chemicals! We were frozen in bed, listening and terrified. We couldn't think what else it could be apart from someone making bombs, so we decided to call the police. I got up to look for my phone. It was then that I stumbled across a jam jar under the bed which contained a fermented salsa that I'd made at a local fayre about a week before. I'd completely forgotten about it and the gases had popped the lid of the jar and it was fizzing away noisily! Thank god we didn't call the police.

ArtesianWater · 13/08/2025 22:52

Just brilliant OP. Thank you for giving me a much needed laugh tonight.

Many years ago I called a mechanic friend to come over and help me figure out why my new motorbike wouldn't start. Turns out I wasn't pressing the starter switch.

KookySnail · 13/08/2025 22:52

redbusbeepbeep · 13/08/2025 20:08

Sheepish, embarrassed for me I think! He even offered to double check there was no actual leak, I said he needn’t bother 😂

Show quote history

This makes it even more hilarious 😂😂😂 he could have laughed it off and both had some banter….. but no. He had to inflict some second-hand embarrassment on top of your own humiliation 😂😂😂 Amazing.

Moneybum · 13/08/2025 22:53

AngelofIslington · 13/08/2025 22:18

I got the manager of the carpet store to come out as part of the new carpet I had just had fitted was a different colour to the rest.
He was very polite when he told me it was actually the part of the carpet the mirror shone on to, and then to make me feel even more stupid he stood in front of said mirror to prove his point so I get your embarrassment op

I am crying laughing at that! Thank you for sharing

ArtesianWater · 13/08/2025 22:53

redbusbeepbeep · 13/08/2025 20:12

Naturally I’ve blamed my husband for buying me the helium balloon

YANBU.

Timeforanewgame · 13/08/2025 22:54

I had a sofa/carpet cleaner come out last year. When I went to see how he was getting on he told me he'd found a stain on the sofa and spent ages trying to get it but it just wouldn't budge... until he eventually realised it was a shadow

Shamesame · 13/08/2025 22:54

@Strangerthanfictions that really made me laugh!

When I was heavily pregnant and sleeping badly I was woken up one night by a high pitched beeping, went all around the house while my husband slept trying to find it and couldn’t, although it sounded loudest in our room. Eventually at 6am I woke him up to see if he could identify it, he also went all around the house, even going outside to the front garden, came back in none the wiser.

He went back to sleep, I’m fuming at this point that it must be a neighbour doing something.

When DH woke up later that morning he suddenly realised that the mysterious beeping was the old fire alarms he’d put in our bins. And we probably annoyed the houses around us all night.

Ariela · 13/08/2025 22:57

I ordered a huge amount of vehicle parts totalling £700. It came, I counted out and checked off all the gaskets, seals, bolts etc, and discovered we were missing a spring. Double checked it was missing. Rang the company to complain, and he organised another spring to come with the 2 outstanding items due in from overseas in a couple of days. I was just thanking him when I noticed the spring, still in its bag, had somehow rolled off my desk and was on the floor.

AnAlpacaForChristmasPleaseSanta · 13/08/2025 22:57

I once put something in the microwave only to lose power to the whole of downstairs, immediately checked the fusebox but they were all fine and facing the right way up.

Immediately called electrician in tears as it was winter and I had no working appliances, very little spare money and my whole downstairs was going to need rewiring. I then lugged heavy microwave upstairs and used it to heat my soup.

Electrician comes round, goes straight to cupboard under stairs where fusebox is, pushes up the rogue switch that I had managed to overlook and hey presto everything came back on.

I was way too mortified to feel any immediate relief but luckily the fella was a star and didn't even charge me. Said it was the easiest job he'd had in a long time 🤦.

Clawdy · 13/08/2025 22:59

These are hilarious!

ChateauMargaux · 13/08/2025 23:03

Where is the 😃

Saponarium · 13/08/2025 23:03

I had just broken up with my long term boyfriend and I'd arranged for a man with a van to bring the rest of my possessions to my new home. I'd carefully packaged and sealed everything into boxes but after everything had been unloaded into my living room I realised two things:

  1. That there was a very weird knocking & whirring noise coming from one of the boxes, and
  2. Said box had been opened (presumably by the driver)

It turns out my dildo vibrator (yes my friends), had switched itself on sometime during the journey/loading process and was on its wildest, spiciest setting, going round and round making the most awful racket. Driver must have stopped and opened the box to see what it was, and then carried on without switching it off. I can think of no other explanation. Thankfully he didn't say anything. The horror.

sassdunn · 13/08/2025 23:04

That's really funny! 🤣 🤣

CurlyhairedAssassin · 13/08/2025 23:05

In our student flat in the 90s we called the gas man out for our gas oven. He asked what the issue was. i told him that that even if I selected a low gas mark on the dial, there was a really big flame inside as if it was set to High and ignoring the setting on the dial. Nearly died of embarrassment when he said "Well, the flame will be big until it gets to the temperature you've set, and then it will reduce to a smaller flame to maintain the temperature."

"Ohhhh!" 😬

JudgeJ · 13/08/2025 23:05

I recently just avoided a cringe moment. My 17 year old car had been in to have a sensor replaced on the ABS system, a couple of days later I became aware of a clonking noise when I pulled away in first then second gear and after a few worrying days I decided to take it in after I'd been to Lidl. Feeling in the open cigarette lighter compartment, it's that old(!), for a £1 coin for the trolley I wondered what the heavy piece of metal was, turned out it was the locking wheel nut from when the work had been done and it hadn't been put back in the boot with the spare wheel kit! It made exactly the right noise and my gear stick wasn't in danger of coming off in my hand.

Handrearedmagpie · 13/08/2025 23:08

MySweetGeorgina · 13/08/2025 22:24

I once called an emergency plumber as the pipes in my bathroom were vibrating badly even when not running water

i googled it and it was so ominous (something like water hammer or something silly sounding)

just before he arrived I noticed DH electric toothbrush was left on and leaning against the towel heater, causing the heater and all the pipes around it to vibrate

i switched it off and told the plumber I had somehow managed to resolve the issue myself

miraculously and kindly he never invoiced me!

One of my tenants did this, called out emergency repairs as pipes were vibrating so badly, she went to the houses on either side to tell them to evacuate in case her house blew up so when workmen arrives the neighbours were all standing outside…..
twenty minutes later, workman came out holding a large dildo which had been leaning on a pipe…..
she moved very shortly after

CurlyhairedAssassin · 13/08/2025 23:11

Oh god, I just remembered our hamster one! Don't know how i could forget it. We took our hamster to the vet year ago as I was convinced it had some sort of tumour. "Those are his testicles. They can look surprisingly large in something so small." I couldn't believe I ihad to pay to be embarrassed like that.

HelloDaisy · 13/08/2025 23:15

My friend was over at our house a few weeks ago and became ill in the evening. We called 111 and they said a paramedic would be with us within next 12 hours.
That meant she had to stay overnight so we left all doors to rooms open so we could listen for them arriving which our dog found very exciting.

Anyway about 2am ddog started barking at the front door so I ran down in my nightie and flung the door open.There was a man standing there so I said “I’m glad you’ve arrived we’ve been waiting for you, come on in”. He looked a bit shocked and handed me a bottle of milk!

He was the milkman not paramedic 🤣🙈

birdglasspen · 13/08/2025 23:16

I had a handyman dismantle my washing machine and fix a problem with it. It was working fine and I was really pleased, then started noticing wet patches to the side of machine and thought it was leaking.

He came back to check, couldn’t find anything wrong and then I realised it was actually cats pee.

Which is why it was randomly appearing as they kept doing it in this one spot.

Luckily I know him quite well and I think we were both relieved it wasn’t the machine 🤣

BessieSurtees · 13/08/2025 23:18

One very bad winter I called the AA told them my car had a fault and I couldn't drive it. The patrol man called me back as they were extremely busy and prioritising and asked me to describe the problem and I did and he said it was my ABS. I told him I had been driving over 30 years and I knew what ABS was and this was something serious.

He came out got in my car drove it and braked, there you are I said smugly ..... Yes he said its your ABS working in the snow Blush

LillyPJ · 13/08/2025 23:20

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

😂😂🤣That really did make me laugh out loud!

songbird3086 · 13/08/2025 23:20

My friends got me over late at night because she could smell burning that was coming and going in her downstairs… I went over and sure enough strong smell of burning in certain areas.. but it was coming and going. We were sniffing plug sockets.. light switches and light fixtures. Almost called the fire department when her brand new dog dropped his new bone on my lap and picked it up. THAT WAS THE SMELL! He’d been playing with it and moving it around. We laughed for ages now that would have been embarrassing if we would have wasted time!!

JudgeJ · 13/08/2025 23:23

Pleatherandlace · 13/08/2025 21:27

A few years ago I left the house one morning to find that my car wasn’t outside. After some anxious walking up and down the street I called the police to give a statement and report the car stolen. The following day I remembered that I had parked it elsewhere 😳.

Edited

We parked our car in the multi-storey carpark of the Venetian hotel in Las Vegas, commenting that we were on the top level and opposite the lift. Next day we were panic stricken not to be able to find it, after an hour of wandering about we went back down to have a think, wondering how much the hire company would charge. Eventually we went back up and were amazed to see it where we'd left it, later we realised that not all the lifts go to all the floors nor to the same part of the carpark.