Meet the Other Phone. Flexible and made to last.

Meet the Other Phone.
Flexible and made to last.

Buy now

Please or to access all these features

Mumsnet classics

Relive the funniest, most unforgettable threads. For a daily dose of Mumsnet’s best bits, sign up for Mumsnet's daily newsletter.

See all MNHQ comments on this thread

Almighty gaffes you have made

322 replies

LuisSuarezTeeth · 24/07/2013 09:54

I work with the elderly and people with various disabilities. This week I have surpassed myself and made things so much worse by apologising profusely.

To the gentleman without legs: Would you like to go for a walk?

To the partially sighted lady: Yes I see

To the gentleman who has dementia: Do you remember..?

I feel just terrible, wretched and awful. I am normally so tactful, but have had a rotten week. They were all so nice about it and the gentleman with no legs kept cracking his own jokes.

But really, I am so embarrassed.

Please tell me I am not the only one Blush

OP posts:
FruOla · 26/07/2013 17:32

This one was me. Same EA office, different day. I had a Apple computer and my 'alert sound' (for errors) was a Giggle - a woman's giggle, which was a cross between a sort-of "hehehe" and a "titter" - I can't quite describe it.

Anyway, a woman was in the office one day talking to a colleague and I was busily tapping away at my computer ignoring what was going on around me. At the point the visitor said something, which was not good news, to my colleague, I happened to have made a mistake - so my computer went hehehetitterhehehe - blimey, her face was Angry.

I realised as soon as she'd left, that she thought it was me laughing at her problem, rather than my computer telling me I'd made a mistake. I changed the alert sound after that Blush

SixPackWellies · 26/07/2013 18:04

I made another one yesterday. (And if my DFriend is on here and recognises, pls do not out me!).

Out at the park, and DC3 was being a mega pest. I threatened him with being put in the buggy if he ran off one more time. He did, so I said 'Right, DC3. I am now going to buggarise you'.

LadyClariceCannockMonty · 26/07/2013 19:01

Grin SixPack. Reminds me of the 'tiny wanker' thread.

theluckiest · 26/07/2013 19:29

This will probably totally out me to anyone who knows me inRL but here goes...

At the Edinburgh Festival, years ago, handing out leaflets to the crowds on the Royal Mile. Lots of stalls set up selling craft stuff, etc. one selling artwork. It was genuinely awful. With no sense of colour. Or shape. or discernible talent. Instead of just moving on, I called to my friend to come see the appalling artwork. OOh, look, isn't it dreadful?! Hahahahahahaaaaa....

At that moment, the crowd parted, some staring at me astounded by my rudeness. I saw the artist painting his creations a few feet away and he had clearly heard my idiotic comments.

It gets worse....he was a paraplegic and was painting using a brush held between his teeth.

Shit, I'm mortified 20 years later. I skulked away trying to look nonchalant and blend into the crowd.

Bit hard when you're also dressed as Marilyn Monroe with a ridiculous wig.

What a dick I am. Blush

chipmonkey · 26/07/2013 20:53

SixPack!Shock and Grin

ErrorError · 26/07/2013 23:53

DDad used to garden for a elderly prim and proper lady. She wanted to show him some peonies in her garden... so she said, "I've got lovely peo-niss, it's just a shame you can't see them because of my massive bush." I've no idea how Dad kept a straight face.

I am remembering one of my own and it still makes me want to shrivel up and bury myself. I was out in a pub with a friend, and she introduced me to another woman who she knew, who then sat down and started talking to my friend. The pub was noisy and I could only hear snippets of conversation, and I kept trying to make small talk with the other woman. At one point I heard "...and then I lost it." Me for some unknown reason, thinking she was talking about some trivial letting off steam moment, interjected with "Oh that's good sometimes though, just to go a bit crazy and let it out." Awkward silence. The woman had been talking about having a m/c. Shock Terribly sad, but I still don't know why they were having such a private/upsetting conversation in front of someone she'd just met who they were ignoring, in a pub. Confused I am cringing writing that!

I love telling the story about my DM who told everyone in the cafe that someone had died, then met his relative on the street. As she tried to console the relative, relative said "Oh I think you mean Mr X" (very similar names), I've never seen my mum go so white and run so fast back to the cafe to declare that Mr Y wasn't dead after all!

I'll return if I can think of funnier ones.

ErrorError · 26/07/2013 23:54

Oops, italics fail, but you can see where I was going with her pronunciation! Grin

chipmonkey · 27/07/2013 00:06

Error, your Dad did well not to fall about laughing!

Roma2013 · 27/07/2013 07:46

Oh my, have just remembered another. You know when you're all in love and hold hands with your other half all the time? So, first time ever abroad with lovely boyfriend walking along a romantic Spanish street. Momentarily separated by throng of people, I reached back without looking to try and grab his hand again - only to find that I'd inadvertently squeezed the right breast of an elderly Spanish woman! She looked shocked and confused! He, meanwhile, was doubled up with uncontrollable laughter...

CrabbyBigBottom · 27/07/2013 09:48

I was reading this thread in bed last night and kept disturbing DP with my snorts of suppressed laughter and sniffing because tears were running down my face! Grin

Quite a recent one for me which I've mentioned on MN before.

Went to a dear friend's 40th birthday party, very sophisticated affair, fully catered in their big house, marquee dance tent and uniformed staff, the works. I already feel out of place at occasions like that (I tend to get nervous, drink too fast and talk too much) but managed to not get totally hammered and didn't embarrass myself. Party went off well and the only people left at the end of the night are the host and hostess, two of their friends (a Spanish couple), the hostess' sister and cousin, and DP and me. All staying the night in four bedrooms. We all trundled up to bed at around 3am.

The next thing I remember is coming back from the loo and getting into bed and DP saying
"Where the hell have you been??". I told him I'd been to the loo of course, where on earth did he think I'd been? He said
"You've been gone for two hours!" I was telling him not to be ridiculous when I realised that my side of the bed was stone cold. I had absolutely no memory of anything after going to bed until peeing and getting back into bed. DP said that a couple of hours earlier he'd woken up as I went to the loo and lay there dozing, waiting for me to return so he could go too. I didn't return! After five minutes or so he came out to investigate and I'd completely vanished. He figured I must have gone into the wrong room, but short of opening each door in turn and hissing "Crabby!", he didn't see what he could do so he went back to bed.

We went back to sleep and when we woke up again there were gales of laughter coming from downstairs. I sent DP down to discover the damage, and he came back up laughing so much he could hardly speak (DP is not a man given to big displays of emotion, either Hmm) and refusing to tell me what I'd done. When I went downstairs they were all sitting in the kitchen and made me go round each one and give them a hug to see if it jogged my memory of who I'd cuddled up to during the night. I was absolutely Blush Blush Blush

The Spanish couple were sleeping in my friend's daughters' room, one in each single bed. In the middle of the night the woman woke up to find someone climbing into bed with her. She could tell it was a woman because of the longish hair, but it was pitch dark due to the blackout blinds and she couldn't tell who it was. After spooning her, I then rapidly started snoring loudly, splayed out in the bed and nicked all the duvet. Oh the shame. Blush Rather than waking me up and firmly suggesting that I go back to my own bed, the poor woman took the spare blanket and slept on the floor! Shock Shock Blush When she woke up again, I was gone - the phantom cuddler. Grin

I'm profoundly grateful that it was her bed that I staggered into rather than her husband's - that would have been even more Hmm. I'm also grateful that she felt able to say in the morning
"Um... Something odd happened in the night..." rather than just saying nothing and assuming that this is what happens at English house parties - all smooth sophistication in the evening and then some drunken numpty gets into bed with you and steals your duvet!

Luckily everyone thought it was hilarious, especially how utterly mortified I was. I do have form for getting a bit disorientated in strange places if I've been drinking, like not being able to find my way out of the room to go to the loo when we stay at MIL's - DP has woken up on occasion to find me doing my Marcel Marceau impression along the wall saying plaintively
"DP I can't find the door!", but I'd never done anything like that before.

Blush Grin

chipmonkey · 27/07/2013 11:37

Roma, I was once leaving a crowded pub with dh when he was my bf. I was holding his hand and fighting my way out to the door, then lost his hand for a second, grabbed it again but kept going. When I finally got to the door, I turned around to see that I wasn't dragging dh but one of the barmen with a beer-keg on his back!Blush and dh was following behind in stitches laughing.

CrabbyBigBottom · 27/07/2013 16:58

Come on, come on - I want to hear more gaffes! Don't let the thread die!

[stamps foot petulantly] Grin

learnasyougo · 27/07/2013 17:50

Thankfully not my gaffe, though it will totally out me.

It was the works christmas do and a very young junior member of staff was chatting to the CEO, asking him what he was doing for Christmas. The CEO said: 'I'm actually Jewish so don't celebrate Christmas. We celebrate Chanukkah'. Except my colleague misheard him and answered: "oh, well Happy Hollycaust, then."

Stunned silence.

kweggie · 27/07/2013 18:26

My (straight-laced and religious) mum was sitting in the passenger seat of the minibus while my (straight-laced and religious)dad drove six or so of us teenagers to church youth club. We kids had all been watching 'Monty Python' and were bandying spoonerisms about. Keen to show how hip she was, mum waited for a lull in the conversation before offering her contribution. Unfortunately just as it went silent, mum spied the sign for 'West Bank Avenue' and trilled out her offering.
We all fell on the floor laughing and me and my best friend wet ourselves. Mum stared out of the window like a basilisk.

ZingWidge · 27/07/2013 18:41

Shock Shock really? Shock Grin @ Happy Hollycaust!

do we have a winner? Grin

LuisSuarezTeeth · 27/07/2013 18:46

DM told me one last night.

She has a prosthetic nose due to cancer.

Her SIL who is a grade one arse, told her to "keep her nose out of his business".

DM replied that she would "relocate his olfactory capacity" if he said anything like it again. Grin

My mum is awesome.

OP posts:
LuisSuarezTeeth · 27/07/2013 18:47

Sorry son in law that was

OP posts:
cakesonatrain · 27/07/2013 19:12

Best Wank Avenue!
What an address...

MeanAndMeaslyMiddleAges · 27/07/2013 20:13

I was nervously meeting my bf's parents for the first time, keen to make a good impression. Met his mum, a severe lady, and babbled on trying to fill the frosty silence by telling her how much she reminded me of someone. Really kept banging on about it, but that I couldn't remember who it was. The evening passes in true awkwardness til I finally blurt out "Oh yes, I know who you look like - Rose West!"

Reader, I did not marry him.

BeaWheesht · 27/07/2013 23:40

At our wedding we had a receiving line even though I didn't want one (mum insisted) I was only in my early 20s and none I my friends had for married so I was really not very sure about it and vv nervous. We had 80 guests and every time someone said something like 'congratulations you look lovely' etc etc I repeated it back to them even when they'd used my name eg 'congratulations bea' me: 'yes, congratulations bea' . I knew I was doing it but I just didn't hve enough time inbetwren people to 'reset' my brain. I could see Dh looking at me like I'd taken leave of my senses (I had) but on and on I went with 80 guests and then at the end I just pretended it hadn't happened. Blush

BeaWheesht · 27/07/2013 23:41

Argh excuse typos !!

EugenesAxe · 27/07/2013 23:51

Just made a huge one on another thread. I am now sat here mortified; I hate that I don't examine comments sensibly until its too late.

There have been loads anyway... you certainly aren't alone.

ErrorError · 28/07/2013 00:12

I saw your comment Eugene, I knew where you were coming from but it was probably that the poster needed sympathy and reassurance rather than analysis of the situation. We all do it, I'm a huge foot-in-mouther in RL!

ElephantsAndMiasmas · 28/07/2013 00:14

My best friend's mum was the deputy head at our infant school. She was teaching her year 1 class one day and getting really frustrated with the way a particular little boy was behaving. The whole class was being difficult but this boy was just outright refusing to do as she said, was drawing when he should have been reading, ignoring him telling him to put his pencils down etc. She lost her rag and shouted: "For goodness sake Paul, are you deaf ?" At which point a collection of little voices said: "Yes, Miss, he is." Only then did she remember that yes, indeed he was profoundly deaf, and the wires coming out of his ear were not entirely ornamental.

swannylovesu · 28/07/2013 00:29

i once sent an email to a to 2000 employees asking them to hand their £2 "casual sex" money to a team leader....mortified!