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Original poster

That thing where you think you're being polite but really it's just a bit mad

346 replies

Nabootique · 04/04/2016 08:44

I am in the office just thinking about going to the canteen to get breakfast. I can't order what I want as the very nice young man who works the counter prides himself on getting my "usual" on the go as soon as he sees me approach the door. As a result, I have the same thing every day and don't have the heart to tell him I'd like to order something different.

I feel like this mad level of politeness is probably very common. Any funny stories?

OP posts:
Roussette · 05/04/2016 08:08

I've just caught up on these as I was out last night and I've been rolling around laughing

Page I am awarding you a Britishness badge and hats off to Cubes DH for soldiering on working at Pizza Express Grin. Siscaza love hearing what it's like "from the other side" as it were. Poor FB bloke Grin

Original poster
Nabootique · 05/04/2016 08:10

Oh, these are brilliant! "Nicky Morgan doesn't have a clue" Grin and we made discussions of the day!

OP posts:
Roussette · 05/04/2016 08:10

lurking Grin love it! The effort needed to sound like most of the rest of the public!

grumpmitchell · 05/04/2016 08:11

I shared an office for about 8 years with a woman who was the most terrible 'embroiderer of the truth', she would tell the same story repeatedly to whoever came in. Each time it would become increasingly elaborate (this wasn't just one story, it was pretty much anything she told!)

Her daughter played the cello - first thing in the morning she was in a school concert, by the afternoon she was in the Royal Philarmonic. Her son was in the sea cadets at 9am, by 2.30 he was captain of a warship.

Never once in 8 years did I call her up on her bullshit.

PageStillNotFound404 · 05/04/2016 08:16
coldcanary · 05/04/2016 08:24

First meal at future in laws.
MIL is actually a brilliant cook but boyfriend (now husband) that I like curry so to impress me she made a curry for the first time ever.
She made it so hot it numbed the inside of my mouth and tongue within 2 forkfuls but I was so desperate to be polite I are the whole thing while necking water like someone dying of thirst and spent the restnofnthe might in agony on the toilet. We've now been together 19 years and she still thinks I eat the worlds hottest curries! I've never had the heart to tell her that I only really like medium curries.

Sophia1984 · 05/04/2016 08:31

I was home for the summer after university and waiting for my degree results. I had set myself up reading in the porch in the sun to wait for postie. For some reason he assumed it was my A-level results I was waiting for and started chatting about what my plans were. I was too polite to correct him so told him I was hoping to go to [the place I went] University and study [the subject I studied]! I will always, always go along with an awkward lie rather than embarrass someone..

Buddahbelly · 05/04/2016 08:31

I thought of another one, A year ago or so not long after id had ds, i was sat in my mums house waiting for a parcel to come for her whilst she was at work.

There was a knock at the door, and a young lady stood there asking for Helen (my mum's name), she said they had arranged to meet so i invited her in saying she wouldn't be too much longer, I made her a cuppa she cooed over ds and helped feed him, then she said shed never been to my mums house before so I showed her around, took her in the garden showing her my mums plants she was so proud of then we headed back in. she was actually really lovely to chat to.

about half an hour later my mum comes home with shopping bags and asks me to help her, i go out to the car and tell her her friend is here waiting for her, "what friend", sarah i replied..... "I don't know any Sarah", so she goes in to get to the bottom of it and it turns out the lady had knocked at the wrong house, she wanted the one 3 doors away, my mums newest neighbour - also called Helen, who also had a newish grandson Blush... Id shown a perfectly nice stranger around my mums house. Luckily she laughed and blamed herself but I was mortified that i could be so stupid!

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 05/04/2016 08:40

lurking, Quelle embarrassing, n'est-ce pas? Grin, I just can't stop laughing at that. You embody Britishness, you really do.

There are so many posts that I have to go back up and read as I think I might have missed lots of them... I love this thread! Grin

mackerella · 05/04/2016 08:42

Grin Page

PageStillNotFound404 · 05/04/2016 08:51

I didn't actually confess the most embarrassing thing about the whole "lift" debacle...

Blush Blush Blush

... I used to give her petrol money

Sophia1984 · 05/04/2016 09:01

U2hastheedge I get this too - not just from the elderly! I used to work in a shop and was crouched down sorting a shelf and a mum told her kid to 'mind the man'. Bus drivers seem to call me 'mate' a bit too much for my liking, when up here it should be 'pet' or 'love' for a woman..

GrumpyOldBag · 05/04/2016 09:06

I have two lovely cleaners who come as a pair. Let's call them Mel and Sue. They have worked for me for over two years.

I'm still not confident about which is which, although I can usually work it out if I think really hard about it Blush.

Roussette · 05/04/2016 09:07

So let's get this right Page Grin

You used to pay someone to take you to the wrong part of town (where she thought you lived) whereby you then had to pay to catch a bus to the right part of town?

badge well deserved despite the blood Grin

lurkingfromhome · 05/04/2016 09:08

I know! I'm such an arse! My DH (who never suffers from this affliction and will just speak up when required to) laughed for about a month when I told him and just kept asking "BUT WHY COULDN'T YOU JUST HAVE SAID 'WRONG CLASSROOM' AND LEFT AT THE BEGINNING????" He just couldn't get that it is much better to endure ongoing hideous embarrassment for hours/days/months/years rather than draw attention to yourself for ten seconds, once, and then live an easier life.

So, so British. I'm heartened to learn that I'm not alone. Grin

lurkingfromhome · 05/04/2016 09:09

I am howling at Page. Grin

Roussette · 05/04/2016 09:10

My DH would say the same lurking. But this comes from the man who would chew his way through a very well done steak despite ordering one that is still mooing. He doesn't have a leg to stand on Grin

Youarentkiddingme · 05/04/2016 09:19

page you had me in stitches at catching a bus from wrong drop off. Tears started at your badge and a and e story.
I'm now finished after reading you use to pay her Grin

lurking that's fab. You should have started conversing in fluent French as yiu left thanking the lecturer for such an amazing lesson and saying how much you'd learnt Wink

PageStillNotFound404 · 05/04/2016 09:25

So let's get this right Page

You used to pay someone to take you to the wrong part of town (where she thought you lived) whereby you then had to pay to catch a bus to the right part of town?

yes Blush

QuimReaper · 05/04/2016 09:28

On our old road, there was a lovely chap called Ian, who was always tinkering with his car outside the house so I passed him every time I walked anywhere. He had a friend named Alec who was almost always with him. They were both a bit over-chatty and it was always awkward when I was in a hurry, so I developed a strategy of bustling past at thirty miles an hour and trilling "morning Ian! Morning Alec!" at top Jolly Hockey Sticks volume on my way past, beaming like mad, and then I was gone in 2.5 seconds.

After eighteen months I found out Alec's name was Toby Blush Blush

There was no way of concealing my error. I just seamlessly started calling him Toby and moved house Blush Blush

Where did I get 'Alec' from?! Who the heck is called Alec anyway, I've barely met a single one in my life!

WhiskyTangoAlphaFoxtrot · 05/04/2016 09:29

One that perhaps only west coast of Scotland types might get. When we first bought a house together one of our Christmas cards from a neighbour arrived addressed to Whisky and Tim. A wee bit of investigation revealed the card sender didn't know DH's name, asked another who said "l don't really know him but he looks like a Tim!" Shock

He is not a Tim (of either variety) though I am; why it should matter, and how you look like one, is beyond me.

Bicnod · 05/04/2016 09:41

Just thought of another one.

8 years ago I went on my first (and so far only) snowboarding holiday with DH's family. No DC at this point.

Day one I fall (well, sit down HARD on ice) and am in quite a lot of pain. As in A LOT of pain. Everyone else is talking about backache, aches and pains etc so I think I just need to get on with it and not make a fuss.

I continue snowboarding for three days (very gingerly) in pain, but not wanting to make a fuss. On the fourth day I take a big fall and can barely breathe for pain. Still don't want a fuss (DH not there at the time) and insist on getting myself down the mountain and up to the chalet on the button lift (ouch).

Lie on my back in chalet waiting for DH and trying not to cry while making polite conversation with FIL.

DH comes in and takes one look at me and takes me to clinic. They scan me and it turns out I've fractured my spine. From that point on I'm flat on my back and being pumped with morphine. All was well in the end after an extended tussle between French and English neurosurgeons about whether to pin my back or not (happily the English won and my back healed in a cast).

So I basically snowboarded with a broken back for three days in agony as I didn't want to make a fuss Blush

IJustLostTheGame · 05/04/2016 09:41

I was in labour and on all fours on the bed, which was fine.
The midwife (who was miniscule) struggled to bring in these massive bean bag things for me to kneel and lean on. She wouldn't let DH help. She was so teeny the bean bags were bigger than her.
I used the bean bags because I felt so bad about her going to all that effort, but really I wanted to just be on all fours.
She was so pleased at 'aiding my comfort'
I went through the whole sodding thing like that with more pain in my hips.

I should have just said shouldn't I?

Queenbean · 05/04/2016 09:44

This awkward British thing actually happened yesterday evening as I was leaving work - there is a set of double doors out the office to the reception area, and then two sets of doors to get out, the doors to the lifts and past that, the doors to the toilet

I needed the loo before going but someone saw me come out of the office doors and held the lift for me. I'd have felt so rude saying "oh no, thanks!" That I got in the lift and went down all 14 floors, before having to pretend that is forgotten my umbrella and going all the way back up to use the loo before going.

LyingWitchInTheWardrobe2726 · 05/04/2016 09:57

Queenbean... that is just so quintessentially British! You've reminded me of another incident of ridiculousness on my part. I was ambling along the corridor at work, minding my own business, chap walking the other way, about 30yds away came up to the doors and held it open for me.

I was quite far away and in heels. I should have waved him through, saying "No, don't wait, heels on" or something like that. What did I do? Break into an ill-advised canter towards the doors, so as not to hold him up. Misjudged the door, burst through it - smacking myself in the face and ending up face down on my stomach... I leapt up (this time!) said "Sorry!" and tried to hobble-canter down the corridor away from him. Blush

It's clear that I'm not on my own, putting myself at great risk/embarrassment/hazard to save face. Why do we do these mad things? WHY? ShockBlushGrin

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