"Classics" are mine and Stacye's word for outrageous faux pas. If you have any
classics, or even just generally amusing stories, email them to me and I will be
glad to post them. Not everything on here will relate to embarrassing incidents;
any interesting, outrageous or amusing story will do - just so it's true.
1/17/2003 PETER
This is a classic of Peter's which took place a couple months ago. It is relayed
in his words: I was at home alone one evening. Karrie was gone to choir
practice. I decided to take out the trash. In the midst of this chore, you
(Naomi) called. When I explained what I was doing, you said that you would give
me 5 minutes or so to finish, and then you would call me back. Our trash service
takes our garbage from out back of the apartment. All I have to do is set it
outside the back door. So I unlocked the back door and screen door and set the
first bag out. When I came back to the screen door, I discovered that I could
not open it. When you pressed the button it would not fully disengage the latch.
So there I was, stuck outside with no coat, no keys, and no wife to come unlock
the door. I decided to try the use of force. I started jerking violently on the
door. The result was sound and fury signifying nothing. No matter how hard I
tried, the screen door wouldn't budge. All of this, and I was expecting the
phone to ring at any moment.
I stood there looking through the glass screen door into my warm apartment for several minutes. I then realized that when Karrie had left for choir, I hadn't bothered to lock the front door. Seeing this, I hurried around the building and got back inside. Once I was in, I realized I still had more trash to take out. So I grabbed the second bag and headed out the back door. Who was it that said "Those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it"? Wise words. Forgetting completely my dilemma of 2 minutes before, I found myself standing locked outside of my back door looking into my warm apartment yet again. But this time the situation was different. I had locked the front door behind me when I'd come in the first time. Now I was really in big, fat, trouble. I could hear the phone ringing inside. I was unable to answer it.
After more futile attempts of violence towards the door, I started feeling around the glass panels. I discovered that the bottom panel will slide up its track enough to allow me to stick my hand inside and open the door from the inside. I made it back inside.
I have gotten stuck outside one time since then, this time with Karrie at
home but upstairs. I pounded and pounded, but she refused to answer. In fact, at
one point I heard her yelling something downstairs to me. I finally went to the
front door and pounded and yelled there. She finaly came down and let me in. She
explained that she thought that it was some stranger pounding on our back door
and that I was just pretending not to be at home. but if she thought that I was
trying to be quiet to fool them, then why did she yell down the stairs??? I
still haven't quite figured out what she was thinking.
Stacye's Classic 1-20-03 (A Nursing Story)
I work in Neonatal Intensive Care, and from time to time we have to attend
high risk births so we can work on the baby immediately. This was one of those
times, and I gladly accepted the offer to go over for this delivery. (I will
start this story out by stating that the baby is OK.) We went over and stood
waiting for this woman for over an hour. (I could have literally had 4 kids out
by the time she pushed 1 out. lol!) So...after this long wait, the baby finally
came. They put it on the bed and it is not doing anything! Just lying there like
a rag doll. We began to breathe for it with a bag and mask, and the Resident was
checking the heart rate. I was holding on to the chord to also check the heart
rate. I couldn't feel anything. We put a tube down the throat to breathe better
for the baby, and still no heart rate... Dr. Shah got a little excited, and
motioned for me to start compressions, and was yelling "hit the light! hit the
light!" (this means to pull a string that sets an alarm off in our unit so more
nurses will come to help.) Again trying to help, I promptly turned around and
pulled a string. It turned out to be the string to the ceiling light. This put
the whole room in total darkness. We are coding a baby in the dark. I said "Oh,
shit!" and promptly turned it on again. Meanwhile, someone else had pulled the
correct string. As I said before, the baby is OK and went home with its parents
in a few days.
Nathan's Classic, submitted by Stacye
This is a story on my little brother Nathan. Any of you that know him well
can picture him doing this and will crack up. He is living in NYC while going to
school. He and his roommate were at the local laundromat doing their laundry.
The place was run by an oriental woman. There was another man doing his laundry
as well, and was standing at a counter folding his clothes. Nade speculated that
the man had some mental problems and somewhat reminded him of Charles Dillon.
The man kept falling asleep as he was folding this one load of clothes; the
woman would get angry with him, and yell at him to stop falling asleep, and of
course he would deny being asleep. Being the kind soul that he is, Nade got
worried about the man and didn't want the woman to get mad at him anymore.
So...whenever he noticed that the man was falling asleep, he would go over,
knock on the counter with his fist, lean down next to the man's ear and say in
the deepest WV accent, "Now s-u-u-u-gar, your gonna have to git up now; it's
time to wake up." He did this a number of times while the man folded his
laundry.
Richie's Classic
My family moved into an older 2-story house when I was in 10th grade (15-16 yrs. old). My brother Doug was in the 8th grade at the time (13-14 yrs. old). The house had very high gables, and our task for the weekend was to paint the wooden exterior boards under those gables. We were using a long extension ladder. I was using the upper part of the ladder while Doug was painting below me. Because the paint bucket was heavy, I attached it to the upper part of the extension ladder with some wire. I would dip my brush in the oil-based paint and make broad-brush strokes. Work was progressing very nicely. After we would complete an area, we would move the ladder and continue. I had just attached a new full paint bucket to the top of the ladder when we needed to move over to the adjacant gable section. I climbed down the ladder. Doug was on the outside of the ladder and I was underneath. We were about to move the ladder laterally, when I noticed that I had not brought down the paint bucket. It was too late. He jerked the ladder. As he did, the paint bucket acted as a pendulum, and the paint -- understanding the laws of gravity better than Doug -- sloshed out and landed squarely on my head. As the paint was boiling off my brow, Doug stared at me in sheer horror. He made a quick escape. Though I think I was faster than he was at the time, I knew I could not catch up to his Road Runner-like exit.
My mom tried to remove the paint with turpentine, but it burned my skin. So I
had to wear paint on my head for about a week.
Naomi's Classic
One day when I was still at Century 21, I had to call one of our clients to
schedule an appointment to show his house. This particular client was a
prestigious doctor. He and his wife were both very classy. I dialed the number,
and just as their answering machine kicked on, I saw a man, known for being a
belligerent drunk, coming toward the office."Shit," I said aloud, -- then
realized I had said it right after the beep on the answering machine! In a
panic, I hung up, then called right back and cheerfully delivered my intended
message. I can only imagine how that sounded on the machine.
2/10/2003
Peter would have disowned me as his cousin this evening, I'm convinced, had he
been in poetry class with me. One of the most reknowned poets in the university,
with whom I begrudgingly have class, wrote a VERY humorous poem for our workshop
this evening. My friend Tracy and I both loved the poem. We were the first to
comment on it in tonight's workshop: We just laughed and went on about how funny
it was. I even pointed out lines that struck me particularly witty and
hysterical. After a few moments, however, Tracy and I realized that the class
was rather silent. Some boys gently suggested that maybe the poem was a satire
on the Bush/Irag situation. I just thought this was interesting, and remained
happy until Dr. Neelon asked "Is there anyone in class who did NOT get that this
is a satire on the Iraq situation?" Tracy and I blurted that we had not, as if
it were not obvious enough. (Neither had Matt, who sits beside us.) Then Dr.
Neelon tactfully asked us what substance we could have found in the poem if it
wasn't the satire. I realized there really was none. I began to study the poem
more closely and realized that the metaphor was SO obvious, it did not even
require close scrutiny. I wanted to sink through the floor. Tracy just had her
head buried on her desk. She and I have both proven competent students in past
semesters, but very few of the students in our class THIS semester are aware of
that. How could we explain that brain lapse? We couldn't. I don't know how I'm
going to drag myself back to class next week.
But here's the rub: we had each had to memorize a poem for tonight and recite it. It just occurred to me a few minutes ago the significance of the poem I had so proudly recited to the whole class this evening, prior to my ' little performance. ' Here is the poem.
The Dawn
William Butler Yeats
I would be ignorant as the dawn
That has looked down
On that old queen measuring a town
With the pin of a brooch,
Or on the withered men that saw
From their pedantic Babylon
The careless planets in their courses,
The stars fade out where the moon comes,
And took their tablets and did sums;
I would be ignorant as the dawn
That merely stood, rocking the glittering carriage
Above the cloudy shoulders of the horses.
I would be - for no knowledge is worth a straw -
Ignorant and wanton as the dawn.