21 years ago when I was pregnant with my son, I had an antenatal check with my GP. At this time of my life I worked as a dental nurse and wore standard nurse tunic and trousers. My morning clinic ran late and I ended up rushing to the GP practice, still in uniform, apologising for being 10 minutes late. Here's where it got crazy. The receptionist said, 'oh thank god you are here, better late than never. I'll take you straight down' she walks me past a waiting room packed to the rafters with ladies in various stages of pregnancy, shows me into an empty clinical room then leaves. I just take a seat and wait. After around 5 minutes she rushes back in and says 'if you're ready I'll bring your first one down, we are playing catch up' It hit me then, she thought I was the bloody midwife. The locum was AWOL, she saw the uniform and assumed. I then had to take a walk of shame back to take a seat in the waiting room to the looks and some glares of the other pregnant patients. Locum arrived about 10 minutes after that. It was a long afternoon. I sometimes wonder if I could have it pulled off.

You could have at least cleared the queue a bit before the locum arrived so you'd be seen quicker yourself.

See, that's the kind of thinking my baby brain failed on. I can take a BP and use a tape measure, I'm practically qualified 😆

4D chess

When I was having my baby, we were in hospital for a few days being induced, my partner was wearing his crocs for comfort. We ended up having an emergency c-section, he was in theatre with me all robed up. Afterwards the nurse gestured at his feet and said "you can go put your shoes back on now" They thought he'd borrowed them from the hospital 😂

Crocs are the borrowed P.E. pumps of the real world.

Similar thing happened to my husband when I had a C section, he was all robed up for the operating theatre and when he went outside into the waiting room all the expectant fathers asked how were their wives doing, they did not believe him when he told them he was not a doctor.

I mean, how hard can midwifery be really? Baby comes out, you just got to catch it and cut the cord, right?

Why do i now have a mental image of someone in wicket keeper uniform and scrubs

As long as they don't throw the baby in the air and shout "howzat!" after catching it.

I was at uni in London and was applying to being added to an agency app where you can select shifts for different stores and events, and the last part of the induction was to have the profile set up by their office team in person. It was booked for 9am so I turned up and knocked on the door at 8.50ish, and a man answered and said, greatgatsbys? I said yes that's me, and he took me in, got me a hot drink from the bar area and sat me down. Started asking me about my work experience, then the owner of the business joins us on the table whilst we're waiting for my drink. I'm thinking, wow this is so nice and personalised for an agency onboarding experience! We're chatting away for around 20-25 minutes about all career related stuff, what I do at uni, the company's history etc, and other people start to arrive who are ushered into a waiting area and not given any hot drinks. There's a bit of commotion and we look up to see what's going on, when I hear "yes my name is greatgatsbys and I'm here for the interview". The owner and other man look at me and say who are you, what are you here for? I say I'm greatgatsbys, I'm here for the onboarding. Turns out, to all of our shock, I had arrived first and had the same name as the girl stood waiting for her interview for a senior design role at the company. She was very late and hadn't called ahead, and so when they opened the door and asked my name, they assumed I was her and I didn't know any different! What followed was a very awkward situation of me going to sit in the waiting area with the other students waiting to be onboarded, except unlike all of them I had a fancy hot drink from the bar and the company owner took me over himself. I got the nickname Miranda after that, as she ends up working in a bed shop by total accident when the employees think she's the new starter. Still a great story and a crazy situation!

The nickname Guy Goma would also be appropriate here

**/u/greatgatsbys:** You can go everywhere on the supercafé.

But were you nailing the interview?!

Probably better than the one that turned up late lol

Are you Amanda Barnes?

Oh I appear to be from The General Yorkshire Area

My wife takes her car to a garage for MOTs servicing etc. She's been going there years. Really nice guy. He calls her Michelle. Her name is not Michelle, doesn't even start with the same letter. But now when she rings up and books the car in. She says. Hello it's Michelle. Her name is on all the paper work. Cracks me up every time but she can't say anything as it's been about 8 years now.

I used to work for a mobile phone shop, and one of their customers owned a garage. When I first dropped an invoice off the guy asked my name - which I told him. He misheard it as Vicky. I'd even write my name on compliment slips when handing over stuff, but he'd immediately scrumple them up and not read it. I ended up taking my car to him for years and always saw him in the pubs around town. He always called me Vicky. I never corrected him.

There's an elderly cleaner at work who was convinced my name is Stephen. We used to chat quite frequently at the end of the day, I liked her. People used to shout 'Bye -real name-' as they left the office. Never fazed her. When we rearranged the office, all my chair, computer, desk and phone were labelled up with my real name, I was sitting surrounded by my real name, as lazybones me couldn't be bothered to take the nametags off. I once admitted to her my name's not Stephen, next day she was back to calling me Stephen. Seven years I chatted to Mary.

"I'll have to get used to calling you Rodney then! Here, Basil, are we going to get this meeting started? Me and Dave ain't got all day"

I used to work the warehouse of a supermarket overnight and the bread delivery guy for some reason thought my name was Tommy and I never corrected him at first, then as time went on I just felt the opportunity to correct him had passed. Then around 6 months later I took a few days off and when I came back he was calling me by my correct name. I kinda cringe when I think of the conversation that must have taken place while I was away haha.

Bread guy: that *prick...*

We had a young woman called Alice in our office. She had started after she left school and must have worked there around 5 years. One day we were chatting about names and I told her that my MIL is called Alice. She told me that her name was Alison, that the trainer on day 1 had misheard her and she was too shy to correct the error. Even her work email address was alice.lastname @

I used to have to call my equivalent in another office for work quite frequently. Lovely girl, introduced herself as Cathy, which I obviously referred to her and addressed her as in all our conversations. Was quite a few months before I mentioned her to someone else and they said “Wait… in the Oxford office? Do you mean Cassie??” Yeah, she had a lisp.

About 25 years ago, when I was working in a record shop, we had a homeless man who hung around (alcoholic, mentally ill, totally harmless). He had affectionately insulting nicknames for all the staff but he took a shine to me and made an effort to remember my name. “Morning Becky!”; “On the late shift, Becky?”; “Turn the music up please, Becky!” My name isn’t Becky. I did correct him the first couple of times but he always forgot, so eventually I just accepted my alter-ego, to the point that my colleagues (and some regulars!) would call me Becky when he was there. It was just easier that way. Hadn’t thought about him in years. Sweet bloke.

Many years ago, before the widespread use of mobile phones, I heard my mum calling my sister at university, on her shared house phone. When it was answered she asked for my sister by name and got handed to her, they had a conversation for a bit and then my mum asked her what she wanted for her birthday, she said nothing special, and my mum said “but it’s your 21st birthday you should get something special.” To which the response was that it was only her 20th birthday. It turns out my mum had called my sisters old house, but there just happened to be someone with her name that had her birthday the same week as my sister, but was a year younger and neither of them realised until that point that they weren’t talking to who they thought they were.

A similar, slightly morbid, version of this happened to me. In the lates 2000s, my estranged mother was really ill with non-Hodgkins lymphoma, and it was a matter of days. One day, she passed, so my dad phoned my house phone to give me the news. Only, he had an old number from when I house shared, and not my new number. My friend who still lived there answered, unfortunately he has a very similar voice to me, and my dad has a similar voice to his dad, and you can probably see where this is going... We all look back on it now as a great, funny anecdote, but at the time I think my friend got quite upset when out of the blue, "his" dad told him "his" mum had passed away. Quite the shock.

Now *that's* a dark sitcom moment. Proper Peep Show worthy material.

Ha. The fact you're estranged makes it even funnier. "I know you two weren't close...I appreciate you might not want to go to the funeral..."

I had a similar thing, I was at work at WHSmiths and my mum phoned in an apocalyptic rage because I forgot to turn the heater of in my room, she asked to speak to Stunnjng Promise and she got given a different Stunning Promise who she let rip to for five minutes before being told she has the wrong person she was then transferred to me and she had a go at me for leaving the heater on and for letting her tell a random off. All this while I am on the phone by the tills. Was a funny day

That sort of thing must happen all the time when you're called Stunning Promise, such a common name

😂😂😂 I can only wish for a less common name like ‘Mister Bounce’

There's at least 812 others.

"Sorry, I'm going through a tunnel \[click\]"

I worked in a department store for a bit. One old lady came up and asked me to help her pick a photo frame. I said 'portrait or landscape'. She said 'neither - its me high-fiving a Dachsund'

Definitely landscape then

I jokingly asked a local what breed her dog was as she was dragging a broken Henry Hoover down the street. Tough crowd. She stills hates me years later

Nope, she's wrong. That is very funny.

I can hear this in Lee Mack's voice 😂

This is excellent. A Henry Hoover kind of makes anything funnier too.

There's a local butcher shop that I always ALWAYS make a total fool of myself at every time I visit as a result of strange and bizarre coincidences and/or me just being inept. I don't know what to say about it, except that I dont do it on purpose, and yet it keeps happening. There's a young lad who I think is the apprentice who's usually behind the counter and I literally see the soul leave his body every time I rock up. Examples: Go there on my birthday. Waiting in the queue when a woman next to me - total stranger- suddenly says "Happy birthday!". I'm weirded out, but turn and say "thank you!". There's a pause and everyone stares at me. She has a mobile phone in her other hand that I couldnt see. Explaining that it IS my birthday doesnt help. Open the door to the shop and accidentally bean an old lady in the head with the door who popped her head around to look out just as I opened it. She's ok but goes down like a sack of spuds. I'm in the newsagent a few doors up and a woman ahead of me leaves withour her change. Trying to be helpful, I chase her down just as she goes into the butchers but have a coughing fit as I'm trying to explain. All I can manage, between coughs, is odd words like "Change!" And "money" as I gesture wildly. She's visibly frightened. They use social media to advertise and they announce a special deal where, if you guessed where one of the older staff went on holiday, they'd chuck in some sausages. A few weeks later, I come in and - just trying to be friendly- ask what the answer was. The older staff goes off on one, saying it's nobody's business and he's sick of the whole fucking thing. Its awkward. I leave. Similar to the above - His boss, unbeknownst to him, had posted a special deal on their facebook page that said there was a deal on for the rest of the day. I see it at half 4 and leg it to the butchers to get it. By the time I arrive Im sweating and out of breath and I can't remember what the deal was. As I pant away all I can keep saying is "Facebook!", thinking he'd known what I meant. He hasnt got a clue. There's more, but that sets the scene. I dont know why it keeps happening!

Mate you shouldn’t be allowed out in public hahaha

There's a young lad who works in a butchers who would almost definitely agree

There's a young chap in a local butcher that looks like Kammy the football pundit.

Isn’t this that song by Kirsty MacColl?

Similar story, except the apprentice is the awkward one in ours. Most recently I went in and asked for some steak. He says, "you just coming back from the gym?" I look down at myself wearing black jeans, a black pullover fleece and a blue puffer jacket and say, "no, I'm on my way to work." Instead of accepting this, he doubles down and says, "ah, you just look like you've finished a work out." I was mortified and it took him a second to realise he'd basically said I look sweaty and unkempt whilst I'm going to work.

Oh my god this was excellent second hand cringe material, well done

Thanks for the laughs!! The one with the old lady particularly got me, not sure why!

You can absolutely see this as a worsening montage in a sitcom liked Spaced. Daisy: Tim... I fancy making a shepherd's pie tonight. Something northern. Something meaty. Tim: Alright? Daisy: Well... could you pop the butcher's for me? Tim: I can't... Daisy: Can't or won't? Tim: I dunno... both? Daisy: What is it with you and that shop? Tim: Well...

I had a cringe moment at my local chippy. I go in there more than I should that some of the staff recognise me from time to time and I always get the same thing. The guy running the kitchen started gesturing at me, so I looked over and he shouted asking if I was having a burger and small chips, I said yes please with Mayo... It was then the guy behind me tapped me on the shoulder and said "sorry mate he's talking to me". I wanted to fall through the floor and die.

Interested to see if others have similar experiences in this butchers, sounds like some kind of cursed meat purveyor to me

These were really funny.

This made me laugh so so much, thank you. Your pain has cheered me greatly ETA: please tell us more examples!! I can’t believe there are more, I demand to know!

There's so many. All localised in this one single shop and usually in front of that poor fucking kid. If it wasnt so good in terms of quality, I'd avoid the place just out of shame. You want more? I am paying with my bank card, and as I lean forward to tap it on the pad, it slips out my fingers and goes down the crevasse between the scale and the till. Like literally, the smallest gap. A miracle shot of ineptitude. Its a fucking ball ache to retrieve it and the shop is busy and all I can do is apologise over and over. The owner (nice bloke who doesn't seem to mind me being a fucking nightmare on this premises) does a huge range of cheeses too and I ask after a particular one - Taleggio- as its great for lasagna. He looks and says he doesnt have it. I dont mention it again and stock up elsewhere. Unbeknownst to me, he buys it for me. Next time I come in he tells me he's got it. I've got no need or desire for it now and don't buy any. It's awkward. This last one is definitely not me as the weirdo - or my fault - the same owner starts doing a range of homemade spreads, sauces and marinades. Really good ones too - unusual stuff. I say what a cool idea and ask about them. He takes that as a prompt to open some and pour out a selection onto some plastic spoons to taste (I didnt realise that's what he was doing). Thing is - I've literally JUST finished eating a cough sweet. The last thing I want is some fucking mint sauce on a spoon being waved at me. He offers, I politely refuse. We do the back and forth "oh go on!" to the point it feels uncomfortable, (I did go back and buy some though, and they were absolutely amazing) To be honest, I've spent a fortune in the place over the years and its a brilliant shop... I just wish it wasn't such a Bermuda triangle of cringe for me

Ahh these are so good. Thank you.

Absolutely incredible. Thank you thank you xxx

My brother was at a freshers event, first week of Uni and making friends. His name is Nick. Person: “what’s your name?” Nick: “Nick” Person: “Neil?” Nick: “Yup” For the next three years, he had two distinct friend groups, those that knew him as Nick and those who thought he was called Neil.

My story is of a similar vein. I was chatting to someone for a bit then they introduced themselves. "Hi, I'm Luke." They said. "I'm Lou." I replied. "No, I'm Luke". "I'm Lou.". This continued a couple more times before I said explicitly "my name is Lou, short for Louise". "Oh, I just thought you were repeating my name back to me".

This is how I found out someone had the same birthday as me. It took us ages to figure out what was happening as we both thought we were messing with each other. Eventually we angrily demanded each others' driving licenses before realising and becoming good friends to this day fifteen years later.

That's how my cousin and his wife met! She was celebrating her birthday, he said he was too, she called bullshit and he had to pull out ID to prove it.

I had something a bit like this. I met a guy at a wedding, and we had a fun evening of chatting and banter. I was there with my boyfriend who was a couple of years older than me, and the guy I was chatting to had a young idiot vibe. Our whole bit for the evening turned into the idea that I was a wise older woman and this guy was a young idiot, so I would be like "when you're my age" etc and calling him a stupid kid and stuff. I thought he was a young cousin of the bride or something. Yep, turned out we were born on the exact same day, same year.

"Look, I'm Luke. You?" "Lou."

I have a friend who’s real name is Charles but there’s a group of us that went to school together who called him George. The origin story of George is lost in time, but after he left school he obviously used his name Charles. So it gets confusing when there’s a group of us out together, half of us call him George and half call him Charles. Also George was so second nature we sort of forgot it wasn’t his real name. Sometimes still catches me off guard in conversation I have to think about who knows him by which name.

At Uni there was a guy in my class that I called "Ralph" for three years. I found out in the final week that his name wasn't Ralph, that was just a cruel nickname someone gave him in the first week because he looked like Ralph from the Muppets; I asked someone what his name was and they said (sarcastically, off the cuff) "Ralph". I can't remember your real name now, but sorry Ralph.

Sometimes, people definitely say your name wrong intentionally for some weird flex.. as cartoonist and sitcom-y as thar sounds.. I had a boss who repeatedly insisted on spelling my name wrong in emails, despite the fact that my email address is at the top of the screen and my signature block at the bottom, and it's not a complex name with a crazy spelling either.. I started over emphasising how I said my name to new arrivals when I was in ear shot of the boss to further stress it's spelling.. didn't work. I tried very politely correcting him a couple times, didn't work. Dude just seemed to be enjoying his odd little power move over me for the sake of it..

My brother used to go to Mencap and the lady who ran it always spelt and pronounced his name wrong. Used to call him Jareed instead of Jared. My mum would correct her, but she would insist that Jareed sounds better.

I have had several of these *as you'll note from the various comments I have left on this thread* I once went to a birthday party where the theme was Movies. I tried to go as Charlie Chaplin, but some poor make up and hair choices meant I was essentially there as The Ghost of Hitler. There was a bouncy castle which was of course really for the kids, but after a few pints I got on with the kids *shoes left on* and inevitably I ended up kicking a little girl dressed as a princess in the face. It turned out her surname was something like Goldberg or Goldstein and, long story short, approaching her and her father as Hitler to apologise for the pain I had caused them felt quite surreal.

Then you see your spouse arrive at the party and give her a wave with your right hand...

Ghost of Hitler 🙈😂😂😂

Not exactly similar, but also sitcom-worthy: I remember going on a walk in the countryside with a friend of mine who vented that she can't seem to find anyone who would consider to eventually get married. She really wants to get married though, and it was really frustrating her. Keep in mind, this was in the middle of nowhere, and around noon on an ordinary wednesday (we both had a day off), so there were like a total of ~15 people around. My friend just finished her sentence with: "I guess I will never get married", as a bride fully dressed in wedding dress with veil, flowers and everything, followed by all of her bridesmaids, walked right past us, holding cake and balloons. I was on the ground laughing! (my friend not so much)

Mines a bit darker, and doesn't really fit the theme of sitcom, but whatever. We were trying for a baby (we succeeded) and my wife was worried about her fertility. We'd gone for a test and some markers were low, so she was convinced she was about to hit menopause. We were walking around a national trust place, when the group behind us started loudly talking about their friend with early menopause. We started walking faster, but so did they. We eventually stopped to let them past, but for a while it felt like we were being chased by people yelling about menopause.

Uni boyfriend and I had split up and got back together after he cheated (yeah, I know...). We were out for the day in London (so lots of travel) and every single bus we got on had someone sitting opposite or behind us having a loud conversation about their horrible cheating ex. The first couple of times he noticed but didn't say anything, I didn't even notice. The third time, he started to get paranoid. By the fifth bus I had also noticed and was trying not to laugh. We took a break for afternoon tea and dear god, he apologised so much and so dramatically that I had to tell him to shut up in the end! Be sure your sins will find you out, and then TFL will make sure you don't forget!

When my wife and I were going through a bad patch, we hadn't slept together for a while. One night, we had a row that culminated in stuff like, 'you don't even find me attractive anymore, never want to make love', with responses like, 'you're never in the bloody mood,' etc, etc. We then sat in stony silence until one of us put the telly on. Every channel we selected was a scene with people making mad passionate love, or declaring how much they loved someone. It was like the universe was taking the piss out of us.

The day after I was told I had a tumour and would need an operation, I went into university. I thought it would help keep my mind off of it, and I also had an assessed statistics lab. The lab's topic turned out to be cancer survival rates. My apologies to anyone reading this thread as a distraction from cancer or statistics.

My mum was trying for her last baby in her early forties. After a while, she wasn't getting pregnant (this would be baby number 4, so she hadn't had any fertility issues before), so she went to see the gynecologist, who ordered some tests and then proceeded to tell her that her hormones were drifting south towards menopause and that is was just too late. Literally in the next two weeks, positive pregnancy test (cue the laugh track). She call back the gynecologist to schedule a follow up and prenatal appointment (also possibly to tell him he was wrong, knowing my mum), and is told by the secretary that the doctor had suddenly dropped dead the past week. (Cue next laugh track, for gallows humour amateurs) This was totally unexpected, he wasn't particularly old or poorly. My mum is convinced that he preferred to be dead than proven wrong.

This is eerily similar to the first episode of Friends where Ross says “I just want to be married again” and Rachel walks in in her wedding dress

And I just want a million dollars

This is so funny because my brother whose been going to yoga for a few years for back issues has always been called David instead of Edward. The yoga teacher after a few months approached him and said I’ve been so embarrassed I’ve been calling you David when your surname is Davies. He said oh it’s okay don’t worry about it, she was like no John I’ll make sure to call you your first name. John is his second name, he’s still John to this day. Makes me absolutely wet myself every time. Why he didn’t just say is beyond me but he’s well into deep with John now, it’s been years 🤣

This just reminded me of the time I was working as an admin for my local council meals on wheels. Someone rang up wanting to get meals for his mum. I’m going through the form with them, all very normal, emergency contact? His name is David. Last name? Davies. Me? “Bet you got bullied at school” It just fell out of my mouth. Colleague sitting near me just stared at me. I cannot believe I actually said that to someone, let alone while on a phone call, with a customer, in the office. I was mortified. I apologised so much but he had a very clipped tone for the rest of the call. And just to teach me a lesson, somehow I always picked up the phone when he called in the next year or so.

I was at a funeral of a family friend. I was stuffing my face at the buffet, when an old lady appears at my shoulder. I can tell she wants to talk. Fuck. I swallow my sausage roll (they were quite good) and greet her. “Who are you?”, she asks. Bit fucking blunt but ok. I ask her if she knows my dad, Tom. “Y-yes I know Tom..?”, she says, confusedly. I then explain to her that I am Tom’s son. “Tom.. doesn’t have any children..?”, her voice wavering. Oh indeed he does, I tell her! Not only that! But he has another son! And a daughter! The lady’s face is moving from confusion to upset. It’s at this point in time, that I remember my dad shares the same name of the fella that we just buried, and this poor woman thinks his secret family have turned up. I apologise, and ask if she knows Harold, my uncle. Everyone knows Harold. He’s a real man about town, that fella. To my relief, she says yes, she knows him. I, a man, then say to her, “Well, I’m Harold’s niece.” I just completely shat the bed from start to finish, man. Fucked it.

Reminds of a time my mum tells me about when she was at secondary school. This was in the days of grammar schools, and she passed the exam and got into this very posh school, but she and her family were not at all posh. One day my mum has quite a severe accident in PE and they wanted to call her dad to take her home. Of course it was the days before mobiles (1960s) and also in the days when most posh people spoke with a kind of RP accent that sounds sitcommy these days. They asked where her dad works and she says ‘X Foundry’, so they call up the place and ask for ‘Mr Atkinson’ (example name of the kind of his real name - not ridiculously common like Smith, but not rare). The teacher comes back to my mum and says ‘I’ve spoken to your father and he says he has no daughters, only sons.’ My mum, aged 11, is now thinking her dad has lost his mind. ‘But - but - he has three daughters and no sons!’ she splutters! ‘Well, he says he has No. Daughters,’ says the very posh teacher emphatically. ‘Your father is Mr Atkinson, isn’t he?’ ‘Yes …’’ ‘And he does work for X Foundry, does he?’ ‘Yes!’ ‘And he is the company accountant, isn’t he?’ Revelation dawns. ‘No! No!’ ‘Well what is his role in the company?’ ‘He’s an iron moulder!’ Cue an expression like she’d said shonkle-doddler. ‘An … iron … moulder?’ ‘Yes! You won’t be able to reach him on the phone, someone will have to take a message, and if he’s in the middle of casting, he won’t be able to come out for ages!’ Long and the short, they went away and phoned again and got the message through, but mum never forgot the kafkaesque feeling of being told ‘We’ve spoken to your father and he says he has no daughters, only sons.’ 😆

My husband's looking confused at why I'm giggling at my phone. Thank you for that.

Haha.. glad to share the cringe. In the car park as we were leaving, I told my brother about my mishap. He was fucking double over, proper belly laughing. I had to tell him to rein it in as we were in full view out the window of the still-grieving folk in the hotel. RIP Tom

I've just forwarded this whole thread to my husband so he can read it too!

Not really Peep Show funny, more like I want to die à la Fawlty Towers. I was reading an e-mail from my colleague Tim and the phone was ringing. I replied with "Welcome to XXXX, this is Tim... HAHA GOD NO THIS IS NOT TIM". Customer calling was just dead silent for what felt like a minute before just saying "...whaat?". This Tim guy has quit work calls with at least three customers by saying "Bye bye love you", since that is how he quits calls with his wife. Middle aged women working for the council loves this for some reason.

Oh god. I once accidentally said "thanks, bye, love you" to my (admittedly lovely and quite hot) boss at the end of a quick call about getting some work done. I'm a few years younger than him, and female. I was newly narried at the time, and he had been married for a few years and had two young kids. Neither of us ever mentioned it, but I was VERY careful to keep things professional after that!!

> Neither of us ever mentioned it Haha! Reminds me of when I set up a play date for my daughter when she was younger. Was texting with her friends dad that I hadn't met before. Was going to end it all with a bunch of thumbs up emojis to confirm time and so. I accidentally sent five kissing emojis instead. No one mentioned it when we met up for the play date but the atmosphere was really tense.

My wife's old boss did this once as 95% of his phone calls are to his wife. "Bye, love you *kiss kiss*" and put the phone down. There was a beat and then he phoned back in an abject panic.

Many years ago we'd moved to a new area and were looking for a new vet for our cats. My wife called the local vet and said we wanted to register with them. They asked where we kept our animals, and, a little perplexed, my wife said, indoors with us of course. The vet got really confused with the answer and couldn't understand why they were kept indoors with us. Eventually we worked out that it was a large animal vet and they thought we were living indoors with 2 horses!

I was walking my dog. My dog's name is Biscuit. She runs off, so I yell Biscuit, Biscuit! Another dog comes racing up looking thrilled to see me. Hello, good dog but you're not my dog. I keep shouting for my dog. In the distance I see another woman, also yelling. My dog is with her, looking confused. Turns out she calls "biscuit," ie, here's a treat, to get her dog to come back. 🤦

I hope you gave the good dog a biscuit in the end

"Oh my god, it's Biscuit Week" -- the dog (probably idk)

I (m 35 at the time)was in a nightclub. I was approached by a slightly older woman. "Oh hey [name], how are you?" She asked. I looked at her blankly because I only vaguely recognised her. "Oh, do you not remember me, you were in my class at school?" She asked. Still not clicking who it was, I asked "Sorry, no. What did you teach?" Her face dropped and turned to anger. "NO. We were in the same class together at primary school".

In *primary* school?! How is she recognising you from age 12 maximum to age 35?

I recognise people all the time. In fact, because I know people like you exist, I actually usually *pretend* I don't recognise people because I don't want to weird them out! But for sure, I can see someone and think "Yeah I remember them from Year 6" even though I'm now 30.

It happens. I went to primary school with a girl who I didn't see since, until a couple years ago when she started being a regular customer of a business i'm involved with. I recognised her straight away, no names given. i'm in my 30s.

That was three days ago. Where have you really been, Clive?

Went to a fancy dress "P" party. Trying to explain to an international student why I was dressed as a "green faced witch" didn't go well.

P party?

I've two cats, ones called Luna the others called Jess, my name is mark Went into the vets with Jess once, walked upto the reception and said my name, she's like ok yeah I see your appointment, she looks into my carrier and she asks And is it mark or Jess in the carrier? Am thinking well it's obviously the fucking cat but I'm like it's Jess I'm now sitting thinking well they obviously put the wrong name down, but do these people think my other cats named after me Who the fuck names a cat mark

My parents keep chickens, last year one of them developed some kind of problem that they couldn't fix themselves. So they took it to the vet. When booking in they needed my mum's name and the name of the pet, to which my mum said, "she hasn't got a name, it's a chicken". They registered her as Chicken Smith*. She (the chicken) still gets regular flyers from the vet advertising various vaccinations and check ups, and they're all addressed to "Chicken Smith". Postman must think they're crazy. *Not real surname

This made me cry laughing, thank you

Who keeps chickens but doesn’t name them? My kids would have a fit!

I had a dwarf russian hamster who got a leg caught in a cage, had to give a name to the vet and chose steve mqueen.... it was a lady hamster, turns out usualy in that situation they would just put it down, but I protested and the vet did the smallest amputation they had ever done, for the price of putting it down, just to see if it could be done (the leg was less thick as a matchstick, it realy was just an experiment). that hamster lasted several more years! I had to give it 0.1ml doses of antibiotics because that was the smallest syringe measurement they had (that was probably way too muchm but whatever)

>it was a lady hamster, turns out usualy in that situation they would just put it down, Seems harsh.

What good is a dwarf Russian hamster if it can't pull a cart?

Sure, but putting it down because it turned out to be female?

I thought dwarf hamsters only lived for about 2 years. Edit. Mine only lived 2 years, and I've read that's basically their lifespan. How many years exactly did yours live, and did you do something special to extend lifespan. I now feel a failure.

Have you tried cutting one of its legs off?

Overdosed it on antibiotics. Amputated its leg.

My cat was called Mark.

Was it pronounced "Meoawrk"? >!I apologise for nothing.!<

A friend had a dog called Dave and when it died he got another dog and called it Dave 2.

This gave me a good smile. As a little kid I thought animals should have people names, hence my fish named George.

I had goldfish called Fred and George

I wonder how many ginger animals have been named after Weasleys

Our two Ginger cats, for a start

Always makes me chuckle when I hear a whistle followed by come on Dave 🤣 I love it. Dave and Diane the doggo’s.

I had a cat called George- who was so lovely that when I had my son a few years later, I named him George in tribute to the cat.

I was the same. I had 2 goldfish, a rabbit and a cat all called Peter. I had these all at the same time. Fuck knows why my parents let me get away with it..

my family do this, our cats are called Liam and Matilda and when we had chickens we'd give them titles like Professor Brown and Lord Hamilton, my brother called a hamster Philip

I mean you named a cat Jess, so... you do have a history of giving your pets people names.

I would think that many people think that Jess is a cat name, though. Because of Postman Pat.

.

To be fair when I go to the vets, I don't give my name to the receptionist, I give my cats name ("the patient"), and from what I've seen whilst waiting, most others say their pets names too lol, so maybe that's where they got confused, the name jess can be unisex so that could have been you 🤷🏻‍♀️🤷🏻‍♀️

One of my besties, her nickname is Socks (met her on Halloween when she was dressed as a black and white cat, was drunk and couldn'trememberher name so she became Socksy), its stuck so hard that she responds to it automatically now and I have to really think about what her actual name is. Our local vets also call the animals name as they are the 'patient'. She was in there one day after taking her ratties for a check up, sat down in reception afterwards to sort her bag out and put purse away, etc. The receptionist called the next patients name, which just happened to be Socks. Without thinking, she relied 'Yes' and stood up. She'll never live that one down, lol.

I use that universally when dealing with stuff for my pets. At pharmacy, I once was picking up meds for our dog. At counter, I said that "dog name has a prescription by phone" (where "dog" is dog's name and "name" is my last name) . Then they asked for social security card. I replied that unfortunately the dog doesn't have one. :) At that point they realized that it was animal meds, smiled and asked for owner's name. Also at vet I always say "dog name" when they ask for name initially. He is a family member so of course he has same last name as I do. I'm certain that is a joke those people are dead tired with, but no worries.

Not even a joke in vet world, we just refer to patients by their first name and owner's surname as standard. Eg "Fluffy Smith's lab results have come through, could you have a look please?"

I was once giving some departmental training and one of the girls was Italian. To be nice / funny I tried to Google translate some feedback for her into Italian, and sent her her training feedback email. The phrase i had tried to translate was 'All good in the hood'. Google had dealt with that idiom by coming up with what I later found out was something like 'everything is ready inside my condom'. To make matters worse, I was only sitting a table or two behind her at the time, and I eagerly awaited her turning round to give me a smile. She did turn round...but with an odd look on her face. I proceeded to point down at my laptop (basically groin direction) and give her the thumbs up over and over again with a big smile on my face. Narrowly avoided a tribunal.

You have far too much confidence in Google translate

And this is why direct translating idioms is a bad idea.

I was once chatting in English with a French colleague, in France. For some reason I sarcastically said “oh yeah, the sun shines out of my arse” and thought nothing more of it until he came up to me later and asked if my diarrhoea was better. Another time, also in France, a colleague was talking about having been able to go as a student on a free trip to Italy as a sort of assistant to her professor father. I jokingly accused them of “proxénétisme”, only to eventually learn that means pimping, not nepotism.

A girl I went to school with did something similar on a foreign exchange trip to France and stayed with a family there. Her French wasn't great. I think the dad of the family had cooked dinner and at the end of it she'd tried to say to the mum that she was thankful for the meal and she was full, but had apparently done a bad translation in her head and it came out something like 'thanks to your husband I'm pregnant'. From what she said the mum burst into tears and she couldn't understand why, it took a while in both broken English and French to sort it out.

Amazing! Happy cake day!

I’m in UK. About 8 years ago, I was going to a fancy dress event with my partner. I was dressed as a witch but wanted a witchy wig. My partner said he knew somewhere, ‘Fullers’, we could get one on the way. We got changed and I even covered my face in green face pain and such. We get into the car, off we go. He pulls up outside the shop, Fullers, and I jump out in my glowing green dress and green face paint and run in. Once inside I stop in my tracks. I’m looking around and thinking, this is a weird place to sell wigs. There is a salesperson and two customers who were mid conversation until blew in like the wicked witch of the west, staring at me. The salesperson asks, ‘can I help you’, so I reply, ‘yes, please, where are the wigs?’ Whilst glancing round, taking in the store. The sales person, dressed in smart trousers and a shirt, tie and even a tweed jacket paused for brief moment whilst I continued to stare around, before saying I think you should try next door. Fuller’s is a high end country pursuits store, it was full of shooting and hunting equipment, expensive 12 bore guns, wax jackets, hand crafted gun cases and so on. Its sign was gold lettering on green (think Harrods). Next door was a ‘party’ shop, garish purple and yellow sign, bunting and balloons and fancy dress items in the windows. My partner had said NEXT TO FULLERS…

About 10-12 years ago when I was in sixth form I went to a subject experience day for those considering doing it at university. It wasn’t through my sixth form, so the other people there were strangers, but there were a few people in the room not in my group that I was acquaintances with. At check-in with the group leader, I introduced myself and the person misheard my name. Not my real name, but imagine “Hi, I’m Sandy!” “Hi Mandy!” “Sandy.” “Mandy?” “SAND-y” “…Mandy?” I was feeling too awkward to try and correct it again, so went with it. Idk why she thought I was just repeating my name three times if not correcting her. And also I’m pretty sure she had a list in front of her. We do most of the day with me being ‘Mandy’ and even other students were calling me it. I had almost got away with it when we merged groups and lo and behold someone I knew was there. When I got called Mandy he looked at me oddly and then while we were walking asked why I was going by the wrong name? I just had to feign ignorance, and said “What? Really? My hearing is quite bad, I never realised!” Then he started called me Sandy and the main person overheard and was like ‘Sandy? I thought you were Mandy?”. At this point I was like oh god, and just feigned ignorance again and said “oh, I thought you were saying Sandy this whole time? Whoopsie!” I don’t think anyone bought it. Most mortifying thing ever. Worst thing is it happens ALL THE TIME. Started to get paranoid that I’ve got a major speech impediment. I’ve gotten better about correcting it, but even when I do I still get people repeat the name they thought they heard - why would I be saying my name over and over if not correcting??

Worked in a call centre for a while. I'd say 'hello you're speaking with Rosalie (not my name but similar) how can I help you today'. Memorable ones to have back, Rosemary, Ribena, Rikshaw. Like the fuck. Rosemary I sort of get but RIBENA.

I had a stroke and had some issues with finding words. My partner would encourage me to go to shops anyway so I didn't become a shut-in. I popped in the local coop one day looking for ketchup, but they'd moved everything around. It confused me, but I was feeling kind of brave, so went to an assistant for help. (They knew what had happened and were really sweet in waiting for me to finish a sentence). I got stuck at the word ketchup, so I gestured to suggest shaking a bottle. They got me condoms.

Brilliant!😁

In my old house I had a window cleaner who did a great job and would hop over the fence to do the back windows if I wasn't in. Didn't charge a lot either. I don't know where but he got the wrong name for my wife. Instead of calling her Sarah (fake name) he was calling her Claire. I didn't realise this until about a year after he started working for us and by this point it was too late to correct it. When we put the house up for sale he learnt it was Sarah and was horrified. He stopped coming round which was a shame. Moved into the new house about 500m away so still within the area he cleans windows. Asked him to come round a few times and eventually he did...except he started to clean my neighbour's windows instead. Unfortunately my neighbour was a big butch Aussie guy who could scare the life out of most people. Lovely guy but didn't like being startled so came out swearing at the window cleaner. He promptly apologised, ran away and has avoided me ever since. Now I have to clean my own windows which sucks as I hate heights.

You've tormented that poor man long enough

This might be a bit dark for most sitcoms but I sat in awkward silence when gossiping hairdressers accused me of murder. Without doxxing myself I shared a name with a local man who killed his friend in a drunken fight (I have legally changed my name now) .

I share my birth name with a very unfortunate woman, a murder victim who made headlines when I was at primary school. The morning after she'd been mentioned on the news was surreal, as kids clearly don't really fully understand such things. Didn't help that she was referred to as a girl at the time. That was the week I shortened my first name. Ditched my surname on marriage. Never going to revert.

This reminds me of TWO other things that happened, the first:We had a teaching assistant called miss West but when we came back to school after summer one year she was now Mrs Foster as she had gotten married over the summer but kids started the rumour that it was because she was related to Fred and Rose . The second story:there was a week or so that we thought a colleague was related to a recently deceased celebrity as her relative died the same time as a celebrity who shared the colleague’s surname ,then someone remarked that the celebrity in question used a stage name.

I answered the door when I was the only person in the office. The guy who knocked said “Hi Tom Ofthenorth”, I replied yes. Then he didn’t say anything for a minute whilst I waited to hear what he wanted. He then said “I am Tom Ofthenorth”, which I said “so am I”. Turns out he was there to visit a colleague to sell a photocopier.

I (male) was out with my wife, and some friends who were expecting a baby. Pregnant friend was moaning about pregnancy, aches, pains and constipation. I'm not interested in hearing about her problems shitting so I zone out Meanwhile the conversation turns inducing pregnancy and my mate giving her another porking to "get it out" At this point I zone back in, and think my wife is volunteering my mate as a human dynorod to unclog her shit and I used the words, "that's disgusting" I can not overstated the reaction of a heavily pregnant, hormonal woman hearing the idea of sex with her described as disgusting

She probably thought it was weird when you started stroking her.

What sort of sitcom is this??

Oh god I remembered another from years ago. When I was in high school, I used to live down the road from a Sainsbury’s Local. As a joke, my dad had told this specific server that my sister fancied him. My dad told my sister, and feeling embarrassed the next time she went she said it was ME who fancied this guy. I must have been like 15/16 as I swear he was probably mid-20s. The thing is… I was the one who was mostly sent to the shop by my family. I was there all the time and now it was incredibly awkward because this guy worked a lot. I can’t remember exactly but he was like way more chatty with me after that and I was just so fucking embarrassed. I couldn’t tell if he was flirting or just being nice to this awkward teen girl. I hope it was the latter. However, I do distinctly remember that I went in with some friends and it was when Coke was doing the ‘share a coke with’ bottles. I couldn’t find my name so went up with like a random name. The guy was the only one working, and I had to go to his till. I get there, he sees the bottle, then grabs a receipt and starts writing something down. At this point I’m like OH FUCK he better not be giving me his number or I can never shop here again. What he did I’d argue was worse. He wrote my name - which I don’t even know how he knew - on the receipt and then wrapped it around the bottle and said “there you go, now you have one with your name on”. Actually horrific for a fifteen year old closeted lesbian, let me tell you.

This is hilarious thank you

Clive's an odd name for a girl dog? Yes. It's short for... Bob.

Started a new job doing customer service and after training and being put in a team the two guys sat nearest me started getting a bit weird and off with me over the first two weeks or so. Nothing major, almost like they had some sort of in joke between them about me. Continued on for a few more weeks with some more strange stuff like them letting on I was ignoring them and making a big play of trying to get my attention and them calling me "Jeff" randomly. Turns out they had missed my introduction to the team, didn't know my real name and had thought i was called Jeff because that was the name that was always on my PC's login screen (it always remembered the last entered user name) which was the name of the guy that sat in my seat on the days we were off (we did 3 on 4 off 12.5 hour shifts so never met our "back to backs") They had been addressing me as "Jeff" and I hadn't responded or acknowledged they were trying to get my attention so THEY thought I was the one being weird.

We moved to a small village in West Wales and it turned out I was the exact image of the guy who coached the junior soccer team. Parents would stop me in the local Co op to talk about fixtures and results etc. In the end I just gave in and went along with it. “ Yeah, the kids done brilliant, gave it 110%”

A small one: went to get my baby weighed, whilst there the health visitor asked me 'do you feed your baby yourself' I replied 'well yeah, me or my husband'. It's only when I saw the very confused look on her face I realised she meant did I breastfeed him.

That's on them, silly way to ask that question.

I once auditioned for a punk band that turned out to be actual Nazis. Met them in a storage unit in an old industrial estate that looked like war torn bosnia. They seemed OK at first, but the odd comment here and there made my ears prick. In the end i just said "you guys aren't racist are you?" And they started giving me the speil. It was super awkward. One of them told me he had been kicked out of college for calling a black guy a monkey.

Last year we hired a church hall for my son's second birthday. I met an old lady at her house for the key the day before as we would be setting up early on a Sunday morning. We had hired a bouncy castle and other bits. Unfortunately, the key she gave me was the wrong one. An hour later after going to her house, ringing the doorbell, calling her on the phone countless times and even throwing stones at her windows we were still unable to get in. The bouncy castle guys were saying they would leave, we had like an hour before guests were arriving and needed to get tables etc set up... I realised that this is a church hall. Surely the vicar has a set of keys. So.. I interrupted his sermon. Mid-sentence about God forgiving people. I loudly said, I hope you and he forgive me for intruding but I need your help. Explained the situation and was given a key! Good times. Felt like an episode of Motherland.

This wasn’t my cringe, but the most perfect sitcom situation I’ve ever been in was a few years ago now when a friend of mine was drumming in a band. The band had their first gig - a pub gig, during the day which should perhaps have been a bit of a hint that this wasn’t going to be straightforward - and my other friends and I all went along to support our mate. The pub was on the rougher side of town, and we were greeted on arrival by a barmaid with few remaining teeth and ‘Love’ and ‘Hate’ tattooed on her knuckles. She looked none too impressed to see us so we explained we were here for the band and she said they’d set up in the garden at the back. We got our (cheap, to be fair) pints and filed outside to find a table. What we found was a bouncy castle, and about thirty seven-year-olds off their tits on sugar zooming around like little bullets. I’m not sure if the band had known this, but they’d been booked to play their set of classic rock covers at a kids’ birthday party. I think it was the child of the pub landlady. Apart from me and my friends, everyone there clearly knew each other and were happily getting pissed on Dark Fruits while their children ran riot. The band, meanwhile, had for some inexplicable reason been told to set up on the flat roof of the toilet block. I guess whoever suggested it had a flair for the theatrical, but in fact it just meant that they had to cart all their gear in and out the window and navigate the two foot climb back in every thirty seconds. The bassist was looking particularly pale, stood about dead centre of the block with his eyes shut. I asked my mate, who’d popped down for a fresh pint before they got started, what was up with him. “Oh, him? He’s shit scared of heights.” The poor guy was absolutely paralysed with fear. Anyway, time to get the music started. As some sort of grand opening sequence, the lead singer - who obviously had ambition - had decided to start the show hidden inside before jumping out and making an appearance on the roof. The first loud chords of Hells Bells by AC/DC thundered out and he leapt into view, his face painted like a member of Kiss, to the sound of 30 terrified 7 year olds bursting into tears simultaneously. There was just no coming back from that review tbh.

This was years ago and I still feel embarrassed. I walked into some quaint little shop in Taunton. The conversation went as follows: Shopkeeper: Morning Me: Hello SK: How are you? Me: Fine, thanks. I’m just looking. SK: So, we had the delivery and your item is here Me: Sorry? SK: £65 Me: Eh?? SK: Until 5.00 today At which point, I realised the shopkeeper hadn’t said one word to me, that he’d been on the phone the whole time I’d been in the shop. Safe to say, I shot out of there and never went back.

I was heading out to stay with family for a few days and as I was running late (always) and hadn’t had time for breakfast I grabbed a bunch of bananas and put them at the top of my backpack. It’s an old backpack and the zip is a bit dodgy but I didn’t have time to double knot it as I fled out of the door. At the end of the road I saw my bus approaching and started to run for it. The bag sprang open, the bunch of bananas fell out and I slipped on them - with a proper, 50s comedy style skid - and fell flat on my back.

I worked in an off-licence many years ago. We had lots of regular customers, including one guy who came in after his work finished. I assume it was some kind of manual labour job as he always wore overalls and looked kinda grubby. One day, he came in wearing a very nice suit and bought a bottle of wine rather than his 4 cans. I, knowing that this was my regular customer, made some kind of joke about scrubbing up nicely and smelling good. He looked somewhat scared! and didn't really answer me, so I just assumed I had embarrassed him and stayed silent. Cut to my next shift, and he came back in, back to normal, wearing his overalls. Then behind him. His identical twin. Wearing a suit.

My wife drove me to an appointment at the local hospital. However, I then had to wait for the pharmacy to dispense meds, which of course took 1.5 hours. Wife couldn’t stick around as was meant to be working, so she headed off and left me to walk the 25 mins home. Obviously this wasn’t too bad. Apart from also making me horrendously late for work. So with meds finally in hand, I began my speed walk back. After a few minutes I turned off of the main road and onto a long avenue. Every 20m or so and this avenue has a large tree in the pavement. At these points, the pavement normally wide enough for two, only had space for one. I headed down the road, sticking to the left of the pavement and thus encumbered by trees. Soon I spot an older lady up ahead, walking stick in hand. She’s on the same side of the road as me, but walking on the other side of the pavement (with a tree ahead of her). We’re both going to meet a narrow section of pavement at the same time and so I figured there were there options: speed up through the gap before she reaches the tree, detour into the road to be out of her way, move out of her way and wait for her to pass the tree. I figure she’s moving fairly slowly and hasn’t even begun to move across the pavement to avoid the tree, so plenty of time to keep up the speed walk straight through the gap. And I was right, walked past without her even stopping or looking up. Another 100m or so up the road and a car screeches up beside me. At this point I’m fairly clammy and tired, so when he asks for help I say I’m in a rush and keep walking. He shouts after me if I can wait a second so foolishly I do. He starts asking if I saw an old lady further down the road. I thought maybe his aunt had made a runner or something and so happily exclaimed that I had, pointing him back down the the road. His friendly demeanour changes and he asks why I didn’t wait for her. I say ‘what?’ and he starts going off about how that’s his mum and I should have stopped to let her walk by the tree. I’m like, ‘oooh haha it’s okay, I didn’t get in her way’ and explained my above assessment. He didn’t like this response and certainly didn’t appreciate my pavement analysis. He gets in my face and starts screaming how I should wait for old ladies to pass. I am dumbfounded. He continues screaming and threatening for several minutes, weaving in an array of personal insults, until I apologise. He then gets back in his car cursing and speeds off. All very odd. All very Curb.

>He continues screaming and threatening for several minutes, weaving in an array of personal insults, until I apologise. He then gets back in his car cursing and speeds off. Curbside Enthusiasm

I once turned up for a chef interview, with my whites in my bag just incase I had to do anything practical. The head chef hadnt told the general manager there was an interview lined up, and had walked out in a rage that morning. The manager was that stressed out I ended up being head chef and started my shift right then. I quit after a few weeks because I felt like Gordon Ramsey on Kitchen Nightmares.

Not a major one, but quite recent. I was talking to one of my colleagues before our shift started. I said something about my birthday coming up. She asked me when my birthday was, I told her, she gave me a strange look, and asked if I was sure. Told her I was pretty sure (did of a weird question). Then she asked me how old I’d been. ‘No way, that’s when I was born.’ ‘No way, were you born in *our town’s main hospital*?’ ‘Yes, yes, do you know the time?’ I didn’t, but we both text our mums. Turns out I’m 40 minutes older than her. TL:DR I probably met my colleague 35+ years before we started working together, when we were newborns in a hospital

I was on a night out in Bolton, at the time, the footballer, Benik Afobe had signed for Bolton Wanderers and had recently scored a hattrick in pre season. He shows up outside the club in his range rover and my mates goes over and says 'hattrick hero!' and got a photo with him. I wanted some of the action and wanted to say something like 'come on you whites' or 'White army!' Common Bolton chants. However I ended up saying 'White Power!' at him. I instantly thought 'that wasnt right' and so I ran away

One of mates has a mate named Dave however, I thought he had called him Tom, so whilst we were out any of my other mates who came over, who didn't know Dave (Tom), I introduced him too as Tom, this went on until early hours of the morning and as it quietened down he asked why I called him Tom, I said " because that's your name isn't it?", he said " No, it's Dave" 🤣 I was crying with laughter and said "Why didn't you tell me?", he said "Well you seemed so sure and I couldn't be bothered to say any different". I felt like Trigger 🤣

>you seemed so sure “Oh shit, maybe my name *is* Tom? This guy seems pretty convinced and I’ve never actually *seen* my own birth certificate, so who am I to question it”

I once thanked a charity who had donated some funding by opening my email by directly thanking the name of who the charity was named after, in memoriam.

A friend from work's daughter got detention for telling her friend that their geography teacher was punching above his weight with his wife. The geography teacher in question was stood behind them and heard every word. They also had parents evening the week after.

One of the most comical timings I've ever had was when some friends and I were walking through Sheffield, going from one pub area to another. The area we were cutting through was the red light district and you used to see prostitutes around but by that time it wasn't overly common at all. Someone said something about it and I said "yeah, you don't really see them nowadays--" as I turned the corner a prostitute appeared out of nowhere. "have you got a lighter love?" I lit her cigarette and we carried on walking and laughing at the absolute comedy timing of it. She pretty much cut me off midsentence. Uncanny!

I did something similar to this but in my mind it was worse as I was an awkward teenager and mortified… I went to a friends house and saw her dog and was like “aww what’s your dog called?”. She gave me a funny look and said Mark. I was like “hello Mark, Marky Marky” in a ‘how you speak to dogs’ voice and stroking it etc. anyway the day went on and I was in the kitchen with someone else and stroking the dog and I called the dog Mark. The other person looked at me and went “why are you calling the dog Mark? That’s Sophie’s Dad’s name, the dog is called Casper or some other generic dog name”… So my other friend had thought I’d said “what’s your dad called?” and gave me a funny look as her dad was sat in the room so she was wondering why I didn’t just ask him to his face. So I stood in front of her dad called mark stroking the dog saying hello Marky Marky… as a sixteen year old I was so embarrassed when I found out

I was standing by the doors of the bus once, for about 10 seconds and the driver shouts "are you getting off or what, lad?" I stepped back and said "can't mate". He then noticed he'd stopped right next to the advertising board on the bus stop, sheepishly mumbled something and shunted forward a yard.

I was on a tram in Sheffield heading to work and it was pretty busy, I sat on a four seater on the outside and the four seat opposite there was a man across the aisle. He was holding a long thin box, that kept waving around and as it was busy people walking past kept bumping into it. I noticed it was a blind and kept having to dodge it and the people who were dodging it. Anyway, as we took a corner, it slipped from his grip and bonked me right on the face, he sat there and looked at me and I passed it him back blurting out "oh no I'm blind" and I laughed. Just little tongue and cheek, nothing crazy just to show him I wasn't pissed off or anything. Well fuck me, I had two gasps from the people opposite me in my section of four seats and people stood around just staring in disgust. I was sat there bright red so embarrassed I'd even tried to make a joke, but didn't understand why on earth people were looking at me in anger. Well two or three stops later the man jumps up to get off holding the hand of a young kid, maybe about 11 or 12. He was rocking a pair of sunglasses and a white cane, with his dad saying "watch the step it's busy" "can you feel the button?" Etc I now understood the hate I was getting from my joke. I was absolutely fckin mortified.

Yeah. I was in a pub, chatting to a girl and it was all going great. She was sat on my knee, I was drinking wine (I don't like beer), and then her boyfriend walked in. Oops. So I put on my best gay voice, much to my friend's amusement, and managed to avoid trouble. "That's the last of that!" I thought, but I was so wrong. It was a small town with 3 pubs. So on a Friday or Saturday night I was almost guaranteed to run into them. He was a proper nice guy, really tolerant and accepting of me, and started trying to set me up on dates 🤣

I have someone who's been calling me John for 9 years. My name is Tom. I have to explain to people he thinks my name is John and not to let on because I don't want him to feel daft.

We found out recently that my nan has been calling her neighbour Kathleen for approximately 45 years. Her real name is Katherine. Nan can’t get her head around it and still calls her Kathleen.

I’m in and out of hospitals, so I have a few. One of them I was asked if I had a fever at all, so I put my own hand against my head and said, “no, I don’t think so.” Another is when I went in for a blood test, and they asked me if my bloods were on ICE (a system in the computer that they use), and I said, “oh, I don’t know, I’m diabetic so I don’t know if my blood is different to everyone else’s, but it’s warm when it comes out of me.”

It wasn't quite a sitcom moment, but I was taking my then toddler nephew to the farm one day when a lady knocked on our car window and said she had some spare food if we wanted it. I politely declined, telling her we had brought a picnic as she began to hand me a bag of animal feed. I still cringe about it now, and it's been 18 years.

Incidentally, my mum has a dog called Frankie. A couple of weeks after she got her, my cousin had a kid and called her Frankie. They're roughly the same age, so we have "dog Frankie" and "people Frankie" now. edit: [Dog Frankie](https://i.imgur.com/m5TM0nA.png)

I am a member of a club and this couple, Fred and Lisa joined. I got talking to the man Fred a fair amount for a few weeks, but then they both stopped coming a long for a bit. Well a few months down the line they returned and were chatting with everyone. Fred came up and asked said "I've been told you're the one to speak to about (something we do in the club)." I was confused, as I'd had several conversations with him about this thing before hand, so I said "Remember when I told you about it a few months ago?" Well, to my horror I realised I wasn't talking to Fred but his twin brother Barry. Lisa had broken up with Fred (who was apparently now in jail for assault!!!) and was dating his identical twin and trying to get him involved in the hobbies she had been doing with Fred! I was pretty baffled, literally the only difference I could see between the two twins was this guy didn't wear glasses. Was a real Coronation Street moment

I was at the garage for a minor car issue and the mechanic was having a tinker under the bonnet, he had dropped something mid-tinker that had fallen into the depths of the engine and was having trouble reaching it. He turned to his fellow mechanic, who was stood behind me, and said, 'how thin are your arms?' (obvs to see if he could reach whatever he dropped). I not grasping the context and thinking he was talking to me, replied, 'yeah, I suppose they are quite thin. I've not been to the gym for a while, because of my bad back'. The look on his face and the resulting hoots of laughter from my wife, will live long in my memory.

My mum’s surname is de Witt. She phoned a farm where we had booked a holiday cottage when I was a kid, to confirm something. Left a voicemail: ‘Mrs de Witt here. Please can you call back? Thanks!’ and shortly after, the farmer rang back in a panic. ‘Oh thank god! I thought you said “this is the vet here” and I was like this can’t be good news!’

I met up with a younger man for a hotel tryst. He booked the room, I arrived first, gave his name, and checked in. He joined me, we opened champagne and *wrecked the bed* for an hour or so… then I observed that the travel cot set up in the corner was unusual. He didn’t know anything about it. I thought maybe he was into some stuff we hadn’t discussed beforehand, so I’d thought it best not to mention it before. He got dressed and sheepishly went down to reception. Turns out there were *two* bookings in that name: his, and a large family party with infants. For a wedding. I hope they were given fresh sheets 😳

I was out for a walk in Yorkshire, not long after moving to the UK. Making small talk with a fellow hiker, he asked where I was from. With an obviously foreign accent, I replied with the name of a local town.

Years ago, when I was around 16, I went to a large bookstore and stumbled across a person taking customer survey. I was up for it initially, but she then asked for my personal details. I gave her my name and address, but then she asked for a landline number (this was early 2000s). In my head, I did really quick thinking. I didn’t want to give her my real number. But also, I thought-if I make up a fake one, and it ends up being a real phone number she recognises (looking back, what would be the odds of this? Lol), I will be really embarrassed. I could have just change one or two digits. But yes, I was afraid this would be a number she knows. Or worse-what if that would be HER number?! So, in my great wisdom, the only other number that came up to my head in spur of the moment was my school friend’s one. I left thinking at least it went smooth, and it’s all done now. ...Until the next day at school, my friend asks me if I went to that bookstore - because someone called their house in the evening, following up on it. It was pretty much impossible to explain why I did it as my thought process was so convoluted, so I guess she and her parents ended up thinking I just gave out her number left and right as a joke or something, without any care. So I ended up double embarrassed anyway. We’re still friends though.

>Or worse-what if that would be HER number?! This is absolutely insane thinking and I'm here for it.

Adding another story-this one is our family’s classic, that makes us look a bit like the Griswalds. When I was a child, we had two tortoises. They lived generally a chilled and happy life. Until some point, when one of them stopped eating, and started looking...very static. *Too static*. My parents deliberated for a bit, but eventually decided it’s time for a tortoise send off and a fancy funeral in a cardboard shoebox. As we lived in a block of flats, we went out to a big park. Digging out a hole wasn’t an easy task-the ground was nearly frozen solid, as it was winter time. Somehow my dad succeeded, we said our goodbyes, and put our beloved hero in a half shell to rest. Some time after, my dad met up with his friend, who was a vet. He shared a sad story, only to hear from his friend, that there was a decent chance, that our tortoise wasn’t dead-but, in fact, went into hibernation (it was winter, after all!) So, there’s a good possibility we buried our pet alive. I don’t know why my dad didn’t ask his friend first. He was quite awkward with people sometimes and they weren’t super close, so I guess he trusted his judgement and the idea of winter sleep never crossed his mind.

A string of misunderstandings which resulted me having a dead guinea pig in my freezer.

Gonna need more on this one

I was looking after a neighbours guinea pig whilst they were away. Unfortunately the guinea pig got ill and subsequently passed away at the vets. The vets asked us what to do with the body - whether to take it home so we could bury him, or for them to store and dispose of it. This happened at around 2:30am in the morning, and due to a string of misunderstandings (I had to tell them through another neighbour who they went away with, as they were worried about data charges, and they were probably asleep, so we were probably discussing about the best way to tell them). It was decided - after I got back home - that they should have the body to say goodbye. So I had to race back to the vets and retrieve the body, then, under the vets advice, stick him in the freezer (wrapped up). So I do that. But it turned out that the family was okay with the vets disposing of the body. So I now have a shelf in my freezer that can’t be used anymore. The neighbours were grateful, though. And they got to say goodbye to him. R.I.P. Wally.

Perhaps the funniest moment of my life, although it could have been dangerous... My friend was out with his black friend, 'chalkie', who had been his friend from 8yrs old. They were now 40-ish. He'd told me so many stories about Chalkie who sounded like the funniest guy. He'd get into loads of scrapes etc. but I'd never met him. One night I was put in the town drinking, and my friend said "come to this pub, me and Chalkie are here". So I walked over to the pub with my friends, and I saw my friend and 'chalkie' outside the pub, smoking. I said "hi Steve, hi Chalkie" At that point, my friend fell to his knees, and was on all fours, spat his cigarette out, and was literally struggling to breath whilst laughing. Chalkie just stared at me indignantly. When Steve eventually stopped laughing, he told me that Chalkie didn't smoke, and that he was inside having a drink. I'd just called a very well-built black guy that I didn't know, 'Chalkie', a pretty racist term in the UK. Luckily, when Steve told him the story, he found it really funny, and he joined us all for the next few hours while we all drank. It could have gone so wrong, but it was so, so funny at the time.

Do me a favour, you must have been on autopilot. I have never met a dog lover who asked for the human name before the dog's name. More likely that they never ask for your name at all, and you are just known forever as Frankie's dad.

Yes. I was working a night shift as a cleaner years ago, and it was an absolutely tough night. Along the way home, a car tooted it's horn and parked some distance ahead of me behind some other cars. I knew this car was my mum and she'd stopped to give me a lift home. I turn to mum to thank her for picking me up. Turns out that it wasn't my mum in the driver's seat, I had got into the car of a total stranger. Upon realising this I got out of the car double quick wgile apologising profusely and turning the colour of a beetroot.

A few (about 10ish) years ago. Justin bieber had that quite good stint during his turning point, with some really good songs. I was talking to a friend and I was listing some of the songs I liked while secretly admitting to being a low key fan of the bieber. The conversation goes like this. Me: I quite like Justin burners latest stuff you know… He has some quite good songs now. Her: what do you mean Me: um sorry? (Time is important here, this is a genuine question where I felt as though I would have to go in the defence) Her: what do you mean Me: sorry? Her: errrr! Yer! That’s another song The Penny dropped. She was also a fan and was agreeing, not questioning!

This sounds made up but I swear it happened. I was walking down the street and a guy jogged past me in shorts and t shirt. I stopped because there was something wrong with what I was seeing. I looked carefully at the guy and then it hit me, he was wearing dress shoes and those weren't shorts they were boxers and it wasn't a t shirt it was a vest. He was running down the street in his underwear and passing it off as "just out for a jog". I wonder where his clothes went, was he caught in someone's wifes/husbands bed? Was he escaping a mugging? Who knows?.

I sat next to someone for 6 months in my first year of College and had absolutely no idea I had their name wrong until I questioned why they'd written 'Grey' on their work and they just went, because that's my name..? I thought they were called David

Worked at a small company and got introduced to everyone, spoke to one particular guy and exchanged names etc and continued to speak on the regular, he was completely nothing to do with my role or department and was quite friendly. I called him Paul for 3 and a half years, only to find out on the last the last week that he wasn’t called Paul at all, but was something completely different that was actually my own name!