Around age three or four I was boarded out for several months while my mother recovered from surgery. I stayed with family friends who had just moved to the area and had very thick accents, as a result my speech became close to incomprehensible.

Shortly after returning home, as I played with pots and other sundry utensils on the kitchen floor, a cast iron skillet suddenly burst into flames on a burner someone had inadvertently left on.

Shrieking "FIRE FIRE", I ran to my parent's room only to have them try to fob me off with the likes of "Don't worry, it can't hurt you" and "It will go away on it's own".
Not until the smoke started to billow up through the hall and into their room did they realise that I wasn't screaming "SPIDER SPIDER".

I'll never forget the sight of mother trying to douse the fire with teacups of dishwater (which of course made it worse) or father flinging that flaming skillet through the window with the remnants of the breakfast sausages flying out of it like miniature meteorites, in turn starting small fires of their own.

The moral of the story is twofold. Never ignore your child when they are frightened, no matter how silly it may seem and always open the window before attempting to toss flaming objects through it.

Oh dear, that's not very recent but it will have to do as the recent misunderstandings are far too numerous to choose from.
( sosumi, Thu 13 Oct 2005, 9:24, Reply)

More Minerals
Cap'n Tallbeard, i know what you mean. Our Russian geology lecturer has the dryest sense of humour, and was classifying rocks by their good, great and bad cleavages. We were all shaking with laughter. Don't forget about dikes as well, that went down pretty well too.
(Bald Seagal, Thu 13 Oct 2005, 3:09, Reply)

at a wedding
this happened to my uncle, who was very close to being a lush at the time that this happened. with my parent's wedding coming up (im 15) he had the idea to get plastered the same day.... in the morning. feeling drunk as ever, he wandered into a wedding. the wrong wedding. at the wrong time. in the wrong building. as usual he sat down and waited for the damn thing to start. he eventually was seated next to a couple who were, consequently, very talkative. speaking to them, the conversation sort of went like this, from what my uncle said and my parents remembered.

" hello. are you okay?"
"yeah, just... just a little hungover."
"are you with the groom or the bride?"
"the bride. im glad that shes marrying willie(my dad). hes one hell of a guy"
"um...willie? nevermind, how do you know the bride?"
"she's my sister. (keep in mind that my uncle doesent tan, he browns, so he looks almost hispanic.)the bride was absolutely white"
"i'm her brother, and ive never seen you before. what are you thinking?"
"what the fuck is your problem?"
no fight, my uncle just walks away dumbfounded.he somehow stayed throught the whole wedding, never noticing how the people getting married were not my parents. the big problem is that he missed everyone getting drunk out of their mind on the real wedding. i saw the tape and yes, there was more than one human pyramid scheme going on.

think of how more confusing that was when he found out that he was in the wrong wedding by talking to my parents about it.

really sorry about the length, had to tell it. and this is my first post.
(i dont know, Thu 13 Oct 2005, 0:17, Reply)

i went into the butchers the other day...
and said to the butcher, 'hey, i've just seen Nelson!' he replied, ' so what, ive just sawn a bone apart'
(mittymutu, Wed 12 Oct 2005, 22:55, Reply)