» When I met the parents

A Brit Abroad
I married a Malaysian girl, and went off to Malaysia to meet her parents. Her Mum was a Tunku (one of the ruling class out there) and a very, very posh lady. The first time I met her she came over as me and my girlfriend were out sitting by the pool. Ever the British gent I moved my chair to make room for her to sit down, not knowing that I had put one chair leg over the pool edge. I shook hands, did a bit of a bow (as instructed), sat down and executed a near perfect back-sumersault into the pool, grabbing hold of the table in an attempt to stop myself falling and pulling that in as well.

Needless to say, when g/f and I announced that we were getting married, she cried, then shouted, then forbade g/f to see me ever again and stopped the generous allowance that we used to live reasonably well.

Apologies etc.... (page 1, yaay)
(Thu 19th May 2005, 13:53, More)

» Dumb things you've done

Self-harm with a steering wheel
About 20 years ago, decided to replace the bus-sized steering wheel on my Mini 850 with a sporty faux-leather sports jobby.

Old steering wheel successfully removed, I fitted the new one and went for a quick spin. All was well, exceot that the wheel was off-centre, pointing a bit left when the car was going straight. Not being happy with this state of affairs, I decided to remove the wheel and replace it correctly, except that it wouldn't come off. I tried pulling it, tapping it, wiggling it, cajoling it and threatening it, but it just wouldn't come off the spline shaft.

After 2 hours, I was really losing my temper and had my feet on the dashboard and my arms behind the wheel, pulling it towards me as hard as I could, without actually considering what would happen if it came off...

Which it duly did, enabling me to smash myself in the face with the rim of the wheel, breaking my nose and cutting my lip badly enough to require 3 stitches.

Ah, happy days...
(Thu 27th Dec 2007, 11:08, More)

» The Onosecond

An odd way to resign
Working in the comms department of a large northern County Council, my mate who we'll call Pete (because that's his name) was furtively typing his CV on the vague promise of a job with C&W. He goes off to look up some employment dates, we redirect his print command to the printer in Personnel. Oh we laughed...

Mind you, he didn't help himself by hitting 'print' about 20 times when it failed to appear on his local printer.
(Thu 26th May 2005, 13:17, More)

» Mobile phone disasters

Undercover?
Not really a mobile disaster, but it made me laugh.
A group of us were in some of the dullest training session, given by a man who was apparently the professor of dull at dull university. Just as we were dozing off, the door crashed open and 2 plain-clothes coppers burst in, ask the bloke 'are you Professor Dull?' 'er... yes' 'right then, you're nicked!' and drag him out of the room.

One of the coppers then returns to explain that training is 'probably over for the day'. Just then his under-cover mobile rings, and his ringtone is the theme from The Professionals at the loudest volume I have ever heard. Possibly a bit of a giveaway? I think so.
(Fri 31st Jul 2009, 9:05, More)

» Cringe!

Workshop
Working for a telecomms company, we were in the middle of putting together a bid for a major client. An multi-addressed email arrived stating that the client had asked that we should put together a 'Workshop'.

I replied quoting Alexei Sayle, 'Anyone who uses the word workshop when not employed in light engineering is a twat'...

Send

30 seconds later, agonised phone call from the account manager berating me for not noticing that the client was on the email distribution list...

Strangely, we didn't win that deal...
(Wed 3rd Dec 2008, 15:30, More)