We recently got a message at work...
...telling us the heating in the ladies toilets on the 5th floor was overactive, and to avoid them.

E-mailing the entire company back "5th Floor ladies, hot flushes. Got it." would've been tactless in the extreme now wouldn't it?
( prince-igor si tacuisses, philosophus mansisses, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 12:04, Reply)

Not funny, sorry.
Mrs ScousersPet's mum had cancer. It was about the third or fourth time it had reared it's ugly head and she wasn't going to come through this bout.

She was living her final days in a hospice and we were taking it in turns to sit with her as she slipped away. My brother in law and father in law would stay with her for a while, then head home to get some sleep while the missus and I sat with her.

Because we were all sleeping weird hours, the phone in the missus' dad's house had had the ringer switched off so we wouldn't be disturbed all the time. This was in the days before mobile phones.

So one Saturday morning, the wife and I were woken by a hammering on the front door. The missus was the most alert first thing, so ran down to answer it. I wasn't far behind.

She opened the door and my mum was stood there, who said, very angrilly: "Why the hell don't you answer the phone? Your mother is dead!"

Well done, mum.
(ScousersPet, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 11:52, Reply)

New baby
Mate of a mate had a baby.

We were all invited round so the girls could coo over the little cutie. When I asked what they'd decided to call him, the proud new mum said "Jude". For some reason, my mouth said what I was thinking (I wasn't even drunk!) and I said "Oh my god! Why?"

I left soon after.
(ScousersPet, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 11:45, 9 replies)

It was the week of my Grandma's funeral.....
...and i had traveled up by coach to Cromer to stay with my Grandad for a few days. I hadn't seen him for about 3 years as my parents had divorced over 20 years ago and we didn't see the Norfolk branch of them (father included, but thats for a another time) .The morning of the funeral came round and my Uncles had come round for breakfast and to get ready at grandads house. Being a keen amateur chef I decided that I would go of the shops and purchase what was needed for a full English. I returned and started to make the breakfast for my grieving grandfather and his sons.

As I plated up the bacon, sausage and hash browns i had forgot the eggs in the pan. I carefully put them on everybody's plate before announcing: " Sorry about the eggs, They look a bit cremated"

Queue me wanting the ground to swallow me up.

To then top it all off, shortly after the funeral as everybody is making there way from the crematorium to the wake i had asked the vicar rahter loudly, If he had a light for my cig. This time Queue angry glares from my father who I had not seen for nearly 15 years! Funnily enough, i haven't seen any of them since.
(norfolk_is_gay, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 11:19, 9 replies)

I suppose this counts as tactless
Last time we went to Australia for a family wedding, Grandma was determined to come as well. Trouble was Grandma was 94 years old, and hadn't got on too well with the long journey in Economy last time around.

We agreed that she could come, but only if she travelled Business class. We were kinda hoping that we'd get a free upgrade so she wouldn't be travelling alone (and, to be honest, so that we could travel business class for free), but this did not transpire, so we were stuck in the back of the plane with the rest of the uncomfortable mob while she was up in the quiet area in front of the engines slurping complimentary champagne, in her seat-pod that turns into a bed, a telly bigger than the one at home and all that sort of good stuff that makes travelling bearable.

Meanwhile, we are sweating and uncomfortable over the wings, coming up to 20 hours of travel, legs cramped to buggery, necks stiff, having had someone else's seat back in your lap all night; all the joys of Cattle Class. And who should appear for a royal visit but Grandma from business class, looking fresh as a daisy and accompanied by a nice trolley-dolly, presumably there in case the ravening masses in the cheap seats rose up.

Possibly it was lucky that she was accompanied, since after exchanging initial pleasantries I commented how lucky she was to have had a seat that reclined all the way into a bed, since it had been so uncomfortable trying to sleep sitting up.

"Oh well do you know" she says, "I don't really like it when the seat goes right back. So I sat with my feet on my hand-luggage."

From behind me, I heard an Australian male voice. It said just one word: "Fuck." I couldn't disagree, really.
(richardm, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 11:02, 1 reply)

a friend of mine
can claim to have made the almost mythical faux pas of asking a non-pregnant co-worker 'when she's due'.
(TheManWithThePlan cussed your mum on, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 11:02, 6 replies)

Being a rural countryside type growing up
in the late seventies and early eighties, I was quite surprised by the cultural diversity in Birmingham when my parents took me up to visit friends, aged about four. It was there I met my first person of African descent, who knelt down, introduced himself, shook my hand and smiled. "You've got white teeth!" I exclaimed.

I can only imagine my mum cringed as much as I did when, around the same age, my daughter exclaimed at the top of her voice, in a busy supermarket queue, "Daddy, I need a poo!" One lad in the queue went purple with mirth.
(NoeI «:::P:::» «:::E:::» «:::R:::» «:::V:::» «:::E:::», Mon 7 Nov 2011, 9:40, 7 replies)

On Large People
Guntfuggle reminds me of a startling but great display of tactlessness on the part of my little brother.

Let's see now, I would have been about 12, and my brother about 8. Our father at the time was a railway modeller and was exhibiting his models at a deeply beardy show in Telford, so my mother took us to Ironbridge, home of the world's first iron bridge, some pig iron works and an excellent 'working village' museum. It used to be highly recommended, but I went back a few years ago and it was looking scruffier than I remember, so take your own chances.

Anyway, back in the day, this was a really quality day out. We watched iron being smelted, walked across the famous bridge, spent an entertaining couple of hours in the company of hard-up actors pretending to be Victorian pharmacists and schoolteachers, and wandered around the museum, with its colourful tales of the life of miners and other local notables.

And then we went to the pub. It was thankfully family-friendly and served a mean fishfinger 'n' chips. We were just mopping up the last of the ketchup, when someone across the pub caught my brother's eye:

"Mum! Mum! Look! It's that REALLY FAT MAN we saw at the museum today"

This was delivered in a shrill and Coca-cola-fuelled voice in what was a reasonably quiet pub, full of murmuring gents and quiet romantic couples.

I may have only been twelve, but I still remember with glee what happened next. The first thing was complete, immutable silence as every single conversation simultaneously stopped. Next, even better, was a sort of congenital head-tilting as every man and woman around the bar tried to simultaneously locate the tactless pre-pubescent and - more importantly - the comically large man to whom he was referring, without appearing at all obvious or rude. There must have been a good 15 seconds of neck-craning, subtle gesturing and covert finger-pointing, and all the while every man in the pub weighing over 16 stone tried to suck in their guts and adopt a posture of nonchalant surprise.

We left the pub rather hurriedly. It turned out my brother was referring to a picture of the notorious 'John Bull' - a 35-stone metalworker who had lived some 150 years earlier and we had indeed seen portrayed in the museum. But never has a pub been left more full of mutual suspicion than that day.
( ousgg is not seeking approval, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 8:42, 4 replies)

When all the pins fell out of the pinup board.
Easily the most tack-less thing I've heard.
Also my wii golf game is very much a 4 par.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Mon 7 Nov 2011, 5:35, 8 replies)

My nieghbours
the snails invited me over for dinner the other week, well they finished cooking it last night.
Everything was going great until dinner arrived.
Well the spread was fantastic ,i love lettuce me.
Well I turned to Mrs Snail and said "I suppose you have to watch your diet ,you know being in the family way and all"
Well you could hear a pin drop, Mrs Snail only had a gland problem wasn't pregnant at all.

Well i felt much better later when our french nieghbours came round later and asked them to pass the salt before devouring the entire Snail family with goose liver pate and a nice bottle of merlot....
I mean talk about a faux par.
(shake'n'bake Tally Ho, Biatch!, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 4:39, 2 replies)

A sailboat that won't turn into the wind ...
... is lacking in tack.
(uncle_bud is not the jelly roll king., Mon 7 Nov 2011, 3:59, 1 reply)

The Queen, the year Dodi said " Henri, do you want to drive me and Di tonight ?"
The Queen in her Christmas message glossed over this, saying that it was an "Annus Horribilis". I said "Shit, why would she tell the Commonwealth about her piles?" Of course several people in the room thought this was in atrocious taste, and the rest were too gutless to admit it was funny.
(the other guy not the one that gave you coochie warts, Mon 7 Nov 2011, 1:04, 7 replies)

Railway
I work for the railway and after the bits of body had been collected from a fatality I rang a station to advise them the line was about to be reopened using the phrase "There should be signs of life shortly."
(jvz, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 22:00, Reply)

My Dad still tells the story....
of a 4 year old me sitting on a London bus going somewhere when a large lady with a larger suitcase clambered on at one stop and proceeded to fall over her cargo when the bus pulled away.....
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Quiet son.'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Shhhh'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Pull the cord Guntfuggle, we're getting off at the next stop and we'll get on the next bus'.
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
'Daddy, did you see that fat lady fall over?'
(FartThroughAWalkieTalkie wished you were dead in ditch on, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 21:20, 4 replies)

I had a ZX81.
Now there was a thing lacking in tact.
(speedevil, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 20:20, 1 reply)

A two-for-one special
Many years ago, during my college days, I spent quite a lot of time on the internet, which was still fairly new to most people. After talking to a young lady for some time, it was decided that we should meet in person, so I was invited to a party being held at her apartment. As I did not own a car at the time, I convinced my friend Lou to drive me there with the promise of single ladies and alcohol. Plans were made, and Lou and I set off. Having underestimated the time it would take from Florida to New Jersey, we arrived considerably later than planned. My lady friend had waited up all night with her roommates (in case I turned out to be a serial killer), and after exchanging brief pleasantries everyone went to their respective bedrooms to get some sleep, leaving Lou and I to nap in chairs in the living room.

That evening, the party got into full swing. It turns out the only alcohol available was a keg of Coors Light. Whatever your opinion is on American beer, I can assure you that Coors Light is FAR worse. I barely sipped at mine, while my lady drank cup after cup after cup. After a couple of hours, she grabbed me by the wrist and dragged me into her bedroom.

And that was the start of tactless example #1: For the next four hours, various people would come up to the bedroom door and shout various forms of encouragement, and/or shove condoms under the door. Typical tactless drunken jokers.

Tactless joke #2: As sexytiems were getting started, my lady friend pulled out a condom for me to use. Much fun was had, etc. Upon finishing, however, I discovered that the condom was very nearly shredded. Panic set in, as I was absolutely sure I was going to now be a father at the tender age of 18. I was nearly in tears, when I noticed that she was laughing. Apparently she knew the condom was quite old and likely to break, so she purposely used it to prank me. She had taken other precautions, and so the condom was never an issue. When she realized that her joke had been pretty tactless, she apologized... for the next several hours.

Length? For an fraction of a second, I thought that's why the thing had broken!
(WillF http://www.flickr.com/photos/silverfischdotnet/, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 20:05, 3 replies)

"Old enough to be...."
I was in the passnger seat driving with a friend along Baker Street. It was a very hot day and everyone had their windows open. Stuck in traffic, as one tends to be along that street, the lanes on either side would occasioanally move a bit quicker. To the left of our car you could hear horses feet, I turned to see a horse drawn carriage pull up and I made eye contact with quite a stunning bride. She was very beautiful, all fairy tale dress and flowers. So, of course I just had to say “congratulations, you look very beautiful”. She demurely smiled and thanked me, and so the bloke at her side (in my defence at LEAST 30 years her senior, although my conscience may be exagerating here) turned to see who she was speaking to “Congratulations, sir, you must be very proud, your daughter looks stunning”

“I'm not the Father, I’m the Husband”

God, I really wonder if I just totally ruined their day...neither looked even remotely amused..I was so shocked, my friend had to close the window remotely as I was just frozen with embaressment
(sabre32, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 18:05, 6 replies)

recently i went to the hen-do of a friend from work
i didn't know any of her friends, but they were all lovely and it was a great weekend. however, 20 girls do blend into one a little bit, when you're drunk the entire time. only one girl wasn't utterly hammered, as her baby was due in about a week.

then came the wedding. i recognised many of the faces, and could see one of them holding a tiny little baby. i congratulated her.

it is hard to say which offended her more, the fact that i had clearly forgotten who was who, or the fact that i was basically saying she looked as if she had just given birth...
( rachelswipe with a fork, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 16:35, Reply)

Oops :(
I made a pic for b3ta one early morning in the office ages ago and emailed it to the team for a laugh.



I got a reply from one guy on the team who wasn't best amused...."Can you not send me that please, my brother has Downs"
"Bet you got crayons everywhere" was not the reply I should have sent.
Just as well he knew my sense of humour, oh how I'd laugh in the Dole queue...
( Jeccius Steam Borderlands 2 junkie, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 14:51, 8 replies)

Year 11 and coming out during an assembly.
We were all in the hall waiting for our head teacher to arrive and conduct a year group assembly when suddenly a boy got up in front of everybody and said "I think you all should know, I'm gay, and if you're going to, you might as well beat me up and lunch time". My school was a rough school and wasn't exactly liberated. Furthermore, he had no popularity of sorts to rely on. As head boy, I had to act. I had to say something to resolve the situation. So I stood up and said, "Well thank fuck that's finally come out; some of us were starting to worry you might be straight!" Seething venom turned to realisation, and he got away with it. Just!
(sunray18, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 14:15, 4 replies)

I cringe when I think about this one...
My boyfriend had recently started a new job. It was a tradition at his work to have a couple of beers after work on a Friday night, and I was invited to join in.

By the time I arrived, it was just my boyfriend and one of the younger ladies left. She asked how we had met, and I explained that we had met over ICQ (of all things). We had to explain what it was and the whole business of talking to strangers over the internet. This should have clued me in to the fact that she was not the most internet savvy person, but sadly I was oblivious...

In the course of the discussion she ended up asking him, "do you talk to many people over the internet?". Mistaking her shy tone for a certain measure of cheekiness and familiarity, I replied, "Yes, he has certainly seen his fair share of boobs over the internet!" She made an incredibly awkward reply and my boyfriend shot me a murderous look. Not content with this, I followed up with, "Haha, he's kicking my leg now to tell me to shut up!".

I don't think he's ever going to forgive me for it.

P.S. I work in HR and really should know better than to engage in saucy conversations with people I barely know, let alone people with whom there is a working relationship.
(ridethefader, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 8:57, Reply)

All you /talk regulars are complete cunts

( enoughblueskyforsailorstrousers, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 8:33, 80 replies)

I don’t know if i was tactless, or just a bit of a dick!
~~~~~~Wavy lines and shit~~~~~

I was about fourteen, maybe fifteen; I had been spending time with a girl the year below me in school.
It wasn’t the usual boyfriend/girlfriend affair; rather we’d see each other when her and her group of friends hung out with the people I was hanging out with at the time. So we were sort of friends.

I don’t remember when or how it came about but I started seeing her at home, usually when her mum was out for the evening, sometimes babysitting her little sister. After a couple of visits we’d progressed to, well, you know…..
easy now, I was young, so that meant kissing and maybe a bit of over the bra action.
Sometimes I’d see her every day for a week, or not see here at all for a few weeks; there was no set pattern and no expectations. This went on for a few months.

After an evening of hanging out together we set off for home.
We were walking down the road, in a palpable silence, as it had become clear she’d had something on her mind and was obviously been thinking of saying something.


So I waited.


After a while she decided to just come out with it. “so, have you ever, you know…. thought about us… being more than friends?”
I looked straight ahead as I walked and after thinking about it for a second said,
“no. I never really thought about it!”

i can be such a cunt sometimes


I really wanted to say that when the celebrant asked at my wedding “do you take ms real as your lawfully wedded wife?” ms real wouldn't let me though

Length? About twenty years now.
( real i'm not happy 'til you're not happy, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 7:35, Reply)

It was Halloween in 1998
and I was sitting on some stairs. They were in the student union of my second university. It was my first year, so I had been there about a month. There were two notable things about me that night. Firstly, I was rather fetchingly dressed as Satan, secondly, I was completely wasted.

A girl walked up to me. She assured me in no uncertain terms that I was a bastard. I asked what I had done, and if she liked my red flashing plastic devil horns. It was what you said to Abbi earlier, she said, and by the way your devil horns are rubbish. That's not nice, I replied, I like these horns, and anyway, who's Abbi? Don't pretend you don't remember, she said. Read the last paragraph, I replied. It clearly states that I am both dressed as Satan and wasted. Do you like my red plastic flashing devil horns?. That's Abbi over there, she said, and your horns are still rubbish.

I strained my eyes through the gloom. It was dark and my view was obscured in part by a few dozen people dancing badly to Steps.

She's the one with the bright red hair, she said. I bet she's got a great personality, I replied, by which I mean that I find her physically unattractive. You made her cry, she said, you are a bastard. I shrugged. I can't remember, because I'm wasted. Tell me what I did, though, I might want to post it on the internet one day.

What follows now is a reconstruction based on some very vague memories, what I was told, and some educated guessing.

Abbi walked up to me. Hi, she said. Hi, I replied, Do I know you?
I'm Abbi she said. I'm cs1ca, I replied. We looked at each other awkwardly.

I like you, she said, I've been staring longingly at you for weeks.
Great, I replied, I hadn't even noticed you existed.
I've wanted to talk to you for ages, she said, but have only now summoned the courage.
Do you like my plastic flashing red devil horns?
Not really.
Oh.
Like I said, I really like you.
That's, er, nice.
So, er..
Look over there, behind you, where I'm pointing.

She looked over her shoulder, but saw nothing.
She turned back around. I was physically running across the room.
( cs1ca, Sun 6 Nov 2011, 0:11, 8 replies)

Chat-up Line
I had a bit too much to drink one night and came out with this chat-up line, which I couldn't even remember...

As my friend told it, I walked up to a girl he had his eye on and told her, "you look like a man and my friend is gay."

Not only did I manage to offend two people, it actually worked for him!
(CaL_FiN, Sat 5 Nov 2011, 23:32, Reply)

I'm totally the favourite so it's all good
I'm the only girl out of my siblings, with two older brothers and one younger. Back in the day it wasn't customary for the dad to be in the delivery room and so, when I was born, my dad was waiting outside whilst my mother squeezed me out. When the midwife came out to tell him that he now had a daughter, my dad's first words were:

"Well, you can't be lucky every time".

The midwife was unimpressed and told my mum. Cue nearly 30 years of me being told this story every time my mum was full of rage against my dad. Pretty much daily then.

EDIT: He was only joking. I don't think he really knew what to say and didn't realise that the midwife would take him seriously. Oops.
(pooster found out how long a piece of string was on, Sat 5 Nov 2011, 23:27, 2 replies)

Out of the mouths of babes ...
My son when he as quite young was quite taken with the film Charlie and the chocolate factory...on seeing a Dwarf when out shopping with his mum exclaimed loud enough for everyone within 20 yards to hear...mum look theres an oompa loompa. I think the mrs hid in the frozen section for a bit.
( bane, Sat 5 Nov 2011, 23:23, 1 reply)

I killed the missus' cat.
For clangers this 1's a 2fer & only one of them mine.
A little background - the missus and I had 4 cats, Blush the eldest (& as it turned out deafest) who even preceeded me, Molly - the flufftiest of the bunch, Jonesy, my fat,greedy white bastard & Clovis - the baby (whom I was conned into keeping). My missus & I had noted Blushes increased lack of hearing but thought little of it due to his age - 16-17.
'Twas a few years back. One Sat. arvo I was about to nip out to the shops to acquire stuff for the fambily evening meal. As I backed my old Landcruiser out of the carport (strangely not letting it idle after starting as I usually do - fuck me I've turned into my grandad!) I heard the most awful gurggly scream. I stopped the car.
Unfortunately right on top of Blush. I yelled for the missus and jumped back into the car to get the wheels off the poor moggy. She came out & screamed then ran back inside. He dragged his mangled body off into the backyard. I got her to get me some towels and the catbox. I eventually caught him, gingerly wrapped him and then proceeded to not drive at a leisurely pace to the local vets.
I walked into the vets and stated as calmly as I could that "This is an emergency, I've just run over my cat".
The young, bored-looking, gothy, receptionist girl gets me to fill out the paperwork, yadayada. Blush mewling loudly and painfully all the while.
She then tells the bloke waiting with his puppy to get it's shots that he can go thru. He turns to me & says that I can go in his place as my case is an emergency. I thanked him profusely. She stops me, insists that he goes in and says -
"Booked appointments take precedence over walk-ins."
I tried to explain that it was an emergency, my cat was dying, most walk-ins would be emergencies and even the concept of triage. Nada.
Eventually I saw the vet - I asked them to relieve his pain but I didn't want to make the call so I went to get the missus (the 1 thing I really regret - I hope they managed to knock him out enough that he was high as a kite and not in pain). The missus and I held him as they put him to sleep - it was very plainly apparent that there wasn't much anyone could do.
As we walked out with the vet trying to console us, the tactful receptionist asked my loudly wailing missus
- "& how will you be paying for that today?" I should point out that I was definitely the calmer of the two of us.
I honestly think it was the fact that my missus was so distraught that saved little gothy girl.
Later that week I went to square up. I was chatting to whom I guess was the regular receptionist as I paid and I mentioned the young lady and her complete lack of tact. I even went as far as to suggest that there must be some nepotism involved as I couldn't see that girl getting a service based position anytime soon.
The vet then stuck her head around the corner and informed me that she felt that her daughter was a model employee.
Length apologies? How about the 10 min. I had to sit there with my cat dying slowly in great pain because I hadn't booked an appt. in a nearly empty vet surgery on a Saturday afternoon.
(Misery McUglywife an attention seeking sociopathic fuckstain., Sat 5 Nov 2011, 22:46, 3 replies)