» Misunderstood

Not my story, but...
My husband was once told by a pastor he knew about a trip he took to Mexico. The pastor was preaching one night in a village full of fishermen, and he was trying to tell the congregation that "the wages of sin"--pecado in Spanish--"is death". Problem is, instead of pecado, he used pescado, "fish". Then, meaning to ask if there were any sinners--pecadores--he proceeded to call all the pescadores--fishermen--to repent and give up their evil ways, to turn from fishing, etc. The church was filled with a bunch of confused guys, convinced that this pastor was telling them that God would strike them down for being fishermen. Eventually, the mistake was found out, and last my husband heard, these guys were still teasing the pastor about it.
(Tue 11th Oct 2005, 4:19, More)

» Weird Traditions

When my high school band...
went on away trips, we had two traditions I could think of (among many, many more). First off, we had to be completely silent for the last fifteen minutes of the trip.
Also, when we crossed railroad tracks, we would touch a screw, touch something red (our school color) and lift our feet off the floor.
One year, I was put in charge of one of the buses. On one trip, I saw railroad tracks coming up very fast, too fast to clearly tell everyone, so I yelled to everybody, "SCREW TIME!" I think most people missed it from laughing.
(Thu 28th Jul 2005, 19:10, More)

» Hidden Treasure

Not funny, just rather coincidental
My mother had recently come into possession of some drinking glasses, the rather (once) popular "Whitehall" pattern in peach. Well, I had never seen these glasses in peach before, just clear, amber, and green. She asked me if I would keep an eye out for a matching pitcher, and I said I would, although we both knew it was very unlikely and said as much. This was, after all, in the days before Ebay.

A month or so later, my sister and her husband were moving into a new house, and several members of both families were at the house helping to get it ready to move into. My sister, my mother, my brother-in-law's cousin , and I were all working in the kitchen. For some reason, everyone left the room about the same time, except for me. I was making sure all the cabinets were empty, since I was the tallest of the group. I reached into one cabinet, felt around, and pulled out the exact kind of pitcher my mother was looking for. My sister didn't want it, and we couldn't contact the former owners, so my mother got it. She paraded the thing around like a trophy...
(Mon 4th Jul 2005, 8:13, More)

» The last thing that made me cry

Ooooh......
A few days ago. I (a teacher) had been observed in my worst class by my program advisor, without any warning and about an hour or two to prepare. Also, my husband and I were preparing to leave that evening for six hours on the road, so I had to get about two days' worth of material for my students to work on while I was gone. Too, the reason we were going is, to make a long story short, one of our relatives is being bullied by an agency and we were supposed to testify as character witnesses (they're trying to say she's unfit to take care of our grandfather, yet somehow it seems to be more about money than any concern for his welfare). To add to this, I had to talk to a parent about her son being a brat in class, and this plus the observation meant I had to stay even later to get the next couple of days' classwork ready. Also, there was the fact that I had had about 12 hours of sleep in the previous three days AND PMT. When we finally left the school at almost six, and I realized that with all the stuff we had to do before we left, we would probably get to where we were going at one or two in the morning, I started tearing up and sniffling. My husband realized what was going on, and kept asking what was wrong. I couldn't quite give a particular answer, but what was running through my mind was "We're too late and I'm too tired and I'm a crappy teacher and this hearing's going to go badly and I'M NOT GOING TO GET ANY FOR A WEEK! WAAAAAAAAAAHHHH!"
(Sun 17th Apr 2005, 5:52, More)

» Crappy Prizes

Last year...
A local car dealership was advertising a big contest. They sent out game cards to just about everyone in town, along with coupons for if you did decide to actually buy a car. Well, I scratched it off and we won...something. You had to go to the dealership to find out. So, my husband and I went, and we were told that we'd won a $1000 shopping spree on a particular website. Later, we were looking at the website, and, well, everything was free, as they said. However, the shipping fees were just about equal to or higher than the actual worth of the product. Examples:

*One totally crap camera that wouldn't cost $10 here--$30

*A leather jacket made of tiny pieces of leather stitched together--about $120, when this type of jacket would usually go for about half that.

*Little tool kits, like I've seen at dollar stores for about $5--$20.
(Sat 6th Aug 2005, 22:58, More)