» Misunderstood

a stained deck
Being a kiwi living in America I am frequently misunderstood. A classic example was when my flatmate (or as they would have it, roommate) decided to stain the outside deck. It turned out this nasty brown colour, which we had mocked him about.
So when his mate came round, I asked him casually what did he think of Rob's deck. He looked at me in horror and incomprehension, so I clarified myself. 'He stained it'. This didn't help much and I finally clicked, that he heard 'dick' rather than deck due to my accent.
(Tue 11th Oct 2005, 15:01, More)

» Going Too Far

Blow
A Colombian friend of mine lets call him Muchacho, was really into practical jokes and had played many a joke on people including a legendary epic joke on my boyfriend which made him think that the University were investigating him for downloading porn. This was dragged it out for a (very stressful for boyf) week, and even involved him breaking into university offices (complete with photographs for future blackmail) to retrieve an incriminating email that had ‘accidentally’ been printed to the wrong printer.

Anyway a few years later the opportunity arose to get Muchacho back. Some of his other ‘friends’ had heard from him that when he came back into the country from Colombia he’d gotten quite the seeing over from the customs officials due to coming from somewhere with a druggie reputation (and perhaps due to his slightly terrorist appearance). So they procured some official letterhead paper and wrote to him to say something like the swabs they’d taken off his luggage had come up positive for the white stuff and he was in big big trouble. He shat himself and hired a lawyer to fight his imminent deportation.

Here is where the joke should have been stopped, however there was some talk amongst the perps of this joke as to whether he was on to them and was just lying about the lawyer to make them feel bad, so they decided against ending the joke there. They let it go for over a week before letting him know it was a farce, only after Muchacho had really spent $1000 on the lawyer who had called the officials and found the letter was fake, and was now looking for the people responsible to charge them with fraud, and get the person who supplied the letterhead paper fired (queue multiple pants browning). In addition he complained that the stress of it all had deprived him of sleep and work time and no longer talks to us (even though myself and boyfriend were not even involved). Ah practical jokes all fun and games until someone loses an eye or $1000.
(Mon 13th Nov 2006, 18:42, More)

» Ignoring Instructions

Its really safe - see!
For some reason many moons ago, myself and my good pal were mucking about with some item of gadgetry that I had stolen off my mum that was supposed to somehow suck the pilling off woolly jumpers and such. It appeared to have a little fan or something under a protective cap which had lots of little holes for the 'pills' to get sucked up through. My friend asked me if it was safe to touch, never having read any instructions to the contrary (or in fact any at all) I assured her it was fine, and proceeded to demonstrate: 'see you can put it on your arm (no pain), on your cheek (no pain) and even on your tonguearrggghhhhhhhh!!! (intense pain) as it tried to suck up all my tongue pilling. I was left with a bloody spotted tongue and a hysterically laughing friend. Ah good times.

There was also the time that our form two teacher told us to never, never, push too hard when we pooed otherwise we'd end up with haemorrhoids.
oops.
Though I really have to wonder how that came up in class???
(Thu 4th May 2006, 17:41, More)

» Airport Stories

an almost complete tour of New Zealand in 2 days
I used to fly a lot about NZ during my time as a government spy on fishing boats (Observer) and have many fab stories of pain on flights, but this one was pretty fun. Started with a normal 1 hr flight from Auckland to Wellington to report in to work at the fishery headquarters. We tried to land in Welly twice in a nail biting fashion as the winds were up to 150 miles per hour, (or something stupid) pulling up at what seemed to be the very last minute and causing some terror and pukeage amongst the passengers. So it was announced that we were going to Christchurch instead (about another hr away) and had to stay the night there. I wasn't too bothered by this as I'd planned to stay the night on my cousins floor before heading to work the next day anyway and a hotel was considerably fancier. So the next day on the plane again off to Wellington, comforting a lady who was still freaked out by the last nights flight. I arrived fine and dandy and head to work where I'm told the boat I'll be getting on is leaving from Bluff (the arse end of the south island) so we (me and another spy) are flown from Welly down to the nearest airport (Invercargill) via Christchurch, where we have to jump in a cab for a 1/2 hr drive out. Once in sunny beautiful Bluff (ahem) we soon discover that our boat isn't around, and making inquiries we find its actually in NELSON (ah only at the complete other end of the south island) there aren't any more flights out of Invercargill so we have to hoon to a rental car agency rent a car and drive 2 1/2 hrs to Dunedin where we then jump on yet another plane which takes us to Christchurch (hello again!) and then finally to Nelson, where we finally arrive at the boat having pissed off a whole boat load of fishermen who we have to spend a whole month with. Hurrah. Not to mention the Harbour Pilot who was pissed cause he was going to miss coronation street or something. And this was just after they'd stopped feeding you on domestic flights so I spent the whole day starving as we'd had to race around so much and couldn't stop to eat. Still I earned a nice bunch of frequent flier miles for that lot.
(Wed 8th Mar 2006, 17:22, More)

» Panic Buying

Ant Farm
In a fit of desperation I thought an ant farm would be a great gift for my friend's 20th birthday, how exciting! You can watch your little ant friends beavering away behind their prison of glass. I guess I didn't consider that she might find the idea of ants in her room (and their imminent escape) a bit gross. Ah well I'm sure the picture of her head photoshopped onto a monkey's body cheered her up.
(Fri 23rd Dec 2005, 18:45, More)