Setting new standards in stupidity

[winjim]

On honeymoon last year, a road trip round Colorado. Getting towards the end of the trip and I'm running low on underwear so I do some laundry in the motel sink. It hasn't quite dried by the morning so after we've packed the car up I lay it over the luggage to dry in the heat.

Now for the last two nights we've pulled out all the stops and booked ourselves into a proper swank hotel. And I mean proper swank. Ex-presidents and senators swank. We pull up at the hotel and of course they've got valet parking. There's a quite extroardinarily polite exchange where we explain who we are, and they make a note of our name change etc. (was booked in wife's maiden name).

Then the chap opens the boot to take our luggage up only to be confronted by several pairs of my (now dry) underpants!

Add to that a really dirty and untidy car from three weeks on the road - I don't think we looked too presidential...

 

[up hill struggle]

we were away for a week on holiday & got back home today, nice little bungalow in a seaside town on northern irelands north coast.

Girl who owned the house was unable to come to the house before we left so asked if we could just pop the keys in outside letterbox as it was the only key she had for the house while her husband was away on a trip. So loaded the car up dogs in the boot, luggage in the back seat, kids in the roof box (just to get 2hours piece & quiet) popped the keys in letter box, start the car & wife says oh wait, I forgot my phone.

so were standing in the drive my hand stuck in the letter box, wife laughing cos I cant reach the keys, we swap places she cant reach them either then an idea pops into my head to use the car Ariel, so I unscrew that & sure enough if reached the keys & we managed to get them out ( I try to have at least one good idea each day but anymore than one & my head hurts ). Opened the door she's just about to run inside, hang on a minute, pulls phone out of her pocket & bursts out laughing.

so I hand her the keys & she locks up while I restart the car & we enjoy a nice leisurely drive down the coast.

got home around 4:30 & unpacked sit down for a coffee & I notice the battery on my e-cig is almost flat & ask her where, ask the wife were my spare battery is & she says front pocket of my hand bag (I know what your thinking, the battery ain't there but it was) unfortunately so was the key for the holiday house, quick call to the lady who owns the house confirms that the husband is not going to be back until later in the week but more people are going to the house tomorrow afternoon & she needs the keys to get it ready & give them when they arrive.

so I end up having to drive they whole way back up & home again just to pop the keys in the outside letter box, got home around 9:30, wife's away to bed tired, how? I'm the one who drove an additional 210 miles after driving home the first time.

off to bed.

 

[Brandane]

Decided to take advantage of the weather today by taking the motorbike out for a run. It's been lying idle for a few weeks, and recently had a new battery fitted.
I was not impressed when I pressed the starter button and nothing happened. Checked the engine kill switch, and it was set to run. Duff new battery then?

I took the battery out and put it on charge for an hour, then re-fitted it. Still nothing! Then I noticed it was not in neutral, which activates a safety device to prevent the starter motor from working......... Plonker!
All's well that ends well though, and it got a quick blast to blow away the cobwebs.

 

[machew]

This actually did happen to a real person, and the real person is me. I had gone to catch a train. This was April 1976, in Cambridge, U.K. I was a bit early for the train. I’d gotten the time of the train wrong. I went to get myself a newspaper to do the crossword, and a cup of coffee and a packet of cookies. I went and sat at a table. I want you to picture the scene. It’s very important that you get this very clear in your mind. Here’s the table, newspaper, cup of coffee, packet of cookies. There’s a guy sitting opposite me, perfectly ordinary-looking guy wearing a business suit, carrying a briefcase. It didn’t look like he was going to do anything weird. What he did was this: he suddenly leaned across, picked up the packet of cookies, tore it open, took one out, and ate it.
Now this, I have to say, is the sort of thing the British are very bad at dealing with. There’s nothing in our background, upbringing, or education that teaches you how to deal with someone who in broad daylight has just stolen your cookies. You know what would happen if this had been South Central Los Angeles. There would have very quickly been gunfire, helicopters coming in, CNN, you know… But in the end, I did what any red-blooded Englishman would do: I ignored it. And I stared at the newspaper, took a sip of coffee, tried to do aclue in the newspaper, couldn’t do anything, and thought, What am I going to do?

In the end I thought Nothing for it, I’ll just have to go for it, and I tried very hard not to notice the fact that the packet was already mysteriously opened. I took out a cookie for myself. I thought, That settled him. But it hadn’t because a moment or two later he did it again. He took another cookie. Having not mentioned it the first time, it was somehow even harder to raise the subject the second time around. “Excuse me, I couldn’t help but notice…” I mean, it doesn’t really work.

We went through the whole packet like this. When I say the whole packet, I mean there were only about eight cookies, but it felt like a lifetime. He took one, I took one, he took one, I took one. Finally, when we got to the end, he stood up and walked away. Well, we exchanged meaningful looks, then he walked away, and I breathed a sigh of relief and st back.

A moment or two later the train was coming in, so I tossed back the rest of my coffee, stood up, picked up the newspaper, and underneath the newspaper were my cookies. The thing I like particularly about this story is the sensation that somewhere in England there has been wandering around for the last quarter-century a perfectly ordinary guy who’s had the same exact story, only he doesn’t have the punch line.

-Douglas Adams, The Salmon of Doubt