Funny 'literal' moments

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i have grown to understand that if i hear something that sounds "empty" in it's basis, it is most likely that i have not registered it correctly.
when i was a child, i used to be a victim of my confidence that i knew the baselessness of errant comments and it caused some consternation among other people in my world.

example:
my mother and her friend were talking while sitting at the kitchen table about something, and her friend said "i would have liked to be a fly on the wall". i asked why she wished to be that and she said "so i could see what was going on".

i asked why she would be able to see any better if she was a fly, and she said that it was because flies are not noticed.
i did not understand how that rang true. i asked her to explain and she said that people will act normally if you are a fly on the wall.

so what? how do they act if you are a fly and not on the wall? how do they act if you are not a fly?

she said that people mind what they do if someone else is watching, and they do not consider a fly to be watching.

but flies have compound eyes and they can not see shapes well. they simply see movement, and so i told her it would not be ideal to be a fly in order to watch what was going on.

she said i should imagine that flies can see like i do, but even then, i would imagine that their brains are insufficient to understand what they are seeing on a level that would be of any use to her.

my mother told me to go outside at that point. i know what it means now, but i did not then.

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example: i went to a funeral for my uncle when i was about 9. i was in a mild hurry for the proceedings to finish and some people became annoyed.
they said i had no respect, but my uncle was dead and he would not have known anyway, so i could not see the problem.
the priest told me that people were just congregating in order to remember my uncle. did they forget about him before they came to the funeral? i was sure that everyone remembered him before they came to the funeral otherwise they would have forgotten about the funeral as well.

he said that i would learn one day and i guess i did. i learned that people say things that are loosely packed together, and what they say and what they mean are tenuously related. it takes artistic license to stitch it together.

I wish I can translate things to English... But fineeee.

Mom: "My, they're (alike)animals."
Me: "Animal-looking humans?"

My sister: (Being sarcastic, and is using a common sarcasm) "Tell it to a turtle."
Me: "What? How am'I going to lecture a turtle?"

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A discussion about date ideas.

Someone: - I love exploring caves.
Someone else: - Yeah, caves are the best!
Me: -Hmm, visiting caves sounds great. Too bad there is none in my area.

It ended up they meant sex and the "caves" were in fact "woman intimate parts"...

Here's an old one for me, which now seems kind of funny.

I'm 44 now, but when I was very young I didn't even understand the concept of a common expression. I only understood everything literally. The rather unfortunate part about this was that I was unable to understand the seemingly "nonsensical" explanations of things that my teachers taught, which caused me to have to repeat 1st grade.

I don't remember most of the stuff they used to say, but I do remember the following. I recall many lessons about pronouncing words by sounding out the letters. I caught on with the consonants for the most part because they are more regular in their pronunciations. Then we learned about vowels, and their 'long' and 'short' pronunciations. OK. I understand all that just fine. So then when I or someone else would be attempting to guess how to pronounce a new word we hadn't seen before the teacher would provide hints like, "the 'a' says its own name.". I absolutely HATED when they would say stuff like that because I couldn't figure out what they meant. Vowels don't say anything, *I* say the sounds. If the teachers had simply stuck to the terminology they had used when teaching the lessons, for example providing a hint such as, "the 'a' is long", I would have been just fine.

Friend: I take the longest showers, like two hours long.
Me: You take two hour long showers!
_____________________

Friend: Can you give me the pencil?
Me: Yes.
Friend: Well...?
Me: Ohhh, you meant to give it to you.
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Friend: I wish I had all the money in the world.
Me: The wouldn't make sense because...*goes on for 5 minutes*
Friend: ...I mean I wish I was really rich.
Me: Oh.

*I proceed to complain about feeling dizzy after an hour of sitting in a chair and finally standing up*

Teacher: "Did you get up too quickly?"

Me: " Yeah, I woke up at 5:00 am."

/entire class bursts out laughing/

The tables in my high school art class had vases with flowers sitting on them one day. The teacher gave us instructions to paint the flowers and then left the room. Everyone else got out paints and canvas and began making paintings of flowers. I got an airbrush and painted the flowers blue. I actually felt kinda smug about it, because I thought no one else had understood the instructions.

The first time a nephew of mine baked a cake, he put it in the freezer when done. His mother came in and asked why it was in the freezer and he said that the recipe said to ice it.

Picking up a prescription medicine that says "Take one twice a day" and wondering if you are supposed to cut them in half.

When I was about seven years old, my mom took me with her to the grocery store. We encountered one of her friends, whom I did not know. The friend said to me something like, "Hello there, how are you?" I said nothing, since I had been told not to talk to strangers. The lady then said, "What's the matter dear, cat got your tongue?" So of course I stuck my tongue out at her to show her that no cats had gotten it.

I was at home playing video game. My mother called me:
Mom: André, do you know where is my phone charger?
Me: Yes.
Mom: André, can bring my phone charger to me?
Me: Yes.
A few seconds pass
Mom: Where is my phone charger?!
Me: Here, with me. If you want me to take it to you why don't you ask me instead of asking meaningless questions??


Me at my job:
Boss: When you go out to your lunch can you pass through the market and see if they have two of these batteries?
Me: Yes.
When i was back:
Boss: Have you remembered to go there for me?
Me: Yes.
Boss: So? Do they have the batteries?
Me: Yes, they do.
A moment of silence occur while i realise that i should have also bought the batteries.


I was doing a group work in the library of my university:
The girl that was there with me said: Can we stop for 10 mins and go eat some ice cream? I need a break.
Me: Yeah, sure.
We went to the ice cream shop and I throw almost half of mine in the garbage because the 10 minutes were over.

My mom told me:

-Take the bag to the balcony.

It was a bag with vegetable peelings. I was surprised why she wants me to take it to the balcony since balcony was not in the way to composter in garden but I figured out that maybe she wants it to be there so it doesn't stink in kitchen. So I just did what she said.

A few minutes later mom yells:

-Where are the peelings?
-On the balcony, as you said.
-They are not there.
-How possible? I left them there!

I went to see what's wrong. I found the balcony door closed and the bag was still exackly where I left it.Mom was yelling from downstairs... She was looking all over our TERRACE.

-Mom... if you mean terrace say terrace... We got only one balcony, the thing attached to our living room. Terrace by the back door is not a balcony. Balcony is a... <monologue about how balcony differs from a terrace>

When I was about 10, my dad and I were on a trip to visit family. He was looking through tapes to find some music to listen to. He asked me "Do you like Eagles?", and I replied "YES! Eagles are my favorite kind of bird!"

I went to Sweden with a girl who was moving to Italy the same day, and she wouldn´t leave without having been across the sound. The ferry back to Copenhagen was later than expected, and her mom was calling from the central station - desperately. We urged the captain to speed up, so my friend wouldn´t be late for departure. He did - and called a cab as well. When we sailed in, the cab was waiting with doors open. We were ready on deck and a bit from land, captains assistant merrily said :"Well, this is where we jump" - and I did!
When I landed, I ran to the cab and didn´t understand why the driver looked funny and nobody followed me. The two on deck looked petrified