Tuesday, 2 August 2016

Misunderheard

There's a phenomenon called an "earworm". When you get a particularly catchy tune stuck in your head, and then you pass it on to other people by singing it involuntarily.

In the mid 20'th century there was a surprisingly common treatment for mental illness called a transorbital-lobotomy (colloquially an ice-pick lobotomy). You hammer a probe up through the eye socket into the front of the brain and stir it around. I have no idea why anyone ever thought that was a good idea. By Sunday morning I was just about ready to try it on myself to get the annoying tune out of my mind. I picked my sister up from the station on Friday night, about the second thing I said to her was "Put your bag in the back." She ruined our entire weekend by replying "...said 'everyone attack' and it turned into a ballroom blitz". From then on every second though either of us had had was a hazily remembered version of "Ballroom Blitz"

We also had a fantastically surreal misunderstanding. I'd like to say that she misheard me, but as the two words are homophones it's more complicated than that. She was drinking coffee after dinner and I asked if she wanted a Digestive (meaning biscuit). She thought I'd said "digestif" and was thinking of port, cognac, armagnac, ouzo, pastis, grappa, limoncello, schnapps, etc.

"Any one in particular?"
"Well I was thinking of the top one, but we can skip that one if it's stale"

Richard "something something lightening something something fighting" B

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