‘What’s the funniest faux pas you’ve ever committed?’ – 21 people who embarrassed themselves beyond belief

If you’ve ever put your foot in it really badly, you’ll know the feeling of wanting the ground to swallow you up so you can flee the hellscape of embarrassment you’ve created for yourself.

It’s hard being a bit of an idiot, but, luckily, you’re not alone. They’ve been chatting about self-inflicted slip-ups on the AskUK subreddit after somebody posted this one…

What’s the funniest faux-pas you’ve ever committed? I’ll redeem my soul by going first…

So a few years ago I worked for an international company. I’m English, and we had French lad come over to our office for a week, I think he was related to the CEO of the France office. He was sound, we all bantered with him. After a couple of days – in true English style – I started ribbing him about Agincourt.

I held up my ‘two-fingered salute’ (which the warehouse staff had already demonstrated) and asked if he knew the legend behind it.”No.” He said from his desk.

“Well” I continued, “When your French ancestors caught my English archer ancestors they’d use a chisel to chop off their index and second fingers. So when we – the archers – wanted to show our hatred of the French we’d hold up our hands like this (massive up-n-down V-sign) to show we could still stick arrows in you. And it came to mean “Fuck off!”

And he lifted his right hand from behind his desk and I realised his digit and second fingers were missing. “I was in a car accident.” he said.

I could’ve crawled down a mouse hole. Anyone got any worse faux-pas?

Ooft. But plenty of people came to their rescue with as bad, if not worse, blunders, like these…

1.

‘Kind of similar to your story OP. And not me but my mother in law. She was carrying some heavy shopping in both arms through the town centre and slumped down onto a bench, exhausted. She turned to the fella already sat there and said “Phew. On days like this you could use an extra pair of arms couldn’t you?!”

Silence greeted her. She then looked down and discovered that the guy literally had no arms.’
–ukman29

2.

‘Used to be a healthcare assistant. Looking after a one-legged man I invited him to ‘hop onto the bed for me’. I absolutely died inside and then proceed to do it again because all I could think about was not saying it.’
–doc900

3.

‘I had a meeting with someone with no arms once. I knew they had no arms. They were famously the ‘guy with no arms’ in this business. The meeting was actually semi-related to accommodating this.

I still stood up at the end of the meeting an went to shake his hand. He just shook his head a walked off. If I could have chopped off my own arms right there and beat myself with them, I would have!’
–sputnikmonolith

4.

‘On more than one occasion I have failed to recognise people I have known or worked with for prolonged periods. Most notably I once asked someone at work if he knew Richard, because from the story he’d just told it seemed like they would have something in common.

He was Richard.’
–claireycontrary

5.

‘I’m the opposite. I can never forget a face. Even if that means I’ve seen them once or twice at a shop. It became a bit weird when a new guy at work started shadowing me, and I thought I knew him from somewhere. Told him so a few times and he said he doesn’t think we ever met. Then after a few days, I remembered and told him excitedly that I saw him in Tesco’s in town shopping! It was awkward for a bit…’
–fuzzynoisemaker

6.

‘I asked a fella at work where he was from, and if it was Germany, based on his name and accent. Turns out he was just almost completely deaf so had trouble speaking. He was born and raised here.’
–NotoriousP_U_G

7.

‘Not worse but one time on the quiet car of a completely full train I did that thing where I yanked my laptop open and the trashy WAP song started blasting out super loud (I’d been listening on my headphones at home) and at that moment my computer decided to stop responding to button presses.

I’m a middle aged white guy… not a teenaged boy. I wanted to throw the fucking thing out the window followed by myself but there were too many people in the way. Probably took 30 full seconds to get it to STFU (shutting it didn’t work either). It was a 5 hour journey…’
–fernincornwall

8.

‘I was out walking the dog a few years ago and came across a guy digging a huge hole in his front garden. He looked up and smiled and said something I didn’t hear. I nodded and smiled back and said “That’s a big job.”

It was only after I’d walked around the corner that I suddenly realised what he’d said: he’d made the joke “Just burying the wife” (and must have thought my reply was pretty cheeky).’
–lemonherring

9.

‘A friend and I bitched about someone we knew for like a solid hour during a trip out. At some point I got out my phone to check my messages and realised I had been ON A CALL to said person for like 40 minutes. All I can think of is that something I said accidentally voice-activated a phone call because otherwise that’s one hell of a coincidental pocket-dial.

She’d just sat and listened the whole time.’
–FeedingTheBadWolf

10.

‘I was playing a card game with some friends and they had invited some other friends, I’d not met. We played the card game Piggie and I had a new girl sat next to me, it’s a quick game and she was slow so I yelled ‘use both hands’. It was awkwardly silent but I didn’t know why.

After the game ended two friends had a massive go at me saying ‘you know she only has one hand’. Another friend then pointed out I wasn’t in the room when that had been mentioned. We’re all still friends and continue to yell at each other ‘use both hands’.’
–Jessica13693

11.

‘Not me but my mum. Answered the house phone back in the day and I hear her say ‘Oh hello Paul! God, it’s like hearing a voice from beyond the grave’. Paul had just called to say his wife had died.’
–IronSkywalker