Random Anecdotes

Our definitions of what an anecdote is seem to differ. To me that´s not “funny thing that happened to me yesterday” but more “stuff that came up again and again in my memory over the years to the point it´s probably distorted already” :upside_down_face:

I’m with @Guga: An anecdote is something (funny) that happened to/with me - either yesterday or many years in the past.

I would call this:

(funny) “memories”. :slight_smile:

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Great, the more people I disagree with the more right I am.

That´s how it works, right? :smirk:

Now get of my thread, everyone!

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Alright I´ve got an anecdote for you guys. It starts with me talking to you and ends with me making a humble suggestion:

:laughing: That’s a great answer!

Good movie, Gran Torino!

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Same applies as to the majority of my posts:

in the Oxford Kids Dictionary™, this translates to:
“Don’t break the balls, daddy!”

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I agree with this definition, too.

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I wish I could close this thread. :smirk:

Instead if Random Anecdotes, maybe you should have called the thread Retro Anecdotes.

@Guga Kids can be so funny, the way they say what’s on their mind can be hilarious. And given that the topic started with an anecdote involving a kid, just keep that stuff coming.

Those are free to not read the anecdotes. No harm done.

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Hey @guga how about this for a thread title? :laughing:

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:open_book: The Raven

Ten years ago my parents finally fulfilled their dream of having a single house with garden and all. It was a nice neighborhood, very very quiet. In fact, we didn’t even get to know the neighbors for a while.

For this reason it was to our surprise that we learned that the neighbors had either a parrot, a raven or whatever kind of bird that can imitate speech, and it was because we began hearing a voice saying “Daaad!” in the usual tone I had when calling my dad. Pretty funny. And since it was imitating me, it tended to answer whenever I said “dad”. Not always, but often, and when it did, it made me giggle.

So, one day I yelled “daaad!” and to my amusement, it answered. So I said it again, and it answered again. And again. And again. Then I heard my father say “Guga, is that you?”, and I said “yes, I’m just playing with the neighbor’s raven”, and he said “no, I was playing with the neighbor’s raven”.

It turned out we have been both answering each other for like five minutes, no ravens involved.

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That´s great! :joy:

However, do you actually say “daaaaad” (which I can imagine a bird cry sound like) or “papa” or something in italian?

I mean I can imagine what animal noises sound like in italian…

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Actually, I was wrong. It was (and we were) yelling “maaaa”, not “paaa”, because I used to call my mom, not my dad, way more often. But the rest of the story remains the same :stuck_out_tongue:

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Wow. I found a message I wrote 2 months ago but I was too lazy to click the enter button. I’ll do that now

hits the button

Let me necropost in order to revive one of my favourite threads, here…

Today I was at my father’s. It was my brother’s birthday, and, plus, we didn’t meet since the lockdown (late February).

My father’s wife had a small present for my little daughter: a small shopping basket full of plush grocery items, including a smooth and pale weisswurst.

Maybe it was because of the Montepulciano red, or maybe I don’t like very much toys that suggest a gender role, well, I felt stupid enough to take that little and innocent fabric sausage and let it stick out my fly, unnoticed. When my brother spotted it, he laughed. My sister gave me a fake disapproval glance. My father, with a half-smirk, said: “that’s a family habit, I suppose”.

We all turned simultaneously our heads towards him, and at the same moment the sausage fell down. It was clear that he was going to tell us a story.

:open_book: Vee cut off your chonson (*)

My father’s father in the 30es was a University student in Padua. During the nights he played his sax in a jazz band at Caffè Pedrocchi, the most elegant Cafè in town, in order to get the money to pay for his tuition. Now I must explain that Padua (along with Pisa) is one of the Italian towns in which goliardia has its deepest traditional roots.

And, since the english Wikipedia page about Goliardia is very lacking, I suppose I must explain what goliardia is supposed to be, if you don’t want to translate the italian page.

Goliardia is a tradition which has medieval roots. It has some similarities with that light-hearted student spirit you can find in universities all over the world, so well depicted in movies like National Lampoon’s Animal House.

The main difference is that there are no fraternities or sororities, but a vast and rigid masonry-like hierarchy. The goliardic motto is “Gaudeamus igitur dum iuvenes sumus

Unlike fraternities, which are still very common and active, goliardia barely exists nowadays.

One of the most notable aspects of goliardia is its huge satirical production, especially in the form of poems and songs. There was an underground publishing that spread this form of art since the contents and words used were too much outrageous for the shelves of a bookstore.

This kind of satire was particularly harsh and salacious, and presented in a very aulic form: elegant terms, Latin citations, perfect poetry meter, which made a sharp contrast with some of the most trivial words our language has, which were widely used in those works, too.

Another field in which goliardia is famous is its cruel and elaborated pranks.

I remember some old medicine professors who told me about people simulating seizures on the train (using an Alka-seltzer to simulate foam from the mouth) and even a lady’s tampon replaced in the poor victim’s handbag with a human finger stolen from the anatomy lab. On Wikipedia you can find a prank in which a very skinny student disguised himself as Mahatma Gandhi, fooling high dignitaries of the State.

This long and -I hope interesting- introduction was to entertain and to explain that there was indeed a terribly serious reason for my grandfather, that sunny day in the 30es, to walk in the streets of Padua with a long bratwurst sticking out his fly.

An old lady, spotting the scene, started to cry: “You dirty man! Shame on you!”, pointing at his fly.
So he slowly looked down there, then he raised his eyebrow.
“I’m really mortified, my respectable lady. Please, allow me to immediately make up for my unforgivable mistake”.
Said that, he grabbed the tip of the bratwurst with one hand, while reaching into a pocket with the other hand.
Then took off his pocket a long pair of scissors. With a satisfied smirk and a rapid flick of the wrist, the bratwurst was gone, and he throw it behind his back.
“Problem solved, ma’am”.

(*) There’s a special mention for anybody who can recognize the quote without googling it

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That’s a great story! I’m glad you got round to posting it in the end :grin:

If I witnessed that prank I’d be completely flabbergasted!

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While I can’t, you’ve got me primed for Animal House. My second guess would be Pink Panther.

Sounds more like The Big Lebowski, though I’m not certain of it either. I kind of hear the voices of the Germans threatening the Dude while he’s in the bath tub, but if they were so drastic I honestly don’t remember. The accent could be right, though. And the plural.

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