Funny Mistakes

[Willowhand]

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I'm up trying to get through the last 10 pages or so of an Animal Nutrition paper that's due tomorrow, and it's getting to that point in the evening when the various parts of my brain begin to lose coordination. So I thought it would be a fun time to start a thread on the silly things we do when short on sleep. Here's mine:

I very rarely title my papers till after I have finished writing them, but I do like to have something to fill the space where the title will be; I generally type in a random working title that has to do with whatever pops into my head at that moment. One time I was writing a paper on Frederick Douglas right after having watched one of the Lord of the Rings movies, so I absent-mindedly put in "Fishes, Preciousssss!!!" as the title. And yes, I was in such a hurry to submit it on time that I forgot to replace it for a real title before handing it in. The professor's confused comments on it when I got it back were worth a good laugh

 

[eventualeventer]

That's awesome. Heheheh.

I am having a klutz sort of week, although I don't think I can blame it on sleep. On Monday, I stepped in cat poop in the basement (long story, cat with digestive issues never poops in the litter box even when she's feeling good, so we just deal with it).

On Tuesday, I was trying to get on a horse and had an incident. There wasn't a mounting block in the indoor, so my friend convinced me to stand on a rectangular block/jump standard type thing (sort of like this) to get on. Mind you, the horse is 17.2 hands and I usually get on from the fence; my excuse is that I had surgery on my left ankle last year and had to be really careful with it, but now I'm just lazy. 😛 Anyway, I had one of those comedy moments where you can see what is going to happen before it actually does. My center of gravity didn't move, but the block fell over and I rotated 90*, so that my legs were under the horse and I was lying on my back in the dirt. My friend, her horse, and my horse (a sensible fellow) just stood there staring at me, and then she said, "Now, that's just pathetic." Yes, I did go find a mounting block and get on, after some cursing.

Last night, I was preoccupied with studying for a nutrition exam all evening, but I had to give my cat her SQ fluids. I give her the fluids in the corner, where I can hang the fluids up high, but I keep my sharps on my on the other side of the room. Well, I got distracted and did something (I'm not sure what) with the used needle. Later that evening, I twisted around in my chair and felt something pinching my rump. Yep, I managed to (who knows how) drop the needle on my chair, then sit on it in such a way that it came out of its cap and stuck me in the butt.

This morning, I came downstairs for a few minutes first thing, then went back upstairs to get dressed. As I sat down on the bed, I felt something wet -- yep, I managed to sit in a freshly deposited hairball (aren't cats wonderful?).

I'm scared of what's going to happen to me tomorrow!

 

[canis13]

I have a similar story of forgetting to replace a filler word, although mine's not quite as hilarious as yours. I did, however, forget the word "neurotransmitter" in a neuroscience class, and instead wrote the word "blah", and turned the paper in that way. I still have the paper saved on my computer, so here's the sentence in which this occurred (and it's apparently a run on sentence too):
.It would be great to have enough significant findings from my data to be able to label dog aggression as a serotonergic dysfunction, and non-aggressive anxiety as a dopaminergic dysfunction, but it is clear that a multitude of factors contribute to the cause of anxiety, including blah not referenced in this study such as GABA and the noradrenergic system, so I think it is very unlikely to be able to come up with any strong conclusions about the efficacy of certain psychotropic compounds for certain types of anxious dogs..

 

[BlacKAT33]

these are all so funny

eventualeventer- can you regularly update us on your amazing life, so entertaining!

I can't think of any stories off hand, but the biggest klutz in my family is def my cat! She NEVER lands on her feet. she tries to jump onto the couch arm and falls off. When she finally balances on the couch arm, she wants to lay down so she rolls over and her butt falls onto my lap. She always knocks down things on shelves. and finally, one time i was playing with her so i hide behind the door, then i jumped out and screamed "BOO!" and she turned around and starting running fast.... face into wall. hahaha it was hard not to laugh at her. she had a scratch on her nose for a week 🙁

 

[psjlg2]

I have a really funny one that isn't school related.

At the vet hospital I work for, we don't do ear cropping and out of at least 15 vet hospitals in our area no one would do them except "ABC Veterinary Hospital".

Well, we recently received a fax from"ABC Veterinary Hospital" that went out to all of the veterinary clinics in the area that said...

"Effective November 15th, 2009, the ABC Veterinary Hospital will no longer be providing the service of ear cropping to our clients. We appreciated your referrals, and apologize for any incontinence. Happy Holidays.

Yes...thats right. They apologize for any incontinence. The funny thing is that we have this on our monthly Joke board that sits in our restroom so I think any incontinence on our part is due to laughter on their terrible proofreading.

 

[Whyevernot55]

Not me, but happened at my vet clinic. One of the younger assistants, a girl who works for us in the summers when she is home from college, was leaning against a countertop eating cake from someone's birthday. We were all standing around talking. She put the plate down on the counter, and then picked it back up and said "OH MY GOD do you think I could get gonorrhea from this counter??!!"

It was the countertop we mixed fecal samples on for flotation, and she meant to say GIARDIA. I nearly peed myself laughing, and the vet actually had to sit down she was laughing so hard. The poor girl turned a fantastic neon pink when she realized what she'd said!

 

[168135]

My animal behavior lab was always at 8:30 am on Tuesdays. Right before lab, I'd always grab a hot drink and a cinnamon roll because I had class right after the lab couldn't go 6 hours without eating. My lab instructor was late half the time, so I'd stand out in the hall with my classmates, talking. I don't know how it happens, but I usually end up getting my drink all over myself and having to run to the bathroom before the lab prof arrives. Still don't really know how it happens. The top to the cup has a really small hole and sometimes after you take a sip, it forms a bubble, and the bubble will pop and my drink will fly out of the cup... or I'd lower my hand after taking a sip and it will end up all down my sleeve. Last day of classes, I was picking up my jacket off the stool and noticed splatters of coffee all over my jacket. It's pretty embarrassing... I still can't figure out what I'm doing wrong. I blame it on the lids.

I've learned not to trust my classmates when I ask them to go over my paper before submission... I had to do a critique on an article for animal behavior and instead of saying that midshipman fish make agonistic calls, I put that they make agnostic calls.

My classmate and I were looking at insects in preparation for an upcoming entomology test. It was just him, the invert prof, a lab instructor and me in the lab. Our prof told us to look for "wing areolas" but didn't explain to us what they were. My classmate, Justin, asked me what they were and I said I wasn't sure. "Areola sounds familiar..." and off he went to look it up on the computer. A couple of seconds later, he came back and said he didn't have any luck. The next night, a bunch of us were in studying together and they started laughing what had happened to Justin the other day when he tried to look up "insect areolas" on the computer. I didn't know that they were going on about and they told me to do a google image search. I did... and a bunch of chests came up on the screen. When it happened to Justin, he was so scared that the prof and the lab instructor had seen him, lol. We also have an evil-looking stuffed cat in the lab, and Justin said that when he got off the computer, all he saw was the cat giving him the evil eye.

 

[MonieBalonie]

I'm up trying to get through the last 10 pages or so of an Animal Nutrition paper that's due tomorrow, and it's getting to that point in the evening when the various parts of my brain begin to lose coordination. So I thought it would be a fun time to start a thread on the silly things we do when short on sleep. Here's mine:

I very rarely title my papers till after I have finished writing them, but I do like to have something to fill the space where the title will be; I generally type in a random working title that has to do with whatever pops into my head at that moment. One time I was writing a paper on Frederick Douglas right after having watched one of the Lord of the Rings movies, so I absent-mindedly put in "Fishes, Preciousssss!!!" as the title. And yes, I was in such a hurry to submit it on time that I forgot to replace it for a real title before handing it in. The professor's confused comments on it when I got it back were worth a good laugh

This is the funniest thing ever!! I just had to call my sister into the room and read it to her too. She can do the best Golum (sp?) impression. Oh wow. Still laughing.

 

[TrocarKarin]

"OH MY GOD do you think I could get gonorrhea from this counter??!!"

My mom's an OB/GYN nurse practitioner. Thanks to her, I always switch trichinosis and trichomonas in my head.

 

[ckd816]

This thread is cracking me up! I can't think of anything particularly funny that I've done recently, but I was talking to my friend the other day and she said that if she starts to fall asleep while she's trying to write a paper, she wakes up and finds words at the end of her paper that came from dreams she was having!

 

[lailanni]

In undergrad I was the president of an honor society/community service group. For Halloween I organized a 'Trick or Treat for UNICEF' event where we'd go around the local neighborhoods.

Since I was president I had to go -- but I also had a paper due that I really had to finish. I ended up skipping some of my classes (including my honors class with around 15 people), finishing my paper, and getting to trick or treat.

Unbeknownst to me, I wandered up to my professor's house, rang the bell and the first thing he said was "Why weren't you in class?!?" My response was "Oh, what are the odds!" We had a good laugh and he actually made a nice donation too! He would make fun of me for the rest of the semester....

 

[eventualeventer]

these are all so funny

eventualeventer- can you regularly update us on your amazing life, so entertaining!

I'm happy to please. 😎 Tonight, I was re-doing a horse's belly bandage, so half squatting, and I managed to slip on a pile of poo. Once again, landed on my back partway underneath a horse. Is this some sort of cosmic sign that I'm too klutzy to work around large animals?

Scarcelyheard, my nutrition professor (for whom I am working next semester) served donuts before our final this week. Guess which genius HAD to have a jelly donut and got powdered sugar all over her black pants and the desk?

Maybe I should write to the vet schools about this: Let me in, I'll be the entertainment for the rest of the class! Improve morale, admit klutzes!

 

[Willowhand]

Maybe I should write to the vet schools about this: Let me in, I'll be the entertainment for the rest of the class! Improve morale, admit klutzes!

I second the movement! And besides, think about it from a natural/sexual selection perspective: we're like those peacocks with the really big tails that have to put more effort into staying alive. But the fact that we are still alive at this makes us all the more impressive -not the mention, we have big, colorful tails.

I worked at an educational farm for about 10 years, so in addition to the animal chores I sometimes got roped into talking with random journalists that would sometimes come. On one memorable occasion I was in the middle of milking a difficult goat and my supervisor comes in with a woman who wants to write a story about the farm and asks if they can watch. At that precise moment, the goat goes into a frenzy of kicking, lands in the metal milk bucket, and goes skidding sideways so she's half-hanging off the milking stand on the other side. I jumped up on the table to rescue the goat, slipped in the mess, and landed on the floor in a puddle of milk. This enabled the goat to step on my head and get herself back up onto the milking stand. Happily for me, the shocked journalist continued her tour of the farm and apparently found more dignified material to write about.

 

[Minnerbelle]

not vet med related, but my younger sister's podiatrist wrote down in her medical summary that she had syphilis during her childhood... she was 14, and she never had syphilis...

she had to go back to the receptionist after reading that, and go... i dunno what dr. ______ was thinking, but i've never had an std...

the receptionist started laughing her head off and said she'll get that changed. eh oh well, the guy was really hot so a mistake here and there was forgivable (though he thought he snipped my sister's nerve by accident and she couldn't move her big toe for a while...). my mom kept telling me how this was the first time she actually saw a doctor that looked like one from the tv shows... so i hadda go and check him out for myself once. my mom, my two sisters and i squashed into the little exam room one time as he examined my younger sister's foot. good times 👍

 

[Whyevernot55]

Oh heavens, I forgot the best one of all. This was my sophomore year of undergrad, so nearly 6 years ago. We had a new vet in town that we had managed to rope into doing the college equestrian center's horses, and we were doing some testing on a mare with lameness/neuro problems. He happened to be fairly young, and adorable. Myself and the barn manager, a good friend, were helping, and the vet was teaching her to do IV sticks. So you can imagine, blood was everywhere. I'm standing there holding the poor mare when suddenly my body went "oh hell, is that blood?! I'm woozy!" and my brain went "WTF? you don't care about blood." So I went and stood on the other side of the horse. And got woozier, until I finally said "uuuh, Andrea, I'm going to sit down in the office."

When I woke up moments later, I was laying on the floor of the (very dirty) wash stall with my head in someone's lap. Andrea was bending over me going "Ali?! Ali! Are you ok?" Here's me, going "Whose lap is this?" Oh, you guessed it. The new, young, attractive vet! *dies of shame*
I told that story to all incoming freshman on their first day of training in the barn program to make them laugh. Said vet eventually hired me, became a good friend, and wrote one of my recommendations. Although he still teases me about that time I passed out in his lap.

 

[eventualeventer]

Willowhand, I love the evolutionary perspective on klutzes being extra tough.

I just remembered another epic klutz moment. I used to wear hiking-type boots to go on farm calls -- my feet are wimpy and need support -- which had the speed-lacing hooks. This was fine most of the time. However, I am a bit knock-kneed and tend to run with my feet close together. One time, I was jogging a horse for the vet (and the big money client)(why is it always the huge, expensive horses when this happens?) and she asked me to make a circle on the side of a little hill in the driveway. As we were curving at the top of the hill, I managed to swing one foot so close to the other that the loop from the shoelace on the one foot got caught on the lace hook from the other shoe. My feet were instantly bound together and I went down like a log. The horse jogged a couple more steps and then stopped when he realized that the idiot on the other end of the lead rope was having issues.

I retired those shoes from horse-jogging duty and I am much more careful to keep my feet apart when I'm jogging a horse. If I were a wildebeest in Africa, I would be the one that faceplanted before the lion even got there. Thank goodness for civilization and lack of predators!

 

[168135]

Scarcelyheard, my nutrition professor (for whom I am working next semester) served donuts before our final this week. Guess which genius HAD to have a jelly donut and got powdered sugar all over her black pants and the desk?

LOL, sounds like something I would do.

 

[BlacKAT33]

this happened today, and i thought SDNers would get a kick out of it 🙂

I am in lab now, i was trying to measure the body weight of a mouse. the mouse jumped out of the cup so i tried to pick him up again and put him bak in the cup. This mouse was an acrobat. He jumped into the sleeve of my lab coat and ran up to my armpit!!! i started yelling for my coworker and she put the cup underneath my sleeve to catch him, but since my lab coat sleeves were loose he kept getting away and trying to run into my shirt!
We finally got him out. i wish i had a video of it, im sure it looked like the typical cartoon comedy scene 😀

 

[eventualeventer]

Nice!

 

[aspiringDVM]

this happened today, and i thought SDNers would get a kick out of it 🙂

I am in lab now, i was trying to measure the body weight of a mouse. the mouse jumped out of the cup so i tried to pick him up again and put him bak in the cup. This mouse was an acrobat. He jumped into the sleeve of my lab coat and ran up to my armpit!!! i started yelling for my coworker and she put the cup underneath my sleeve to catch him, but since my lab coat sleeves were loose he kept getting away and trying to run into my shirt!
We finally got him out. i wish i had a video of it, im sure it looked like the typical cartoon comedy scene 😀

 

[ckgilabert]

i'm sure i have many, i just have to think about it, but i have one:

at our clinic i take the history and wt and temp and in the history i wrote that the pet hadn't peed in two days.

the doctor looked at the chart and was like "cathy, i think the word you're looking for is 'urinated'". LOL.

anyway, i guess it was more embarrassing cuz the doctor AND my friend (who was interning at the time) started laughing at me.


OH, another time we had a chinchilla and the doctor told me to take it out of the cage. i was like "it's not going to bite me, right" (cuz i've never handled one) and the doctor started laughing and was like "dont be silly cathy, chinchillas don't bite". well, guess what happened...it bit me. the doctor laughed and was like "anything with teeth can bite". LOL

 

[sofficat]

I was taking a history (this was about 7 years ago) and needed to write that the patient occasionally vomited and I thought occasionally was spelled 'occationally' and wrote occat. as an abbreviation and the vet was like 'what the heck does this say? a cat?' and when I told her she laughed at me! I hate not being a good speller!!

 

[squibby]

I asked my orthopedic doctor if Pica is hereditary, because my sister had it and I was wondering if that was the problem with my knee. He looked at me very straight-faced and said he didn't know if eating non-food items is hereditary, but was sure that knee Plica Syndrome is not.

 

[Willowhand]

I asked my orthopedic doctor if Pica is hereditary, because my sister had it and I was wondering if that was the problem with my knee. He looked at me very straight-faced and said he didn't know if eating non-food items is hereditary, but was sure that knee Plica Syndrome is not.

I just burst out laughing, imagining your sister trying to eat your knees

 

[hopefulin09]

While an undergrad, I had an especially stressful week with something like 2 midterms and a 2 papers due plus work. I planned on skipping my tuesday genetics class so I could study for npb, but I thought, "No, I should go to genetics, I haven't studied and the test is next week, they might do a review." I walked in to find out the test was that day! I mentally panicked for the first 5 minutes and got through it somehow without puking and/or crying. 😀

 

[BlacKAT33]

While an undergrad, I had an especially stressful week with something like 2 midterms and a 2 papers due plus work. I planned on skipping my tuesday genetics class so I could study for npb, but I thought, "No, I should go to genetics, I haven't studied and the test is next week, they might do a review." I walked in to find out the test was that day! I mentally panicked for the first 5 minutes and got through it somehow without puking and/or crying. 😀

😱😱 i would have FAILEDD. ive heard of stories like these, but i cant even imagine it happening to me!! seriously, would have failed.

 

[BlacKAT33]

i'm sure i have many, i just have to think about it, but i have one:

at our clinic i take the history and wt and temp and in the history i wrote that the pet hadn't peed in two days.

the doctor looked at the chart and was like "cathy, i think the word you're looking for is 'urinated'". LOL.

anyway, i guess it was more embarrassing cuz the doctor AND my friend (who was interning at the time) started laughing at me.


OH, another time we had a chinchilla and the doctor told me to take it out of the cage. i was like "it's not going to bite me, right" (cuz i've never handled one) and the doctor started laughing and was like "dont be silly cathy, chinchillas don't bite". well, guess what happened...it bit me. the doctor laughed and was like "anything with teeth can bite". LOL

ur vet sounds great to work with! i love docs with humor

 

[Willowhand]

While an undergrad, I had an especially stressful week with something like 2 midterms and a 2 papers due plus work. I planned on skipping my tuesday genetics class so I could study for npb, but I thought, "No, I should go to genetics, I haven't studied and the test is next week, they might do a review." I walked in to find out the test was that day! I mentally panicked for the first 5 minutes and got through it somehow without puking and/or crying. 😀

😱

I've had nightmares about this happening, and I commend you on not going insane when you found out what was going on.

 

[firelily]

While an undergrad, I had an especially stressful week with something like 2 midterms and a 2 papers due plus work. I planned on skipping my tuesday genetics class so I could study for npb, but I thought, "No, I should go to genetics, I haven't studied and the test is next week, they might do a review." I walked in to find out the test was that day! I mentally panicked for the first 5 minutes and got through it somehow without puking and/or crying. 😀

I can top that one. I walked into my first day of the Physics I class that I was taking during the summer session. For whatever reason I had thought that the class started on Monday, June 1st. Turns out it had started the Monday BEFORE that, and we had our first test that day. I begged the prof to let me take the exam the next day because I was an idiot about when class started, but he said I had to take it. I ran to the bookstore and bought a calculator and the book but I didn't have any time to look at it.

That was the worst exam I've ever suffered through. The prof put up some formulas, thank god, because I managed to squeak out some work, although I basically botched the whole thing because I had no idea how to even set up the problems! (It had been about 10 years since I had high school physics)

The funny thing is when we got the grades back, I was sure I'd be the lowest in the class. But nope...EIGHT people did worse than me. Hah! I wasn't even IN class...what's their excuse??

 

[turnbackhelly]

When I was MUCH younger - probably 12 or 13 - I was at the barn one evening in the office with the barn owner, one of the trainers, and 2 friends. At the time we were having a problem with pigeons on the property - they were EVERYWHERE, pooping in the horses' water buckets, etc. and everyone was concerned primarily over the spread of disease (in addition to how freaking annoying they were). There was a crazy boarder lady there at the time who was even threatening to shoot them with a BB gun. 😱

So on this particular day, the barn owner decided to look into getting some sort of professional bird control help - people who come to humanely drive the birds off the property somehow - and she asked me to take out the phone book and look for something in the yellow pages. I looked under "Bird Control" and there were a few numbers, but the conversation got temporarily sidetracked so I sort of just stood there with the phone book opened to the page I had found the numbers on. About 15 or 20 minutes later, the barn owner said to me "Okay, I better call these people before it gets too late, just give me the first number listed there." So I looked down at the book and read her the first number in the section...

She dialed the number, and as she was waiting for someone to answer I realized I had read her a number from the section BELOW the "Bird Control" section... and you can probably see where this is going. So I'm gesturing wildly for her to hang up the phone and she's completely ignoring me. She ended up getting an answering machine and left a message that went something like this: "Hi, my name is (name) from (barn), we've been having a problem here for some time now that I was hoping you could help me out with. I don't want to kill them, I just want to get rid of them. And I'd like to get this done as soon as possible, because I have a crazy client here who's threatening to shoot them with a BB gun... etc."

She hangs up the phone and asks me what I had been flailing so wildly about. I told her I had accidentally given her the wrong number. Her response? "Oh... I was wondering why the message on the answering machine said 'Planned Parenthood!'"

That was almost 13 years ago and I have yet to live it down.

 

[Pouches Rock]

So I wasn't sure if I should post this under worst thing happened this decade or funny mistake. I will post it here in hopes that it will just be a funny mistake.

At the end of my interview for vet school two weeks ago I started to shake hands with the three people who interviewed me and I glanced at their name plates so I could use their individual names. When I got to the second person I accidentally said 'Thank you for your time Stephen' and then we stared at each other and started laughing. I had accidentally said his first name instead of Dr. .... We all laughed and I said sorry I meant...and said his title and last name. I felt so silly 😳. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me. It seems paranoid to think that they would care but I have heard horror stories about what strange things have offended interviewers. Also I know several vets who are very sensitive about people using their title of Dr. Anyways fingers crossed that this is just becomes a funny mistake

 

[GellaBella]

So I wasn't sure if I should post this under worst thing happened this decade or funny mistake. I will post it here in hopes that it will just be a funny mistake.

At the end of my interview for vet school two weeks ago I started to shake hands with the three people who interviewed me and I glanced at their name plates so I could use their individual names. When I got to the second person I accidentally said 'Thank you for your time Stephen' and then we stared at each other and started laughing. I had accidentally said his first name instead of Dr. .... We all laughed and I said sorry I meant...and said his title and last name. I felt so silly 😳. I hope it doesn't come back to haunt me. It seems paranoid to think that they would care but I have heard horror stories about what strange things have offended interviewers. Also I know several vets who are very sensitive about people using their title of Dr. Anyways fingers crossed that this is just becomes a funny mistake

I think you will be just fine!
I have a feeling I will have a problem like this...in a PhD program the students call all the Drs by their first names. I've been yelled at before for calling some of them Dr. xyz. Now that I'm used to it I'm sure I'll make that mistake. Your guy didn't seem to take any offense so I think you'll be fine.

These stories are great! I've had lots of mistakes but they all involve me in the lab doing something stupid with e. coli.

 

[eventualeventer]

Turnbackhelly, that's hilarious!