so, what did you say?

In the park this morning I am lying on a mat on a cricket pitch doing leg raises. (Don’t ask me why, Adam told me to do it and I did.) Over to my left a small dog with a large Sprite bottle in her mouth scuttles across my field of vision. “My you’ve got a big bottle”, I say to her, absently.
The person to my immediate left (also lying on a mat on a cricket pitch doing leg raises because Adam told her to) looks at me, affronted, “I’ve got a what?”
“Huh?” I manage, confused.
“I do not have a big bottom”, she replies.
Laughs.
“That’s not at all what I meant.” (And even if I did I have way too much of a sense of self-preservation to ever verbalise it!)

Segue to the office.

Boss: (in relation to a hearing we are organising) “Everyone hates the Germans.”
Co-worker and self: “Oh, right, ok.”
I think to self, “Maybe it’s something Monty Pythonesque and I’ve just missed the reference completely. Hmmm. Don’t know. Still, new at job. Just keep smiling.”
My co-worker comes out with, “Some Germans are really pushy on the bush walking tracks, you know?”
Boss: “Oh, right, ok.”
Co-worker: “Yes, they are.”
Moments pass where we all attempt to glean some meaning from the previous comments.
Co-worker and self in unison: “Oh, you said ‘adjournments’.”
Boss: “Yes. I can’t understand why you’re talking about Germans. My daughter-in-law is German you know?”
“But we thought you said ‘Germans’ not ‘adjournments’…..”
Never mind.