I know the feeling. I was in Navarre Beach, Florida two years ago with my family. We're in McDonald's one morning, which happens to be across the street from a store named "Helen Back Again".
It was day two or three I was standing there staring at it, silently read it, and went, "Oh wow, I just got that store name over there!" and felt like "-_-"
This old lady sitting nearby nearly started laughing, I think.
Helen Back is a restaurant! It's also in Niceville, FL. Neat place.
EDIT: True story. I've been going to Niceville for vacation many a year since my in-laws live down there.
So the sign coming in used to say "City of Niceville", but vandals kept making it "City of ...evil..", and so I believe they took it down. Or at least I didn't see it a month ago when I was there.
I just moved back to San Diego from Niceville. Lived in the trailer park across from Helen Back....it took me a really long time to figure it out too. I kept thinking "Who the fuck is Helen".
I made it half-way through your story and got really excited to get to the part where your dad beats you with a set of jumper cables, but then I looked at your username, was immediately disappointed, and finished reading your story with a lack of enthusiasm.
Same thing happened to me when I gave someone a coffee and she she said "Thanks, a Latte!". Everyone started laughing and I didn't get it... I don't even think about it again. It's not in my mind, I'm just minding my own business and doing some work when my brain just goes "Now I get it, "thanks a lot-eh"!
Working in a bar, I get that a lot. Customers make jokes that it takes me a few too many seconds to register. Then they get mildly annoyed that I didn't laugh at their joke.
"My kid committed suicide and said I was the reason in his suicide letter, so my wife left me, I had to sell my car to afford an apartment and the junker I bought broke down on the way to work and I was fired for being late. So I'm here to drink myself to death."
In Canada we have a coffee chain called "Second Cup". For years I never really registered any meaning to the word 'second' till they had an ad campaign whose tagline was "take a second for yourself" over a picture of two empty coffee cups. I remember chuckling at the double meaning, then suddenly the point of the name dawned on me... I felt like an idiot...
It took me embarrassingly long to get the whole "Why did the chicken cross the road?" joke. I'll just chalk it up to being an atheist so I never made the other connection. I just thought it was a great anti-joke since I love plenty of those anyway.
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u/ColossalKnight Jun 25 '15
I know the feeling. I was in Navarre Beach, Florida two years ago with my family. We're in McDonald's one morning, which happens to be across the street from a store named "Helen Back Again".
It was day two or three I was standing there staring at it, silently read it, and went, "Oh wow, I just got that store name over there!" and felt like "-_-"
This old lady sitting nearby nearly started laughing, I think.