The Cocktail Party Thread (a.k.a. The "Jack This Thread" Thread)

[sabreur]

Do these knickers make me look fat?

Several years of marriage taught me that the only answer to this kind of question is to say, "Of course not, darling, you look absolutely marvelous," and then to leave the room as quickly as possible.

[Fencergrl]

Besides.... few people are likely to insult a woman with a metre long piece of metal in her hand, especially seeing that she is trained to use it.

[Army Fencer]

You know, I was trained to use a crowbar, too. I prefer the titanium model, though.

[Army Fencer]

Oh wait, you were talking about fencing, weren't you. What a silly sport.

[sabreur]

You know, I thought Titanic was almost as worthless a bit of drivel as The Bridges of Madison County.

[Go? Fencing?]

Did you know that armies never march over bridges? They walk normally, so their feet aren't all hitting at the same time, as that would weaken the structure. "Our army was all killed, sir!" "What happened? Were you ambushed?" "No, we tried to march over a bridge...."

[swordwench]

There's this highway in New Hampshire where they number the bridges with little signs next to it along the road. Every bride has a number. Why would they do this? So you're driving along, you pass "Bridge 25", "Bridge 25"... I keep waiting to see a sign that says "A Bridge Too Far." That would crack me up. I ought to make one and post it and see who notices.

[counter riposte]

Heh. Bridge numbers, how dare they! Like Exit numbers aren't enough to completely get you lost in the middle of a state which has jughandle turnabouts to daze and confuse you. Imagine giving directions. OK, take 440 North, exit 1 to 287 south, exit 5, then turn on the jughandle to to go north on some dumb road. GRRR.

[parrythis]

Heh. Bridge numbers, how dare they! Like Exit numbers aren't enough to completely get you lost in the middle of a state which has jughandle turnabouts to daze and confuse you. Imagine giving directions. OK, take 440 North, exit 1 to 287 south, exit 5, then turn on the jughandle to to go north on some dumb road. GRRR.

Jughandles? You must be talking about New Jersey. I once rode my motorcycle nearly the length of New Jersey - from Sea Isle City to New York City. Unfortunately, they didn't allow motorcycles on the Garden State Expressway so I had to take all secondary roads and went through EVERY little town with a 25mph speed limit along the way. It took forEVER.

[fencergal33]

New Jersey smells. (Sorry if I've offended anyone.) IMHO the British probably should've kept it.

[oso97]

Certain smells can be pretty good. For example, the clean fresh sweaty smell of a woman after a fencing bout.

[swordwench]

I got soooo lost getting from Philly back to Boston via the Evil State of New Jersey once. Some weirdness about the exits sort of running parallel to the highway, not letting you get off where you wanted to unless you just happened to know by sixth sense that you had to be in that lane 23 miles before the actual exit came up. Plus, that's when I learned I needed glasses to drive. Never again. Now I keep all my driving to north of Manhattan, where we have a clue how to design roads. And if you don't know where you're going, you shouldn't be here anyway, right?

[Have At You]

I learned I needed glasses when I tried on the glasses of the girl next to me in 8th grade, and could suddenly read the board. Until then, I thought EVERYONE saw the board as indistinctly as I'd been seeing it.

[jeff]

Blackboards - I couldn't read them either till I got glasses. And the chalk really made me sneeze. Chalk allergy really must be one of the worst allergies to have.

[Go? Fencing?]

I knew exactly when I needed glasses. I could tell that my vision was getting worse. Of course, by the time I actually got the glasses, my right eye was 20/70 and my left was 20/20, so I suppose it wasn't that hard to notice.

[Goofy]

Hey, where's the restroom?

[mrbiggs]

Why in the world do you call it a restroom? I have yet to see someone resting in there. Personally, I try to get in and out quickly.

[ThatReallyHurt]

I don't know... if you've been holding it on a bus for five hours, it would probably seem like a rest.

[mrbiggs]

It's not so much rest as it is a releif, which is a completely different feeling. Perhaps they should call it the releifroom.

Then they can start calling them releifrants, because I don't get that name, either.

[Have At You]

"Restaurant" comes from the French for "to restore." First used in the 1700s, I think.

Etymology is so interesting, why don't more people know more about it? It tells us so much of who we are and where we've come from.