_A lot of people can agree that there is a right way to do things and a wrong way to do things. Though, there are some people who are proud of the way they do basic things in the supposedly incorrect way. _
Here, people share their best stories of how they do something "wrong."
_Thank you to everyone who shared their story. If you'd like to read more feel free to click the link at the bottom of this article. _
Singing the wrong tune.
“Whenever the congregation at church sings ‘Battle Hymn of the Republic’ I always switch the words to an old camp song set to the same tune about sleeping naked. Since everyone else is singing the right words, no one can tell I’m not.
The words are: ‘I wear my pink pajamas in the summer when it’s hot. And I wear my flannel nighty in the winter when it’s not. Oh, and sometime in the springtime, Oh, and sometimes in the fall, I jump between the sheets with NOTHING ON AT ALL! Glory glory hallelujah. Glory glory, what’s it to ya? Balmy breezes blowin’ through ya with nothing on at all!'”
Wait, what?
“When people sneeze, I tell them ‘congratulations’ instead of ‘bless you.’ Everyone I tell does a double take and asks me why.
I had a professor in college who said it, and I asked him why. He told me that in ancient Rome people would say ‘congratulations’ to a sneeze because they believed you were ejecting a disease from your body. I don’t know if that’s true or not but it’s fun to say.”
Nope. Wrong.
“I say bless you when people burp.”
I don’t need your fancy rules.
“I can type 80 words per minute. I don’t use the official touch type method. I’ve just been using computers for the last 20+ years and I instinctively know where every key on the keyboard is now. When I was getting my degree, I had to either take a Microsoft Office course, or a typing course. I asked if I could test out the typing course. So I took the typing test, which required 26 words per minute with two errors to pass. I had 80 words per minute with zero errors, and the teacher failed me because I didn’t use the ‘right method.’
She couldn’t understand why I made her print out the test results anyway. Typing 80+ words per minute is a marketable skill, and employers don’t care how you do it.”
Good morning to fewer days!
“When I was a kid, I was confused so instead of ‘Buenos días’ (good morning), I’d say ‘Menos días’ (fewer days) because it sounded pretty similar and, well, it was technically true. I still do this every morning with my family because my mum hates it for being too depressing.”
When Leon comes down the chimney…
“My parents have these decorative blocks that spell ‘Noel’ (ya know, tis the season and all). Anytime during the holidays when we visit, my brother or I will rearrange them to spell Leon.
So there’s just a wonderful Christmas tradition of holiday cheer and family and food and this dude named Leon.
This is by far my favorite subtle, low-effort Christmas tradition and I am beyond thrilled that so many of you do the same thing!”
You’re eating that wrong.
“When I eat Pop-Tarts, I always eat the sides first then the top/bottom edges before eating the center with all the icing.
I pretty much do the same thing with sandwiches and Kit-Kats, but people are usually shocked I eat the ‘worst’ part of the Pop Tart first when it’s actually my favorite.”
No bunny ears here.
“Apparently I tie my shoes wrong. I had no idea until my significant other pointed it out.
I use two bunny ears and tie them together. I tried doing it the other way but it’s just not as easy. I would really have to go out of my way to relearn how to tie my shoes and I don’t feel like doing that. So, I just own it now. The one thing that is annoying about my method is that the it causes the laces to sit more diagonally and not straight across. Oh well!”
“Son, hand me the iKindle.”
“I call my son’s electronics every name but what they are. Usually I call the iPad a Kindle but yesterday I called it an ‘iKindle’ and he looked like he died on the inside. It wouldn’t be so hilarious if he didn’t take it so seriously.”
Curse this cold!
“My boyfriend starts showers wrong.
He says his mom taught him to get in the tub, turn the water on where it’s running through the bath faucet, wait for it to get hot, then pull the knob that makes it go through the shower head. So every time I here him curse because it’s cold water hitting his feet.
I asked why he doesn’t just turn the water on, pull the knob so it heats up through the shower head, then get in when its an adequate temperature (like my mom taught me and how I feel the right way is), but he continues to curse at cold water every morning.”
I’m just trying to help you.
“I take the slightly slower routes/side streets to work if it is the most direct route and I don’t have to change lanes constantly and take right turns at HUGE intersections. I get very anxious when I drive and I moved to a big city a year ago and I hate it. Too many cars, too many people, not enough awareness on the road.
Yesterday I gave directions to a friend so we could drive somewhere and he says, ‘I would never go this way, this is stupid.’
I told him it’s because the large intersection a block away is always backed up at this time and this way is technically faster. But whatever, let’s wait almost 10 mins at a five-lane intersection that also has a trolley going through it, when we can get to our destination in three mins.”
You don’t understand!
“I open by potato chips bags from the bottom for two reasons: the crumbs (and the flavor) get redistributed all over the bigger pieces of chips when you flip the bag, and when you actually get to the bottom, you find the big undamaged chips covered in seasoning, not the useless crumbs.”
I’ll eat what I want, mom!
“Non-traditional food for breakfast. Look, if I have leftover nachos then I am having leftover nachos for breakfast.
It doesn’t have to be nachos. Nachos is just a placeholder for any non-traditional breakfast food. If you make homemade nachos then everything but the chips is leftover. The chips can be fresh for leftover nachos. But I am not opposed to eating cold leftover nachos with soggy chips either because I am an adult and I’ll eat whatever I want, mom! Sorry. That was 100% inappropriate.”
“It’s not rocket surgery.”
“I say, ‘it’s not rocket surgery.’ I’m not a funny man.”
Don’t mess with the hard workers.
“I intentionally suck at my job. I work in a store where we have a high focus on sales stats like items per customer/average sale and I’m the best. I also work the most. As a result we’ve been crushing the other stores in our area since we started up a few months ago.
My boss recently screwed me out of some sick leave money, and refused to remedy the situation. So I’m pretending like times are hard and he’s panicking because our sales stats suck in the most important month of the year and we’re the worst in our region because I was carrying everything and now I’m not anymore.
It feels good. Store’s already lost more money from me being average than he would have had to pay me to make me happy. Wonder if he’ll catch on soon. Doesn’t matter to me anyway, I’m hourly so I get the same pay anyway. Don’t mess with your best employee.”
Keep a low profile.
“I work in a corporate environment.
Corporate jobs don’t reward hard work, they punish it with more work. Good at managing your time and getting your stuff done in six hours, not eight (despite the fact that salary pay is supposed to compensate you for just getting projects completed not hourly progress)? You don’t have enough to do! Here you go, have some more responsibilities that aren’t related to your contract obligations for no more pay or promotion. Oh, now you’ve managed to juggle all that and still get out of here in eight? You need more work!
Lay low. Do the bare minimum to advance (and on occasion, go a bit beyond more near your mid-year and year review), and you’ll keep your job and sanity. Also, keep out of office gossip circles. Don’t let the passive-aggressive, petty office politics get you down too much either. Just remember most of the people that get into petty issues are really hollow inside and have nothing better going on in their lives.”
You got a problem?
“I’m wearing pyjama pants to work because they’re comfortable and it’s a little colder this morning than usual. (I work in an adult video store so there’s no expectation or dress code. I’m the only person here for the shift).
I had a woman behind me in line at the local convenience store exclaim, ‘What are you wearing?!’
To which I responded, ‘My comfiest jams. I notice you’re wearing sweat pants. Merry Christmas!’
I don’t think she knew what to make of my pleasant demeanor at what was obviously a rude calling out of a complete stranger.”
Thanks, I know how to spell!
“Spelling.
The technical correct spelling is ‘dammit’ for some reason. It makes no sense at all, and sounds like something a gold miner might toothlessly gum at a barren rockface in frustration after coming up dry for the hundredth time. When I say dammit, I’m saying, ‘screw this thing!’ Like, it’s a curse, not, ‘I want to block the flow of water here.'”
Technically this is right.
“I like to use the word ‘technically’ in unnecessary situations.
I own a brown couch, so I’ll say, ‘technically my couch is brown.'”
I have an approximate amount of body parts.
“I love using approximately for definite things. ‘I have approximately two eyes.'”
Sometimes I repeat my repetition to be redundant.
“When I don’t know the answer to something I say, ‘beats me like a dead horse.’
I don’t know why but it entertains me.
Also, when someone says something redundant I’ll tell them they ‘redundantly said the same thing twice.’ No one ever calls me on it, though…”
Ca-RAM-el.
“One day in high school my friends had a rabid debate over the pronunciation of caramel candy. One said ‘CAR-mul’ and the other, ‘care-a-mel.’ They asked me to mediate the disagreement and I have been pronouncing it ca-RAM-el ever since.”
Bless your cough. And burp.
“I started saying ‘bless you’ to all noisy bodily functions to cheer up my wife while she was pregnant, but I’ve continued the habit since. I secretly hope my daughter learns the habit and is going to have an embarrassing realization when she says it to someone at school for anything other than a sneeze.”
Don’t tell me how to live my life, Webster.
“I’m an editor in the U.S. When I’m not at work, I use the spelling ‘grey.’ It suits the color’s personality better. Screw you, Webster.”
Still the weekend, bro.
“My week starts on Mondays, I don’t care what any calendar says.”
It’s called being smart.
“I put sugar and cream in my coffee cup before I pour in my coffee, that way I don’t have to stir anything.”
Let’s burn that bridge when we get to it.
“I say, ‘We’ll burn that bridge when we get to it.’ Nice mixing of metaphors (‘cross that bridge’ and ‘burn your bridges’). It has mouth appeal and makes only about 25% of the folks listening go, ‘What did you say?'”
Let those creative juices flow.
“I live in the south and make up metaphors. No one ever calls me out on it, which is great. ‘You can throw a cat in the oven, but you can’t call it biscuits.’ ‘Sometimes you just gotta let the willow weep.’ ‘I feel finer than a frog’s hair and about half as fuzzy.'”
A British accent makes things more believable.
“You can get away with making up idioms in the U.S. with a British accent. The posher the better. In the last few weeks I have used:
You can’t wash what you don’t own.
If you can’t bake the cake, don’t milk the cows.
The grass isn’t greener from up above.
When the engines hot, the witches are watching.“
Milk just complicates everything.
“I’ll eat cereal without any milk. The first few times, it was just because my significant other was out of milk. Now, I do it because she finds it genuinely perplexing.”
Dressing for the weather.
“I wear yoga pants under my jeans. Guys aren’t supposed to wear yoga pants but I don’t care. I want something under my jeans on a cold day.”
Sometimes you just gotta be efficient.
“I have this weird thing with wasting water. So, I turn the water on, switch to the shower, and stand outside the tub with my hand in the running water to test its temperature. Once it’s warm, I get in.
My husband will turn it on, switch to shower mode, and proceed to brush his teeth, take a dump, put contacts in, basically do all other morning routine items BEFORE getting in the shower. Wasting so much warm water. Drives me nuts.”
From the bottom up.
“I write the letter S from the bottom, upward.”
Because why not?
“When accompanying the National Anthem (‘The Star-Spangled Banner’) on the piano, I deliberately transpose the key down to make the vocal range more comfortable (and ‘high notes’ more possible) for the majority of singers.”
I’m not waiting.
“Where I work, our help desk has a message that says, ‘If password reset is the reason for your call, listen carefully to the following options, and select option five.’ Uh, yeah. If you think I’m listening to all nine options before mashing the 5 key, you’re sorely mistaken.”
It’s too hot, man.
“I let my coffee cool down to room temperature before I drink it… I can’t drink hot liquids.”
Comments have been edited for clarity.