That’s not what I heard!
You know the part of your brain that helps you connect sounds to decipher what someone is saying? When you don’t hear them and need to use logic/common sense to figure it out? I don’t think that part of my brain works. I’m constantly mishearing things:
Steven telling me something is off with his coffee:
What I heard: It doesn’t taste crushed.
What he said: It doesn’t taste fresh.
Steven pointing out a building we’re driving by:
What I heard: mind reading
What he said: winery
The hostess asking me a question when we get to Red Robin:
What I heard: Are you part of a party?
What she said: How many?
Steven’s response after I joined the air drum solo late on a car ride:
What I heard: Get out of the van
What he said: You’re out of the band
Rachel pointing something out to me at the Kansas City market:
What I heard: She’s smoking out of a clarinet!
What she said: She’s drinking out of a coconut!
It must be a blast to talk to me, ha ha! I hope it’s at least amusing.
WHAT’D YOU SAY?!
Seriously though, I don’t understand why I can’t “connect the dots” when I mishear something. It happens every day (it was fun to pick and choose the examples for this post). It’s frustrating for me, and even more, for the people trying to speak to me. I’m listening, I swear! And no, I don’t know why I thought someone would be smoking out of a clarinet!
Do you “mishear” things like this? Or know someone who does?
Themocracy
I am usually pretty good at deciphering even when I hear things incorrectly.
UNLESS. There is any sort of accent involved, or on the telephone.
Seriously, work was a nightmare for this. A man who was training me on a piece of lab equipment was Mexican, and I couldn’t for the LIFE of me understand him. It was embarrassing! I’d eventually just act like I got it and then go back and try to figure it out on my own (I later learned that even the other spanish speaking people I worked with had trouble understanding him).
And when I worked in the hospital, trying to figure out the myriad of accents from doctors on the telephone was a nightmare.
Why does the telephone make it so hard? That happened to me in a meeting this morning. I feel like an arse, asking people to repeat themselves all the time.
At least you weren’t the only one struggling with that guy!
John just said, “I have to watch my girlish figure>”
And Jenna said, “You have to eat a girl’s finger?!?!?
HAHAHA!
LOL!!!!! John WOULD say that 😉
I’m the same way! 🙂 Today my co-worker said “I need to get this knocked out” and I thought she said “I’m going to get a taco” and I was all “I want a taco!!!!!”
WHAT? No! Did you get a taco or no?!
Hahah. I forgot about the clarinet! 😉
We have a classic one in our family that we make fun of all the time. We were at church and my mom asked me where I got my sweater. I said “Gordman’s” and she said “Oh? JC Penny?” hahaha. My sis and I still joke about that a lot, cause it was SO FAR OFF!
Ha ha ha. That cracks me up so hard. I think that might be a mom thing?
I played the clarinet, but I never smoked out of it, lol.
I mishear all the time. I thought the bf said that he ate mink dung, but he said duck tongue. Granted, we were on the blue line at the time, but still. I don’t listen well sometimes.
Lately, the past few weeks, my fiance and I have been misunderstanding words all the time (me mishearing him more, but going both ways to some degree)! I don’t know what’s going on. Like we’re either both not enunciating, or just not paying attention.
I know a lot of it for me is low speaking and people not enunciating. I hope it gets better for you guys soon! 🙂
I am THE WORST at this. I always hear my husband saying the wrong thing, or I can’t even make out what he said. For some reason my brain needs an extra few seconds to decipher what people say sometimes. I’m glad I’m not the only one/that I probably don’t have a brain tumor. 🙂
I do this a lot. I also misread things really badly. I laugh a lot though because what I hear and what I read usually makes no sense and so seems really funny to me. People are often embarrassed on my behalf.
Are you embarrassed at all? It doesn’t embarrass me, but I do feel bad that other people get frustrated repeating themselves!
I have a really high embarrassment threshold.
This happens to me all the time
I think whatever part of my brain that interprets what I hear is on a slight delay – sometimes I have to repeat things in my head several times to comprehend. Of course I can’t think of any funny examples of that…
I mostly do it with songs! But occasionally it happens in everyday conversation. I just have to listen really hard!
Ha. Songs are the worst. Have you seen those misheard song lyrics videos? They’re too funny!
Ha! My husband never hears anything correctly. I should start writing down what he thinks he hears. =)
You should! It really made me laugh to write all these down 🙂
This happens to me every single day. 🙂