I thought I’d share this with you. It happened a while back while shopping for fly tying supplies at a NON fly tying supply shop.
Yes, I have been to the cosmetic counter and asked for “hard as nails”. After the funny look you usually get, you ask if they have it in “natural” or clear, the shop clerk rolls her eyes and shows you what you are looking for.
Well my friends, here’s the latest.
I had asked in this forum for recommendations/alternatives for mayfly wings
and you came through for me and suggested organza, which can be found at any fabric store.
So I head out to one of the major fabric stores in town to search for this wonderful material. I walk in and I am surrounded by millions of bolts of cloth, all colors and textures. I am lost, I haven’t got a clue of what it is I am looking for, all I know is the name ORGANZA.
It must have been the look on my face that brought a sales clerk over to assist me. Wheew!! I said to myself when I noticed this little old lady coming my way, I am saved.
With a smile she said to me, you seem lost, may I help you? As I look around, noticing the rest of the store staring at me, all women, all smirking, I smile at the sales clerk who had come to my rescue and blurt out “I am looking for ORGASMA”. Now, as soon as I mispronounced the name of the “thing” I was looking for, I knew it did not sound right. I froze, knees trembling as I noticed every single customer in the store laughing, my face is now the colour of a bead head purple woolly bugger, I move my head from side to side, perhaps hoping that by doing this I could retract the words I had blurted out. The little old lady, perplexed, somewhat embarrased looks at me and whispers, “what is it that you need”? with a shaking voice I reply… I am looking for OR…(pause) OR…(pause again) ORG…(a longer pause now) and she comes through for me, ORGANZA she asks?. Yeah, that’s it. Follow me she says and she takes me over to the ORGANZA display. Fortunately for me there were no other customers looking for ORGANZA, so I had the entire display to myself. A wheel type of set-up, with rolls of ORGANZA in every colour you could imagine. I look at the price and realize that the stuff is pretty cheap, but I don’t need meters of the stuff. Before the lady leaves me there, she tells me the minimum they sell is one tenth of a meter ('bout 4 in), and that when I am ready to have the material cut, to just take it to one of the tables and one of the sales clerks would cut it for me.
So here I am surrounded by ORGANZA, there’s white, grey, black, a few shades of brown, you name it, quite a selection. Now, I had just gone through one of the most embarrasing experiences of my life looking for the stuff, and really have no desire to be seen at this store for the next decade at least. So I come up with a great idea, I will buy a strip of just about every colour of the stuff, in my head I have visions of some pretty whacky caddis flies (two shades of brown ORGANZA), mayflies (white and a blueish for BWO) and many more wonderful creations. So I proceed to remove the rolls of the stuff from the wheel-type of display and stack them nearby, I had about 7 or 8 colours picked out, I grab another roll and as I turn around I hear this loud thump. To my dismay, as I had removed a substantial amount of rolls (all from the same side of the display I might add), the entire thing came crashing down, there was ORGANZA all over the place. Crap, now I did it again, here I was trying to keep a low profile after making an ass out of myself when I had asked for the stuff, and now this.
I calmly (not really) put the “fallen” rolls back on the display, spacing them so they do not fall again. Redfaced, I grabbed my “rolls” and made my way to the cutting table, I pay for my purchase and head home.
I honestly think they were relieved to see me leave, and without a doubt they must have had quite the chuckle over my shopping experience.
Alright, now let’s have your fly tying supply shopping experiences.
Saltamontes
salta,
Nobody is going to top that one,that must have been real fun! CJ
in class I misspoke “organism” for “orgasm” my professor just laughed
Joe Fox
My most embarassing moment has nothing to do with fly tying, but I will share it anyway. I was working in a very large office building that also happened to have mice in it. One of the ladies I worked with was deathly afraid of mice so when she called me asking for help I natuarally went to her aid. When I got to her cube, she was standing on a chair pointing under her desk. I found the mouse under her desk and it scurried into a small leather briefcase she had under her desk. I picked up the briefcase and told her I would dispose of the mouse. Since it was not practical to go outside to release the mouse, I decide that I had to “flush” the poor critter to get rid of it. I went into the crouded men’s room and entered the stall. I plopped the mouse in and flushed. It came bobbing right back up. Without thinking, I said aloud, “Stay down there you little SH*T.”, but up it came again. I repeated this twice more,while flushing, before I realized how it must have sounded. You could have heard a pin drop in there as everyone wondered who had finally lost their mind. Needless to say, I stayed in the stall for another 5 minutes to let the place clear out, but when I went out the door, there were about 10 guys pretending to read the bulletin board watching who came out. “What was I thinking?”
Jim Smith
I rolled my kayak over in the surf at Narragansett beach during the height of busy season and had to swim back to shore pulling my kayak in one hand and fly rod in the other. Rolling a kayak is bad enough and doing it in front of all those beachgoers is even worse
Who has time for stress when there are fish to catch.
Nick
I may have told this story here before, but I was fly fishing at (where else?) the Big Flat Brook during a rainstorm in the summer of 2004.
For some stupid reason, I took the reel off my rod while standing in the stream and proceeded to drop it. I was about waist deep, and without thinking I went down after it. I couldn’t catch it as it descended into the stream, but I did get my waders full of water and lost my hat and my magnifiers in addition to the reel. I tried to find them for a few minutes but it was raining hard and I couldn’t.
When I got to the car (1/4 mile or so), of course my remote entry for my car was shorted out, and when I unlocked the car, the stupid alarm went off, headlights flashing and all those bizarre noises that alarms make going off. The remote turns off the alarm, and it wasn’t working. Of course, the manual switch doesn’t turn it off either because you don’t want a car thief using that to turn off the alarm.
But, soaking wet, I got my stuff off and got in the car, alarm still going crazy. It was on a gravel road, but there were still people going by, and they all drove by real slow, probably thinking I was stealing that car.
It’s probably 1 hour 15 minutes from where I fish the BFB to my house. Somewhere on the way home, the alarm stopped going off. So apparently, they don’t go on forever – at least mine didn’t.
I couldn’t stand not having that lost reel, so that week I bought another reel just like the one I lost. It was a Lamson Velocity – a mid-priced reel I would say, but still pretty nice. And I returned to fish the Big Flat Brook the next Saturday.
It was a Sunny day, and while I was wading in the same area, I saw something unusual on the bottom of the stream – it was my hat! So I thought, maybe I can find that reel. And after wading around about 5 minutes or so in that area, I found my lost reel. It was undamaged and still works great! Of course, now I have two of 'em.
[This message has been edited by BigFlatBrook (edited 07 November 2005).]
It’s only embarrasing if someone sees. So, on the situation in question, I slipped in about 1 foot of water on a famous stream at about 7:30 one morning, and landed on my keister. Being that I was wearing waders I didn’t get wet. Then I noticed my net floating downstream and reached for it and slid off the rock I had landed on. This time into about 3 feet of water that quickly filled my waders. I was soaked but I did get my net. Okay so here’s where the embarrasing part comes in.
I exited the water and drove about 12 miles to the next town. I knew it had a laundramat. Got there about 8 and it had just opened. I stripped down to about nothing and put my wet clothes in two dryers so they’d dry faster. Well, and here’s the embarrasing part, try explaining this to several older women and one old gent who came into the laundramat to use the services. I was afraid I was going to have to explain this to a police officer and was contemplating the local headlines: ‘Fly Fisherman Arrested For Indecent Exposure’. Didn’t happen so after the clothes dried I went back to fishing.
OH, you wanted to know about tying material embarrasing moments: Okay, checkout counter after buying several different colors and designs of panty hose, SH nail polish and something else women use. The looks I was getting from the customers behind me and from the cashier!
Allan
[This message has been edited by tyeflies (edited 07 November 2005).]
OMG
Jim that is great.
I have tears in my eyes.
Joe Fox
This one isn’t about fishing but someone related this story to me the other day.
Awhile back on the Leno show Jay addressed his audience and offered a prize to the person who had the most embarrassing story to relate. A girl won the prize. She said that while she was a college student out in Salt Lake City she had a skiing date one Saturday and she and her date hit one of the local ski areas. She said they had a very nice day and stopped at the ski lodge cafe before returning to the campus that evening. It was snowing heavily as they drove home and as she sat in the car she realized that she had had one too many lattes before they left, so she told her date that she absolutley had to stop or else she was going to have an accident. Her date pulled off the to the side of the road. It wasn’t heavily travelled and besides it was dark and the snow was coming down hard. Her date, being a gentlemen, got out of the car and leaned with his back against the driver’s door while she got out on the passenger’s side and took care of matters while leaning against the fender. When she was finished she tried to pull her clothes back up but discovered that her backside was frozen to the fender. She tried for a while to free herself but wasn’t being successful. Meanwhile her date is wondering why she is taking so long. She finally conveys to him the nature of her problem and they both try to come up with a solution but can’t think of one. Finally her date had an idea. He tells her he’s coming around her side of the car so she pulls down her sweater in front of her to be modest. He asks her to turn her head away from him and he then unzips his pants and directs a stream of warm water where it would do the most good. Needless to say it worked! Talk about embarrassing…
I can think of a few …One time as my step daughter and I were shopping at the mall I was looking at books in a Quiet book store when the mood struck … I quietly let a “silent but deadly” way in the back of the store where it wouldn’t be noticed …except out of the silence of the store my step daughter announces with a mighty voice …“P U YOU …FARTED…” to which I heard the 5 other people in the store chuckle… and the pa announced "Clean up in sports and hobbies."Ducked out as best I could unnoticed … not The other incident involved large quantities of beer a stripper and some not so good friends to which the story doesn’t belong here.
The more time I spend around people the more I like my dog.
Mike
[This message has been edited by ny angler (edited 09 November 2005).]
At the state fair a “few” years ago, my now 23 yr old son, mom and I were in the cattle/sheep barns. She’s a farm girl.
We came around to the sheep rows and as families gathered around we passed the rams, all boarded up.
Well, you guessed it. Ol’ Nate pointed at the closest big boy that had it’s back towards us and the two huge “jewels” hanging 'tweenst it’s legs and asked me a little too loud…“Dad, what’re those things?”…
Some snickerin’ from some guys around and another dad says “Well…dad?..”
Ahem! G
Jeremy.
Round two. I forgot…
When Nate, my 23 yr old was around 7 yrs. old we were out early one Sunday morn. trolling for walleyes.
Nothing doing so we decided to pitch for some bass along the weedlines/shoreline.
Now understand, it’s a quiet Sunday morning, dead calm and you can hear the guy across the lake quietly talking to his wife on the deck.
This little aluminum boat comes trolling right along between me and the weeds. They have a quiet electric trolling motor.
We quit casting until they pass, maybe 25 feet away. They motor by and true to his nature, ol’ Nate says…out LOUD…“Hey dad, how come some guys have REALLY FAT WIVES?”
We moved across the lake!
Jeremy.
Whilst tying, I spilled 1/2 a bottle of SH HAN on my track pants. It doesn’t come off and has left a crusted stain that looks remarkably like… well never mind… but it gets real tiring to say its just nail polish… but that leads to further questions…
Those are some good stories. Mine isn’t fishing related.
Back when my wife and I were first dating, I walked in on her grandmother in the bathroom, totally naked. I quickly shut the door and left with a quick “sorry!” and hoped that she wouldn’t mention it to anyone else.
She did. The next morning at breakfast, she told everyone about it! Now everyone jokes that if my sister-in-law’s boyfriend wants to be a part of the family, he’s got to see grandma naked.
“Tolerance is the mark of a man with no convictions.” -G.K. Chesterton
Try this: Two guys hiding in the shower together because Grandma came to check up on the girls slumber party out in the guest house. She did not leave for hours so we were stuck in a small maybe 24" X 24" shower floor together for hours. One after another of the girls had to come in to take a pea break which did not bother us one little bit do to the free show through the almost clear shower curtin. The girls of course knew we were there since thats were they hide us from grandma along with the bottles of wine. The trouble was after we had been there quite a while and our legs were cramping badly, grandma comes in to do her bussiness number 2 with lots of loud toots and quite the smell and me and him hidding only feet away with only a shower curtin in between. Grandma left soon after that, back to the main house and the girls having heard grandma from clear out in the play room laughing at us for having to be so close to the action.
Me and the other guy that was with me are still freinds to this day about 25 years later, and we still laugh now about it once in a while when we go back down memory lane.
Hi Guys,
I’ve pondered the last several days whether I wanted to tell this or not but what the heck; Gretchen & I are painting the inside of the house and I’ll used any excused to avoid the paint brush…!
For many years I would clean my bodkin by stabbing it into my tying chair cushion between my legs. I never had a mishap for at least 20 years. Several years ago I was doing an on-camera tying demo in Denver and forgot I was sitting on a metal folding chair. I went to clean my bodkin and of course there was no seat cushion. It bounced and embeded itself in a very sensative area. I removed it and kept right on with the demo. I didn’t think anyone noticed until after the demo during the question and answer period one of the spectators asked why my voice had changed a few minutes before. I told him it was just the “pains of old age” acting up! I’ve never used a bodkin to place glue during a demo since. Take care & …
Tight Lines - Al Beatty [url=http://www.btsflyfishing.com:07ad4]www.btsflyfishing.com[/url:07ad4]
OK!!
But first an aside to Al Beaty. I use a 35mm film case stuffed with steel wool to clean the bodkin!!
Now, not material related but fly fishing related, this was foisted upon me by one of our own beloved members!!
I live in a small town, everybody knows everybody, first name basis with the Post Master, etc.
I found a good deal on a float tube in the “Things For Sale” forum and purchased it as a birthday gift for a good friend.
Well…It arrived on a very, very busy day at the P.O. I knew everyone in the place!! It was packaged in a “My Size Barbie” box!! As these people know I’m single, retired and live alone I got some very strange looks!!
I still have the box, so think twice if you ever want me to ship you something!!
I feel more like I do now than I did when I got here!
Cactus AKA “Lucky Dog (Pirate Name)”
Jack? That one is “Priceless!”
LadyFisher, Publisher of
FAOL
While fishing a local river, I stepped into a deep hole and went for a swin. Fortunately it was July. It was late, so I decided to call it a day. On my long walk back, I noticed a car parked in the woods at the end of the path. I thought the angler probably had a laugh when he saw me take a swim. As I approached the car, I had to walk up against it. When I peered inside, there were two teenagers having a good time. The expression on her face when she saw me was priceless! Not an embarassing moment for me, but a “fish story” I’ll never forget.