Clearly thats what I'm here for!

[Gravekeeper]

Stuck at work here and just got this one a little while ago. More funny then anything else.

One of our clients calls in ( 4ish am ) and explains in a sheepish kind of way that we're the only people he can think of calling because we're the only people still awake. I'm thinking "..ok?". He's wondering if I can answer a question for him and keeps giving me a "This may sound really odd" routine. So I'm curious at this point and tell him to go ahead and ask.

"What does mia coppa mean?"

...hai? Apparently what happened is him and his buddy were up late drinking and began debating what this means. Why I have no idea. So now its up to me to settle the debate once and for all. It sounded kind of familiar, italian, but I told him I didn't know off hand.

So he asks me if I can find out or if I can ask around the office and see if anyone knows. ( "Around the office" at 4am is me and 1 co-worker." ). He assures me "I'll wait.".

Usually I wouldn't indulge this kind of thing, but its not busy, he is a client and I really should reward him for the laugh I'm going to have after I get off the line. So I Google it up real quick and tell him ( Mia coppa = My cup/goblet in Italian apparently. ).

He accepts my answer but by the sound of his voice I can tell he just lost whatever debate / bet he had going, hehe.

Worst part is this isn't the first time this happened. I had a client call in on his afterhours emergency line once to ask if an actor was in a specific movie so he could win a bet.

[Jester]

You sure he wasn't talking about the Latin phrase"mea culpa", basically meaning "my fault"? Just wondering.

[Gravekeeper]

You sure he wasn't talking about the Latin phrase"mea culpa", basically meaning "my fault"? Just wondering.

If he was then he was slurring it badly. ^^

[Jester]

If he was then he was slurring it badly. ^^

...hai? Apparently what happened is him and his buddy were up late drinking and began debating what this means.

I think you answered your own question there.....

[Becks]

Wow. You can call 24-hour helplines for that stuff? And to think that all this time I've been using the internet.

[lordlundar]

I love those customers. They come up to me and the first thing they say is "We need someone to settle a bet..." Usually results in the loser calling me biased. I reply "That would be the case if I actually gave a damn on who won."

1 complaint from it (out of about 50 times) and the manager simply laughed.

[reformedwaitress]

i've had so very very many customers ask me those kinds of questions at the bar. The amazing part is the random sports trivia they ask me that I know off hand.

One guy once asked me to settle a bet for him. His friend SWORE that the pen on the old Bill Cosby kid show Picture Pages was named Maximillian and the guy just knew that was wrong but couldn't remember the name. As soon as he said "Picture Pages" I said "Mortimer Ichobad Marker" and he just started laughing. "That's it! That's it!"

He won $200 on that bet and left me half of it on top of a really good tip.

I loved those customers. They were the ones I always had fun with.

[Jester]

CUSTOMER: "If you can tell me who performed this song, I'll--"
JESTER: "Mott the Hoople."
CUSTOMER: "Well, guess I'm not going to give you anything after all."
JESTER: "I probably should have let you finish that statement before I said anything, huh?"
CUSTOMER: "Probably. "

He was shocked that I knew the song and even knew who Mott the Hoople was. (If it's classic rock, chances are good that I know it. Very, VERY good.)

[AFpheonix]

I got asked awhile back what a urologist was.

I just figured men knew everything there was to know about penis trivia, but hey, I can be wrong sometimes....

[Mongo Skruddgemire]

MY favorite one...
I used to have a UPS Delivery Driver who would come in every day and try to stump me with a trivia question. Never could...could not figure out the gaps in my knowledge.

Besides I roam wikipedia when I'm bored.

Anyway I'm working with three customers at the same time and juggling the phones. Billi comes in and this is what happened.

Billi - Ok, I've one for ya. What is the norse word for a...
Me - Ragnarok
Billi - Damnit! Let me ask the question first!
Me - Sorry Billi, busier than one legged man in a butt kicking contest right now.

Other people can stump me, but she never could.

M

[HYHYBT]

How do you do that, anyway? I mean, if the next words were, say, "light switch"...

[Thrifty]

CUSTOMER: "If you can tell me who performed this song, I'll--"
JESTER: "Mott the Hoople."

Oh my gosh, my fiancee mentions that band a lot.

I'll put a new song on the radio and he'll be like who is that "Mott the Hoople"

[skeptic53]

In 1984-5 the game Trivial Pursuit was really big. I was working in Connecticut, but I'm from Seattle. Two teams of coworkers (men vs. women) were competing, the losing side had to cook a meal for the winners. My team got to the final question first. The opposing team had to pick a category for the final question, they picked "geography". When they saw the question, they started celebrating because none of them knew the answer. The question was "What two countries lie on opposite sides of the Straight of Juan de Fuca?" Everyone on my team was from New England, I was the only person who knew the answer, and I had a hard time convincing my team. They were guessing "Portugal? Morocco? Indonesia? Malaysia?" etc etc. I kept insisting "TRUST ME! I KNOW THIS!" The Straight of Juan de Fuca separates Washington State from Vancouver Island, part of British Columbia, Canada. So the answer is the USA & Canada. For a Washingtonian, this question is laughably easy. The women lost and were so mad they reneged on cooking dinner.

[sportsmom]

I remember the days of Trivial Pursuit. Back when hubby and I were still living in our apartment (this is 13 years ago) we used to get together with a bunch of friends and play cards and games a lot.

They finally broke up our team because we used to beat the snot out of everyone else. We had a history major, a science geek and a sports and pop culture nut. It worked out very well for us.

[MadMike]

At the risk of taking this thread off topic (or maybe not), I remember one Christmas Eve at my grandma's house (God, I've been missing that since we lost her to cancer in '94), someone had a Trivial Pursuit game. I remember one question I got: "What is Gerald Ford's middle name?" I had no idea, except that his middle initial was "R." Ever the cut-up, I started singing "Rudolph the Red-Nosed Reindeer." It seemed appropriate, being Christmas and all. When I was done, I said that I didn't know.

Turned out, it was Rudolph.