What's the funniest misinterpretation you had?

I rode a rowdy school bus in elementary school and the kids were singing this dirty song that included the word masturbate, but I heard it as “mastivate” and had no idea what it meant.

So naturally I come home and ask my mom. She pretends like she doesn’t know. “Do you mean masticate? Like to chew?”

I tell her no, that’s not it. She wants to know where I heard the word, but I don’t want to explain the dirty song and the kids on the bus because I’m too embarrassed. (I’m a girl, btw.)

So she tells me to look it up in the dictionary. Obviously I can’t find “mastivate” because it doesn’t exist.

I’m frustrated at this point because I’m sure she knows what it means and she just won’t tell me. I gather the courage to go back to her and ask again, but again I won’t tell her the context, though she asks several times.

Finally she’s like: Spell it. So I do. And she goes: Try M-A-S-T-U instead.

Well I found it then! And proceeded to die of embarrassment while reading the dictionary.

/r/CasualConversation Thread