[True Story Humor] Ugly Movie Rentals

[junkdna]

I was a high school exchange student to Nagoya in 1989. It was an exciting time for me, I wanted to absorb everything I could, so my Japanese host family allowed me to rent videos so I could take in more culture.

I was in the store one Saturday afternoon and was simultaneously looking for new videos to rent while returning a bunch of videos. I had placed the videos I had borrowed on the counter as instructed by one of the many shop employees and went off to look for something to rent.

After I had made my selection, I returned to the counter to a different shop employee, a young woman. She asked me if the videos I had handed her were all I wanted to rent. I told her yes, and that I was returning videos as well.

She asked me where the videos were. I told her they had been on the counter, but they were no longer there. Obviously someone had been quick on the job to reshelve.

She asked me to name one of the videos I had rented so she could look it up in the database to see if it had been returned and so she could confirm my family's address and information.

I spat out the first one that came to mind...

"BUSU!" I said proudly and loudly.

The young woman nearly fainted right there and the employee who had taken my videos to reshelve them strolled up quickly to defuse the situation.

A good laugh was had all around when the young woman was able to confirm that I had indeed rented the movie BU・SU (Ugly).

[junkdna]

Then there was the time (before I knew what the word "busu" meant) I was standing in line at a bus stop with my host mother. There were about 10 others waiting as well. When I saw the bus approach, I was eager to share my newfound Japanese abilities with everyone by saying "Busu ga kita!"

My host mother did a double take, nearly died of embarrassment, and some gentleman behind us smothered a laugh with a cough.

[Paul]

Thanks for the laugh I have to get to the magic 20 post mark to add to your karma. I think that there should be a thread here for people to share their funny and embarrassing stories without the snide replies and commentary on the who, what, where, when and why something occurred when it did.

You reminded me of a good one I will be sharing shortly.