4 stories to tickle your funny bone

Congratu-uh-oh-lations email!

“I recently started a new job, and one morning, an all-office email popped up from a woman in another department. We’d been introduced, but I didn’t know anything about the woman. Since I hadn’t been at the company for very long, I wanted to make a good impression with my co-workers.

“So I quickly scanned the first line of her email, which was about changing her last name. Assuming she’d just gotten married, I hit ‘reply all’ and typed, Congratulations! Wishing you every happiness! A moment later, I received an email from another coworker, flagged as urgent, that read:

Kimberly didn’t get married—she just got divorced and is going back to her maiden name.

“My face burning, I walked to my newly single co-worker’s cube to apologize. As I approached, I saw her wiping a tear and braced myself for the worst. But to my surprise, she grinned and said, ‘Thank you, that email was just what I needed. It totally cracked me up!’ Her tears were from laughter. Kimberly and I went on to become good friends and still laugh about my faux pas. Still, I now read every work email closely, then reread it before replying.”

—Carla DeWitt, 49, Denver