This happened to a friend of mine and, when he tells it, is one of the funniest stories I ever heard. I hope I can do it justice.
My friend Chris (his real name) was walking his dog through a London park on a warm Summer’s afternoon, with a family walking towards him walking their dog.
As he was walking, he felt a scratching on his wrist. He looked down and noticed a wasp tangled up in the cuff of his jumper. The wasp was angry and had his stinger out, and was trying to plant it firmly in his wrist.
Chris, who is a big, intimidating looking bloke but is also as soft as butter, said that he began shouting and swearing, flicking his arm to try and get rid of the wasp. The wasp was still in his jumper cuff and was angrier than ever. Chris then started to pull his jumper up over his head to shake the wasp out, and his jumper and shirt came off together, so he was shouting and screaming and was now topless, waving his shirt and jumper above his head.
As he is doing this, he notices that the family are veering off of the path ahead of him, as the parents usher the children onto the grass and in the direction of the woods. Chris also notices that his dog, who was quite young and was still undergoing obedience training, had taken the opportunity of Chris dropping his lead, to run off.
By the time Chris has his shirt fully off and is exposing himself, the family have started to walk much faster, away from this crazy, foul-mouthed man waving his jumper around and screaming at himself. His dog, seeing them running, gives chase. Chris’s dog grabs a toy belonging to the dog of the family and brings it back to Chris.
Chris begins to comprehend how his behaviour may look to other people in the park, and in an attempt to reconcile with the family he takes the dog toy from his dog and starts after the family, still topless and holding his jumper/shirt in one had and the dog toy in the other.
Chris begins a fast trot in the direction of the family, shouting ‘I can explain! I can explain!’, at which point he hears the father in the family shout ‘Run!!!’ and the entire family dash into the woods at high speed. He didn’t see them again, nor did he explain.
Chris is a genuinely lovely guy who wouldn’t hurt a fly, but he is one of those people who always finds himself in absurd situations. He reminds me of that guy from Curb Your Enthusiasm. Every time I see him he has another story about some ridiculous situation he has created through his own actions, which begin innocently enough and end up in total chaos. We probably all know one person like that.