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While striping a new car today I was doing matching miniature scrolls,on the trunk lid....in the show room....when suddenly I have a face next to mine....and he says is that paint!?My favorite stupid question is...is that a feather?
------------------ Stephen Michael Robinson Steve's Pinstriping Houston, Texas
Posts: 71 | From: Spring, Texas USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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My favorite stupid question has nothing to do with the sign business. It was back in the late 60's and I had just had my waist length hair cut into a Twiggy look. You know what's coming next don't you...........? "Did you get your hair cut?"
------------------ Sharon Bigler A Good Sign Chambersburg, PA
Posts: 202 | From: Chambersburg, PA USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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This one comes up from time to time...and it's always in the middle of a job...they see you doing it and as if they can't control their mouths out come the words "Did you do that yourself?"
Another favorite is "How long did it take you to make that?" I always tell them "Oh about 30 years".
Well I guess if they could do anything else they'd be doin it instead of asking dumb questions.
------------------ Monte Jumper SIGNLanguage/Norman.Okla.
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How big would you like the sign to be? "The normal size"
What color would you like the text to be? "Gosh, I don't know... you're the signmaker, you tell me" Well then, how about burgundy on a white background? "I don't like burgundy"
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Back when i airbrushed t-shirts full time. The all time best "dumb" question of all was...........drum roll......"how much is that $10 design?".......thank you, thank you very much
------------------ R.T.Thomas,AirDesigns/Sign And Airbrush Studio rtart1@earthlink.net 1209B Corinne St. Hattiesburg,MS 39401 Shop 601-584-1000 Home 601-543-0271 Proud supporter of LETTERVILLE! The best site on the net!! "I yam what I yam and dat's all dat I yam"
Posts: 547 | From: Hattiesburg,MS USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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Most all of these are familiar and reading the posts cracks me up, its like a visit in Sign maker la la land. Adrienne I love your comebacks. Just Excellent. I will quote you if I may!
My most wondrous one, remains the “are they dry?” question when a customer loads up a stack of screened posters or signs. “ Oh no, I let them stick together so I get to do them again “ IS kind of lame…. I cannot believe how many people ask that question.
Another is (in variations, we all know them): ring-answer phone- “how much do y’all’s signs run? They don’t, I have to drive them around.
One more: My question:What size banner do you need? Answ: Whatever you have? What do you want to say on your banner. I don’t know that yet, I'm only getting prices now.
------------------ Myra A. Grozinger Signs Limited Winston-Salem, NC V 336-722-1033/F 336-723-6112 signslimited@triad.rr.com
Posts: 1244 | From: Winston-Salem, NC USA | Registered: Nov 1998
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BOY I COULD MAKE A LIST HERE. While airbrushing t-shirts, i had designs displayed on pellon squares. White fabric. Some guy looks them over for awhile. And asks Hankercheifs? Another person one time, walks up to my airbrush rig, with signs all over it, and says, "Give me two with chili" I don't think people can read.
------------------ Scott Patterson Creative Signs & Graphics Lily, KY kscott98@msn.com
Every job is a self-portrait of the person who did it. Autograph your work with Excellence!
Posts: 52 | From: Lily, Ky, USA | Registered: Aug 2000
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My favorite stupid question or poorly delivered question, Is when your out for breakfast at the diner or such and the waitress or waiter asks you "What kind of eggs do you want" to wich my reply varies Ostrich or some other winged specie or Chicken when I'm bein a smart arse.
------------------ "Someday I'm gonna get a real job, HEE HEE" Signs Of Life 48 Carmen Hill Rd. New Milford, Ct 06776
Posts: 97 | From: Douglasville, GA | Registered: Feb 2001
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"Give me two with chili?" HAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA! HOLY SH*T, that's the one I needed to start my Saturday morning Thanks Scott and everybody for the laughs!
------------------ Sharon Bigler A Good Sign Chambersburg, PA
Posts: 202 | From: Chambersburg, PA USA | Registered: Jul 2001
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Not only can't some folks read, most have no reasoning powers at all. My favorite stupid qusetion ( and I've heard them all ) is a two parter. You are sitting in your truck, it has signs emblazoned on it somewhere in big bold letters.
Part one: Do you make signs? Part two: Did you do this on your truck?
I've learned over the years to be civil and simply answer yes, but holding back from pointing out the obvious is hard for a natural born smartass
------------------ George Perkins Millington,TN. goatwell@ionictech.com
"I started out with nothing and still have most of it left"
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My shop is kinda on the edge of a neighborhood and the local kids come by on there bikes and say " what is that sign gonna say" I tell them "it doesn't have a mouth, it's not going to SAY anything" the worst one is when some one is looking through your portfolio and stops at every photo and asks " did you do that one?" hmmmm..... no I go around taking pictures of stuff I didn't do.... duh!
------------------ -------------------------------------------------- "A wise man once said that, or was it a wise guy?"
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here is my favorite stupid question of all time.... my good friend Mark Jordan had a small sign shop downtown,a fellow comes walking into his shop one morning and mark is working on his metal easel perforating a pattern with his electro-pounce. the guy watches him for a while and suddenly ask, "Can you make a tatoo with that thing?"
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Doing a custom layout at a dealership on a truck yesterday with my tools on the kart laying out 1/8" masking tape when some woman opens the drivers door and I see the tape fly onto the windshield. I ask her if she touched the vehicle and she says NO! I go the that side and the tape layout is destroyed, I ask how that happened without her touching the vehicle and she says she does not know but would like to see the interior anyhow. I asked her if there was a full moon out where she lived. No one really asks me questions regarding my work but they do tap me on the shoulder when I'm laying down a line as if I was crouched over just so they could get my attention so they can tell me that their son used to do that until he got a real job at mickey D's.
------------------ HotLines Joey Madden,47 years in the Classic Art of Pinstriping Grants Pass, Oregon Learn something...... http://members.tripod.com/Inflite
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How long you been doing this?(what time is it?)The ..I knew a striper who shook so bad...when his hand hit the panel ...Wow. When my hand shakes ,so do my stripes,The other day I had an encounter with a,not so nice man.The dealer owed him a stripe...he came to the dealer when I was there.He said I want a line in a line and scrolls here and there(a 300 dollar + job!)I said I can't do that...he said yeah you can...then turning and looking at my truck,he asks did you do that?I said yeah....but I'm not doing your truck like that.He says yes you are, I said no I'm not!OK...this is what I'll do..he says ok ...I started on his truck then he starts to try and manipulate me into doing what he had initially wanted...to make a long story short...he got what I said I'd do+ a real shakey job, because I was mad and my hands were shaking.
------------------ Stephen Michael Robinson Steve's Pinstriping Houston, Texas
Posts: 71 | From: Spring, Texas USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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I didn't realize there were so many former t-shirt painters here. I used to airbrush t-shirts myself. Note to Scott: I got the "are those handkerchiefs?" question while painting a pelon too. One guy even asked me if I painted them on that thing first and then ironed the design on the shirt. My reply was, "No....it saves a lot of time if we paint directly on the shirt." But this was by far the best one. I still laugh about this guy 20 years later. I'm standing in the booth painting on multiple shirts with an array of paint bottles lined up in a rack in plain view. I'm going as fast as I can, switching bottles and airbrushes every 30 seconds, when I hear this "expert" behind me explaining to his girlfriend just how I work this magic. "You see babe, when he hits that little button, the paint comes up that hose right there and every time he wants to change colors he just turns that switch" (The "switch" was an egg timer I sometimes used to race against to keep up my speed.) After the fit of laughter this clown sent us into subsided, I turned to to him and said: "Gee Mr. Wizard, Do you suppose the air comes out of these bottles right here?" Needless to say, he didn't buy anything.
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I have really laughed at the above posts! I have not been in the biz but 1 yr. but have already heard some of them. Somehow things are funnier when you can identify. Right?
Just yesterday I got the ? that irks me. You would have to know me better to fully understand, but I'll explain that I started last year at age 54. This old friend pops in to discuss real estate signs with me. He asks, "Kathy, why have you started this at your age? I heard you were retired."
My answer is always,"You misunderstood, they told you I am retarded NOT retired. You can't ask them if they have a passion for fishing and isn't that what they plan to do upon retirement or they want you to give the signs away.
O.T. Another good one is--you mention that you are going to a funeral or wake. In a small southern town you are asked "Whose funeral". You tell them and you get this response. "Oh he died?" Hell no he didn't die, he's having a dress rehearsal.
------------------ Kathy Joiner River Road Graphics 41628 River Road Ponchatoula, La.70454 PH. (504)386-3313 casey@i-55.com
Old enough to know better...Too young to resist.
Posts: 1891 | From: Ponchatoula, LA | Registered: Nov 2000
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"Is that your best price?" "This price is fair to us both, my best price would be considerably more."
------------------ We now distribute Standoffs & Rod and Cable Systems WHOLESALE in Canada Duncan Wilkie aka signdogwww.commercialsigns.com Edmonton, Alberta
"OK so...how much if I let you put your name on my car?"
------------------ "I have the body of a God.....(Buddha)"......................................... David Cooper, The Sign Shack Enid, OK. signshack@peakonline.com
Posts: 658 | From: Enid,Oklahoma, USA | Registered: Dec 1998
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just finishing up on a customer's truck and his competition pulls in, (not a regular customer, always fishing for prices from mwe anyway...), asks me.. "How much did that sign on his truck cost him? .... You know... I just want something simple... look what I got... magnetics... the guys only charged me $40 for a set... at Office Max...didn't you know your customer never pays his help and that's why he can't keep any? ...(well, I gtta go now.. don't you wish you were cheaper and you could have done my magnetics?..." My reply... (well, let's put it this way, I was smart enough to walk away).
------------------ Deb**Creative Signs (and more)
Posts: 5373 | From: Loves Park, Illinois | Registered: Aug 1999
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All of the above! I have this one guy that has been going into business for himself for about a year now, and every time he sees me out somewhere, here he comes. Do you do them magnetic signs? I say yep, just like I told you the last three times you asked me that. Oh,did I already ask you that? Well, anyway, how much are they? Same price I told you the last time. Uh, how much was that? Come by the shop and we'll go over it. I just need a ballpark price. Roughly, 135 bucks a set, plain jane. Heck, they're just 60 bucks a set at J&R. Well, you decide and give me a call. He aint called yet, and he still don't have signs on his truck. It's gotten to the point that when I see him out somewhere, I head the other way.
------------------ John Deaton III Deaton Design 109 N. Cumberland Ave.,Harlan, Ky. 40831 606-573-9101
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Got two last night. Had my truck out at a local community fair, after having finally put letters & stripes on it a couple weeks ago. It has my shop name on it "Lines-N-Signs". I get "how much did it cost you to get this done?" (pointing to the name!) and "who did your truck?"
Is it just me or are there entirely too many extremely stupid people alive?
------------------ Chris King Lines-N-Signs Indiana, PA
'Then there was the gal who never believed in signs until one day she went through a door marked Gentlemen'
Posts: 4254 | From: Indiana, PA | Registered: Mar 2001
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Most people aren't stupid.....there momma just didn't slap them when they asked stupid questions when they were a kid!So I guess it's up to us to slap them!haha Hey I'm having fun here...thanks for all of the replies
------------------ Stephen Michael Robinson Steve's Pinstriping Houston, Texas
Posts: 71 | From: Spring, Texas USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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Here's one that seems to be coming up a bit lately: The customer looks at his job on the monitor and asks if i can show him the exact height of a letter on the screen!!Duh!
-------------------- Drane Signs Sunshine Coast Nambour, Qld. dranesigns@bigpond.com Downunder "To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer" Posts: 965 | From: Nambour, Qld. Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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well one of my very fav's is " DO YOU DO THAT FREE HAND? ) and my smart ass reply is alway's the same.... I hold up my left hand and say , If I use this hand to paint it , its free, and then i hold up my right hand and say.... But, If I use THIS hand, it'll cost you like a mutha!
another question that just makes me want to slap the wind out of em is when they're looking in my portfolio's and ask " Did you do any of these in here??" OH-MY-GAWD.....
well, thats my little contribution. Mike
Posts: 449 | From: Everett, WA | Registered: Dec 1998
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Well the disaster seemed to slow the stupid questions.....How much do you charge?How much you got!How long you been doing this?What time is it? I could do that*^^#@@! Is that a feather?Oh I already did that one!
-------------------- Stephen Michael Robinson Steve's Pinstriping Houston, Texas Posts: 71 | From: Spring, Texas USA | Registered: Aug 2001
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When they come in and ask if I can signwrite on cars I just tell em I'll signwrite their dog if they hold it still enough!
-------------------- Drane Signs Sunshine Coast Nambour, Qld. dranesigns@bigpond.com Downunder "To err is human, but to really foul things up requires a computer" Posts: 965 | From: Nambour, Qld. Australia | Registered: Nov 1998
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hehehe... One that I got when doing work experience with Jon Butterworth. Was doing a coat of white on a window for a window splash... and two, not one, two said, after you finish here you can come and paint my house. Another one there was, "If I win the lotto, I'll get you to decorate my house"... as if they would know how good I am at "decorating" from doing an undercoat of white on a window!
hmmm... Oh, and I got a few "I used to do that" when I was doing some letters at a shop down there also... and was flattered when a couple of kids decided to sit back for a while, and just watch
Some people...
-------------------- From Kat Johnston (previously Katie Wright, for those who can remember that far back)
Posts: 530 | From: Brisbane, Australia | Registered: Feb 1999
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