Many people heard about the ‘Little Free Library’, which was a movement that let people swap a book for another, or take it and bring it back. Now, people are joining in the ‘Little Free Pantry’ idea, which shares a similar value of spreading kindness with mini pantries.

Take What You Need, Share What You Can

One family who live in Boise, Idaho, have a three-year-old son who wanted to build something for his third birthday, so they decided that they would build a community pantry box that they would share with their neighbors. They felt that they had everything they wanted, so they wanted to give a little something back to the community and help the people in need.

The Idea Behind It

The idea is that the family fill this box up with non-perishable items, which includes tins, toiletries, and other goods. However, it’s meant to be a community give and take, so other people would also contribute to adding to this mini-pantry.

The Idea Took Off

It seems that the idea has taken off in other communities who also want to give a little something back and help those in need. It’s the kind of movement that helps the struggling members of the community, allowing them to live knowing that they can have a can of soup for dinner if they have nothing else. Or that sanitary products are available.

The Family Keep It Going

The Millers keep their little pantry going, realizing that it’s emptiest toward the end of the month, so they know that it’s really helping people. They don’t believe that anyone has taken advantage of it and that it’s only helped, people.

Various other communities have taken on the mini pantries project in order to spread a little kindness within their community.

We are human, which means that mistakes will be made no matter your personal life or professional. But sometimes, when it comes to your profession, these mistakes can be quite humorous and maybe a little embarrassing when you look back on them. Of course, it’s a lot easier to look back on than when you have shared them via social media. We have gathered some of the times that servers have shared funny misunderstandings they had on the job for your entertainment.

Sure, you can look at this example of a misunderstanding in two ways. It could have been a legitimate misunderstanding, or perhaps someone was looking to be a bit sarcastic and just played it off as a misunderstanding.

After all, they are right; when you remove a fish from water, it is going to be drier than when it was in the water. But we think they knew that it wasn’t quite what this customer meant.

Many adult beverages have fun names. Sometimes they have to do with where they were created, and sometimes it has to do with the ingredients. Learning every single one is simply impossible, which is why there are books with recipes.

So this misunderstanding is especially understandable when you look at the age of the server. Maybe they haven’t ever been able to enjoy one of those special drinks yet!

This is another one of those mistakes that are incredibly misunderstood. Most know there are different types of wine, but understanding everything about it takes years. Some even go to college for it, so why would this young waiter know that there were dry variations of the drink?

The good news is that for us, this means we get a little chuckle, but they probably felt a little embarrassed when they replied with this.

Okay, so service doesn’t always mean food, so we had to share this little flashback from this young lady. Working when she was very young aside, the reply may have just been a normal one, but it was priceless.

After all, you wouldn’t see an invisible thread, right? It seems logical, but we bet she knows now what invisible thread is. We just hope that the customer thought this was as funny as we did.

If you were not familiar with the hamburger, we could see why this was a reasonable answer to the customer’s inquiry. But then again, who isn’t familiar with hamburgers? The name, we guess, can be confusing.

But the name isn’t about the meat, rather where the idea for the food came from. The customer we are sure assumed this guy was just being a smart… well, you know!

Maybe they are coffee drinkers? After all, chamomile tea is pretty common, and the only way we could see that they didn’t know about it is that they like the stronger stuff. Pretty sure the customer sent this back, though, because that couldn’t have tasted very good.

Then again, some people load up their tea with sugar that is basically the same as caramel, right? Or maybe they just created a new specialty drink for that restaurant.

Sometimes the best response to a question that you think is not very smart is to confuse the customer until they repeat themselves. Or have enough time to rethink who or what they are asking. We are sure that is what this baker was doing.

Maybe it wasn’t a misunderstanding on the side of the server and more on the customer. After all, this guy wasn’t customer service, right?

When you are busy and maybe a little nervous, sometimes you mix words up, and that can lead to some very fun misunderstandings. This is one of the best things we have heard.

Though it may not have been as funny for the girl at the moment, once she was able to think about it, she probably laughed. If she didn’t, we hope somebody helped her see how funny this restructuring of letters actually was.

Water and vinegar are some of the best things to use to clean windows and mirrors. But this is only true if you use the right vinegar, which doesn’t mean balsamic for sure. But hey, if you don’t know, you don’t know, right?

We just hope someone caught this person before he got too far into the project. Otherwise, the rooms may smell nice, but the windows may end up a little streaked and sticky too!

How often have you wanted to tip the server and thought it would be nice to pay for them to have a drink when they got off work? If you like to hang out at your local watering hole or pub, then we are sure this has been the case at least once.

Most people would be happy to get a free top-level brew, but not this server, and that is okay. A little strange but okay.

There is a reason why espressos are served in those tiny cups. This is one of the strongest types of coffee, and so we can’t even imagine the buzz this person had after a standard cup full. We can just hope they had a lot to get done that day!

This poor kid had no idea, but we are sure he knows now and hopefully won’t be delivering a massive caffeine bomb to any customers again.

What type of chip shop do you order the fish per the species? Though giving the customer a plate of chips was the server’s fault, the customer caused the misunderstanding by being particular with the fish.

But hey, they got plenty of chips, and that is a win. Now all they have to do is just make sure that they explain themselves better.

This is why we take grammar in school so that misunderstandings like this one don’t happen. The use of a pronoun like ‘your’ changes the meaning completely. And what you then get is a confused server who thinks you’re asking him to show his muscles.

On the other hand, the server should have thought twice before answering, and maybe they would have gotten it. That is unless the customer had been flirting with him.

This is where knowing a bit of geography when you are working in a fancy restaurant comes in handy. If this young server had known a little, they would have realized the customer was asking for wine from Chile.

Not a glass with that adult beverage with a few spritzes of hot sauce! That was definitely a shock when the customer drank that glass. Hope they had water handy!

This is another case of someone not getting trained enough to be left to their own devices. There are a lot of drinks that can be made and sometimes when ordered together you can get a bit confused.

That is what happened to this young woman that was working in a place that she had never worked before. This person at least got a little lemon to have with their beer. But the other drink was missing!

Grass-fed beef is the best beef you can get, according to some, and so if you are not familiar with the meat, you may think that goes for all meats. But chickens don’t eat grass like cows. In fact, they are more grain-based.

This person was mistaken when they asked for it, and the guy at the butcher counter was just asking a clarification question. There should be no reason to get that angry!

There are some wacky names given to tons of drinks out there, and some of them have very common names. Some of them even have names associated with tools that might be very confusing for those that are unaware of them.

So when this person asked for a screwdriver, the bartender was a little confused. The guy corrected him before they handed him a tool, which was good.

The bathroom is called a lot of things. The traditional one is a bathroom. Some refer to it as the washroom or even the restroom. So you can see why someone might get confused and offer someone a chair, especially when they call it a restroom.

The person must have been confused, though, when the guy pulled a chair out for them, and it was not at all what they probably needed.

This was less a misunderstanding than someone just trying to be trendy and use the shortened version of a name. Maybe this worker doesn’t understand what he was meaning.

This is why, as a good rule of thumb, you should use the full name of something. If not, you may end up like this guy!

Sometimes it is in the spelling, and no matter how much you say a word, it still sounds like the other one. This is a perfect example of when someone asks for a pitcher of water, you should definitely bring one of those and not… A picture of water.

That will not be a good thing and will go down as a big mistake on your part. Either way, though, someone is going to get a chuckle.

We all make mistakes, and sometimes they are not meant to be offensive, but they end up that way. This young server probably felt super bad when she realized what she had done, but it was too late.

Let’s just hope that the little person has a sense of humor and kindly let the woman know that she made a mistake. If not, then there was probably a lot more embarrassment as everyone heard what she had done.

Training on the job is important. But sometimes restaurants and other customer-focused businesses just don’t have a good program for ensuring their new staff has the knowledge they need.

However, this restaurant seems to have a good training program as they have an answer for everything… just BS your way through. It clearly didn’t work for this new server. Or maybe it did, who knows?

When people come to a new country, they look for things that remind them of home, and one of those is making the food from there. Russian cuisine uses a lot of sour cream, so it is not surprising that this grandma needed it.

But sour cream is not foreign to other countries, so this worker’s mistake shouldn’t have happened. It is funny but kind of mean too!

It is hard when a drink sounds like many words put together, which is what happened with this mistake. In fairness, though, the end result would probably taste pretty similar; it just would be a little fizzier.

It was a mistake that would be pretty funny! At least this server stayed with the same flavor profile. That says they were thinking and using their brains.

Mom has some explaining to do! When you are a vegetarian, you are not supposed to eat meat, and most of the time, that means no fish too. But mom clearly didn’t get the memo, and it took a friend to help this girl out.

Though this seems messed up, at least the girl was getting her omega 3’s, which is good. However, it is sad that mom had been lying the whole time.

When calamari is cut right and fried lightly, we can see why this young server may think it was pasta. It is long strips of something white and is often served in Italian restaurants. If it looks like pasta, parmesan is a must, right?

Unfortunately, this just shows you that the young waitress wasn’t trained properly, because calamari is definitely not pasta! But maybe parm would be pretty good on it even though many people say cheese and fish are not good together.

Trying to find little tricks to make it through a tough situation is a great way to conquer a new task. So when this person was doing a job they had no idea how to do, they came up with a method to ensure they were doing everything right.

However, that does always work and may make a big misunderstanding and one that will make them look kind of crazy.

Most people don’t know that wine can be made of different things. That might account for this question and serious misunderstanding. Or maybe this server was just feeling a little sassy when he answered the question.

Either way, it is kind of funny but definitely not the right answer. Unless, of course, they do serve an orange wine. But hey, either way, we are sure it is delicious.

This is a fun misunderstanding that could be a part of a script for a sitcom for sure. You just picture a bartender beginning to pour the drink in slow-mo as the customer looks on, puzzled. Then the server stops and says, “What? You said, slow, right?”

Classic and one that should have both parties laughing a bit when the misunderstanding is brought to light. Or maybe not!

Studying abroad is a cool opportunity that many high school students get, but there can be a bit of a language barrier. Sometimes that may make for a funny situation like this situation. The Swedish word means something completely different in some languages.

This misunderstanding would be even better if there was someone taking a drink of water and we could get a spit take, please.

We know it seems hard to believe that somebody didn’t know what a scone was, but apparently, this poor server had no idea. That could lead to some fun trips down aisles that would never have a delicious treat like a scone in it.

The misunderstanding probably gave the visits a good introduction to the store, though, and that might be well worth it. Plus, maybe they were reminded of things that they needed besides the scones.

Our ears aren’t perfect, especially in a noisy room, and sometimes we think we hear things that just were not said. For example, how Alex here thought a customer wanted to see a smile. When what they really wanted was a to-go box so they could get on with their day.

Hopefully, Alex’s smile was worth the several seconds of awkward silence and staring. Maybe Alex should have explained to them they might have got a good chuckle, and he might have gotten a better tip.

There’s no shame in not knowing the name of an adult beverage when you don’t drink. This server may not be the only person who gets confused about why someone would order turkey at a steak restaurant.

But can you just imagine when you heard the reply to the question, and it was not in any way close to what you asked? It must have been a pretty weird few seconds.

Some celebrities get so known for their drink choice that the drink becomes known by their name. One of these is the famous golfer Arnold Palmer, half lemonade, half tea. But if you don’t know that and just hear someone ask for a person’s name, that may lead to a misunderstanding like this.

What would have been fun would have been if there was someone who actually worked there named Arnold Palmer! This has the makings of comedy gold.

Many misunderstandings come about because someone doesn’t realize that something is completely different from what it sounds like. For instance, in this situation, the server had no idea that the person was asking for a drink.

But hey, at least they got the lemon part right. Though we are sure the person who got the plate of lemon slices wasn’t amused.

The culinary world has a lot of rules and new adjectives, and one of those is gluten-free. But what has gluten in it? Not everyone knows for sure unless you have to worry about it. So this misunderstanding is completely relatable.

Soy does have gluten in it, which means that the question has to be asked by some. There is no shame in not knowing that.

When your shift gets to the end, your mind begins to wander. Sometimes that little bit of a wander brings you into relaxation for the evening. What do most do when it comes time to relax? Have some drinks with a friend. So these misspoken words make sense.

But, it might confuse the customer, or maybe they might think you’re asking them out after work. Who knows, but it could be fun either way!

There are those servers that have a spiel to give themselves some extra character. So having this fun little dialogue with the regular older customers might make them remember you better.

However, the fact that the joke never seems to land may mean that this server should rework his bit a little until he gets a little chuckle. Obviously, the old ladies don’t think it is funny even if they do get it.

There are many brands of adult drinks. So when you order at a pub or restaurant, make sure to just ask for the type and then the brand. If you don’t, you may end up with a misunderstanding like this one.

At least they got their shot, though, even if it isn’t the right one. Plus, they got a little rose too, that’s two for the price of one?

Some misunderstandings don’t work, and some just happen to work out. That is what happened in this case. Hopefully, when the lady was shopping in this aisle, the helper took her to where she wanted to go in the first place.

Sometimes your ears play tricks on you, and you mishear what the person was saying. So when you are helping someone, make sure to ask for the person to clarify if you don’t think you hear something right.

There are many different types of wine out there, and they tend to have a lot of French names, but you don’t have to speak French to understand what they are. So this misunderstanding is actually just someone being a little bit of a jerk.

Maybe it would be better to ask for red or white. That way, those that are not so cultured don’t have any misunderstandings.

One of the first things a server should understand is the menu. Not only what it says but what it looks like. That is so there are no misunderstandings like this one. Maybe the misunderstanding isn’t the waiter’s fault; perhaps it came from the table.

Either way, we just wonder if that means there are three plates of chicken tandoori up for grabs after the shift for this server or not.

A lot of people have a standard order when it comes to Starbucks. This coffee mecca has a standard menu, and then it has its secret menu. On this secret menu is a special section for those people’s puppies.

This person didn’t know that, and that is why this misunderstanding must have happened. But they made the adjustment when they realized that they had messed up, so at least there was a good rebound.

Sometimes the mistake that you make has to do with not being exposed to other cultures. This is what happened to this server. On top of not understanding what kosher means, they only associated it with the slang definition.

Though this mistake is a little funny for everyone but the Jewish person, it is still a big mistake that could cause some issues later. Let’s hope that whoever made the meals used kosher everything.

Sometimes when you are young, you can get away answering something incorrectly as you don’t really know. That is what happened in this situation where the young man probably just misunderstood what the guy asked.

Though if he had stopped to think about it, he might have answered differently. Still, the answer was priceless, and we wished we could see the face of the gentleman.