I have just remembered this one (I think I may have tried to supress it) which happened some time in September.

Daughter Eileen and her copain Phil; were with us and we had decided to visit the lovely village of St. Guilhem le Desert- founded by a cousin of Charlemange in a narrow cleft of the Cevennes.

Because of its position it is particularly hard to find a parking place there so they had recently , since our previous visit , build a carpark a couple of kilometres away and do a free shuttle bus into the village from there.

So we dutifully parked the car and I went up to the kiosk, manned it seemed by a small gaggle of students, and asked where the shuttle departed.
The student at the window promptly collapsed into giggles and through weeping eyes asked me to repeat what I had said and then stood back so the others could hear my reply.
This resulted in general hilarity, before the nearly speechless first fellow pointed the way.
I was annoyed and somewhat mortified when I went back to Madame and told her what had happened.
I repeated my simple request to madame looking for an explanation.
She also laughed , and then explained.

A shuttle bus is a navette , I had got it wrong and asked for a navet- a turnip.
I confess I blushed with embarrassment.
Obviously from the reaction in the kiosk this was a fairly frequent occurance- they probably kept a book on the idiots who got it wrong.

What truly irked was that of course I knew well that navet was turnip.
I mean hadn’t I spent my adolescent years using the pig French phrase ;
C’est un navet bizarre pour les livres
As a translation of the Cork expression of quizzicalness :
“That’s a queer turn up for the books”