Editor’s note: War Stories is an occasional column in which Art Shulman, president of Shulman Research, Van Nuys, Calif., presents humorous anecdotes of life in the research trenches. Send your own (or a colleague’s) tales of research-related wackiness to him at artshulman@aol.com. Contributors may remain anonymous.

In the college class I teach, I assign a group project where students design a market research program for a product of the group’s choosing. It is not unusual during this process for students to give out samples of the types of products they are dealing with. Usually this involves stuff like candy or chips. But one particular group presented their research on condoms.

At the end of the presentation one of the group members, an attractive coed, handed out condoms to those in the room, including myself. I placed my condoms in my briefcase and promptly forgot they were there. A couple of weeks later, at home, my wife asked me if I knew where certain paperwork was - something related to taxes - and I told her to look in my briefcase.

Sure enough, moments later she approached me with my briefcase in one hand and a condom in the other hand, asking, “And, uh, exactly why was this condom in your briefcase?”

“Because,” I began, “one of the women in my class gave it to me. She was very attractive.”

Fortunately I have a very understanding wife who believed me when I told the full story.

Holly M. O’Neill of Talking Business was moderating focus groups in Manhattan when she encountered an unusual transportation problem. This was her first project with a new agency client and she was very eager to get to the facility early.

She stood outside her financial district hotel and enlisted the help of a bellman to hail a cab, to no avail! It was about 4:30 p.m., which, unbeknownst to her, is the time that taxi drivers change shifts, meaning very few taxis were available for hire. The few who would take a fare did not want a short trip. After about 30 minutes of waiting, she took the only transportation available to her: a pedicab! She hopped in the small carriage with her carry-on suitcase full of stimuli and the driver started pedaling. She ended up arriving quite late, after her clients, but those 20 or so blocks turned out to be a pleasant ride, she reports.

Russell Richey of ESWS/Marketing Research & Planning relates an experience he had some years ago when he was on the supplier side of qualitative research, conducting focus groups for a Christian organization in Dallas.

He was having a nice lunch, discussing business with his clients, and when asked how he was enjoying being in Dallas for the first time, he told them Dallas was a really neat city, and he’d been sampling a lot of the local cuisine and nightspots.

“Where have you been so far?” one angelic little old church lady asked.

With enthusiasm, he answered: “Well, I’ve been to the most fantastic tapas bar - I loved it, the atmosphere was great, the service was wonderful and I am definitely going back for some more!”

There was embarrassed silence on the part of his chaste clients.

Not catching on, he continued: “Do y’all go to any tapas bars here - can you recommend a good place for tapas?”

More silence and now looks of irritated indignation.

Rather than a lively restaurant serving Spanish appetizers - a tapas bar - these good Southern Baptists thought he was saying “topless bar” and were incredulous that he would be mentioning his patronage of such profane and unsavory dives, not to mention soliciting recommendations as to which topless bar they thought might be worth visiting!

Needless to say, the clients and he were both relieved to clear up this misunderstanding.

Laura Worick of The MSR Group was working with a new client to conduct a focus group with customers who utilize the organization’s Web site. After their initial discussion, she prepared the discussion guide and sent it to her client. Upon receiving the guide, her client called to say that after looking it over with her boss they thought perhaps she was “asking too many open-ended questions.”

That seems like an interesting approach. Perhaps the next time I conduct focus groups I’ll try asking only closed-ended questions.

In future issues, we hope to report on more quirky, loopy and strange happenings in the world of market research. But we can’t do it without you! If you’d like your story to be told - anything related to research is usable, from spilling soup on your client’s new suit to cute answers respondents provide on questionnaires - please e-mail me at artshulman@aol.com. You may remain anonymous in print, if you wish.