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"You should have taken up the piccolo" (if I had a nickel for every time I've heard that, I'd have a LOT of nickels....)

"How much does that thing weigh?" ( less often "Is that a tuba or are you just happy to see me" )

The one we used to get at the old Yankee Stadium (playing with the "Yankee Doodlers") was "hey - you guys play music?" As though someone would lug around a sousaphone for "fun"...

I was walking down a street to go meet up with some people with a sousaphone, and on the way some guy started honking at me and told me to go back to mexico...

Is that a trumpet?

No.

Trombone?

No.

Tuba?

Yes... let's go with that!

One night after a late gig, the following scene unfolded behind me while walking down Osborne Street in Winnipeg with my horn on my shoulder...

Random drunk: "HEY TUBA!! TUUUBAAAA!!!!"
Unknown bystander: "It's a sousaphone ***hole! Get it right!!"
Me (in my head as I keep walking): "Thank you kind stranger!"

From several flute, clarinet, etc. players over the last year:
"That must be so EASY to march with, you don't even to have to hold it up!"

lost wrote:"Tuuuuuuuuba"

That's a semi-standard greeting among tuba players around here

Well how about equine opinon? Walking back from a gig on the Customs House steps in Charleston SC a cart horse pulling a tourist wagon down the street the other way DID NOT LIKE my sousaphone, throwing his head up to watch me intently. I turned around and went the other way, figuring he'd be even more unhappy if the scary thing sidled in behind him.

"That thing's a joke waiting to happen- a guy with a tuba walks into a bar... "
(Oh, I WILL... later!)

Actual dialog I have had:
"What IS that?"
"A sousaphone."
"A what?"
"Same as a tuba."
"Huh?"
"[Sigh] It does the same thing: low notes in a concert band: boom, boom, boom, boom. You hold a tuba. You wear a sousaphone."
"Oh?"
"You know - the guy on the football field at half-time who 'dots the I' in Ohio?"
"Oh, YEAH! Now I get it...."
(I then repair to a second beer)

Not when I was holding a sousaphone... but related.

(On a bandstand having just been introduced 'on tuba'.. playing my 5/4)

Guest: That's not a tuba
Me:...yes it is?
Guest: I've been to a lot of football games and that ain't like no tuba I ever seen
Me: I assure you, this is a tuba, just not one for marching.
Guest: no Sir, THAT'S A BASSOON!

"Best thing I have seen all year!" (as I was departing the Seattle Link lightrail a few weeks ago.)
http://www.thebookofhonk.com/Honkfest/H ... -xDvWFP7/A

Intonation any good?

DDG

Walking away from a short Dixieland gig at a church. A very wide-eyed boy said "Oh, that is a very big trumpet"
And at least once during the Creswell 4th of July parade "Hey, it's Deputy Tuba!!!"