In an office I once worked in we had a cardboard cut out of an Aer Lingus stewardess. She can't have been more than four feet tall and her base had been damaged so that she leaned at an angle slightly more than the Leaning Tower of Pisa. She had a fierce moustache pencilled on her upper lip and it was hard to imagine anything less lifelike.
Her lack of authenticity did not stop an elderly lady from walking up to her and asking her for a train timetable. I stepped forward and offered to fetch the timetable, at which she rounded on me with : "I wasn't addressing you, young man, I was talking to this young lady and I'm sure she is quite capable of finding me a timetable."