Vocab: 勘弁
**勘弁してちゃぶ台。**今日は忙かったし、滅茶苦茶疲れているんだ。
Cut me some slack. It’s been a long day and I’m terribly tired.
Is this correct? My wife says it doesn’t make sense. Can someone help me out?
勘弁してちゃぶ台
Her suggestion is that it should have been "勘弁してちょうだい。”
Maybe it’s some weird slang, but it doesn’t make much sense to me either.
Shouldn’t it be 忙しかった as well?
ちゃぶ台 is a table - ちゃぶ台返し = (┛◉Д◉)┛彡┻━┻
I’m not aware of any expression even close to 勘弁してちゃぶ台
As someone who is not your native Japanese wife, I also assumed it was supposed to be ちょうだい even before reading your post.
For kicks, I put it into Google translate. The translation? “C’mon and cabbage” 
Do… you want to be their Japanese wife?
O:
I don’t think I’d make a very good wife, but I could try I guess.
Seems like wordplay at best, which is probably not appropriate for example sentences.
This topic got weird quickly. I think I’ll report the sentence to WaniKani and see what they say.
No, I think the pretty clear message here is “you’re confused, and your wife is right”.
Which, honestly, should be your default position in any situation. 
About sums up my life.
Response:
Mami wrote most (maybe all?) of the example sentences and she’s out right now trying to survive in the frozen north of Canada, so I can’t ask if this was wordplay, or a colloquialism, or what until she gets back. When she does, though, we’ll talk it over and maybe change the sentence if it’s wrong, or something too obscure.
Or considering how many tables are getting overturned in the Durtle Heaven thread, perhaps it’s a clueTM. 
This is the response:
Alright, I checked with Mami, and apparently it’s an oyaji-gyagu (middle-aged man joke) making a pun off of 勘弁してちょうだい. So it’s “correct,” after a fashion.
No explanation of why it’s funny or what the pun is so I asked for clarification. I’ll get back to you if I find out.
The way oyajigyagu work, it’s not supposed to be funny (well, I like them though) or make sense. I think it’s perfectly fine as a sentence… but not appropriate for a learning website (except as an explicit example of pun)
ふとんがふっとんだ！
I am familiar with the concept of oyajigyagu. They are basically dad jokes that usually involve a pun and in my experience are very easy to understand.
I understand “Funny” is subjective which is why I added “or what the pun is” but there is no point to an oyajigyagu if no one understands it. My eldest daughter is young enough to laugh at my oyajigyagu while my wife just shakes her head disapprovingly. Regarding this sentence though, as a native speaker, she thought it must be a typo. Hopefully, Mami can explain it though, and then we can all groan in unison.
These should be tagged in some way. I’d like to find the dad jokes. I like them 
Well, the response for for my request for an explanation makes me think that it’s an inside joke at best.
Yeah, I don’t quite get it either. :-/ I’m trying to see if maybe we can just change it to something more straightforward.
Hi guys!! Sorry for the slow reply.
I’m currently on a mat leave plus all of my family members have been sick (: _ 
So I talked to Kristen about changing the sentence, but we concluded that we don’t think we need to change the sentence, it’s just got untranslatable pun stuff.
For the explanation, I should have said it’s more of a play on word instead of a joke. I’ll try my best explaining it here.
勘弁してちょうだい can mean two meanings.
One is “Please forgive me.”
The other one is “Give me a break”
In this context, it uses the 2nd meaning.
ちゃぶだい is used instead of ちょうだい because it sounds similar, as a play on word.
In fact, ちょうだい will be written てふだい in classic Japanese.
ちゃぶだい is a Japanese style low dining table.
Like earlier said in the forum, ちゃぶ台 is often used in a phrase ちゃぶ台返し (╯°□°）╯︵ ┻━┻, which is to flip over a table that usually has foods on and that action tend to lead to a disaster ruining all the foods and dishes.
勘弁してちょうだい means “Give me a break” “Come on!” “Seriously?.” Which is probably something you would say when someone flips the dining table in front of you. So, the word ちゃぶだい as in ちゃぶ台返し kinda matches the meaning of the phrase and replacing it with ちょうだい makes it sound funny.
So, in this case, this phrase is used when something terrible (like the mess of ちゃぶ台返し) happened to the speaker and he wants to say "Give me a break" in the oyaji-gyagu (middle aged man pun/joke/play on word) way.
If you want to learn more straightforward sentence as well, 勘弁してちょうだい works, but 勘弁してくれよ or 勘弁してよ matches better to the tone of the latter part in this text.
Hope this makes sense