Actually, there will be three short-stories here about pilots not understanding the instruction they had been given.  These are not meant to be a bash on pilots (God knows I’ve mis-heard pilots before), but for the sake of this posting, and a little thing called “CYA” (cover your a–!), I’m going to talk about how three pilots did something they shouldn’t have.
The first scenario took place during a small departure rush, and I was alone in the tower working both local and ground control.  A regional jet was taxiing to …