My brother in Orlando had a few friends over from Wisconsin. It’s important to note that one of the friends was burned badly in a car accident some time ago and has some burn scaring over her body.
Anyway, the plan was for my brother, his girlfriend, and the two Wisconsin tourist friends to hit up one of the theme parks in Orlando. Naturally, they bring sunscreen because the Florida sun is brutal. My brother’s girlfriend (I think), obviously without thinking, offers them some…
"Hey, I got you some sunscreen. I know how easy you Wisconsin girls burn.
:eek:
Post your shame. The more embarrassing, the better!
A guy I used to work with had a brother who got in a fight outside a bar. He hit his head on the granite curb, his brain swelled up, he was comatose for a while. After he regained consciousness, he had various cognitive and physical problems due to his injury. My coworker wound up taking him in and caring for him.
About 6 months later, I was describing to him 2 new pieces of telephony hardware we were using. One board could only perform a subset of the features that the other one could. I said “Now imagine that board B is the same as board A, but is brain damaged.” Yikes!
I was trying to get a friend to sign a petition. She seemed hesitant, and I said “Come on. It’s just a signature. It’s not like we are asking for your first born son.”
THEN I remember her first born son was the victim of a murder/sucide at the hands of his father. :smack:
Fortunately, my friend is a gracious lady who turned around, walked out, and never said a word about my foot-in-mouth disease.
One day, I had a customer calling about our large gift basket boxes and asking how much they hold. She explained that her synagogue was making gift baskets for Purim. I was trying to explain that while the basket boxes would be good for Purim gifts – big enough for a small bottle and several food items – they’re not really heavy-duty, so “you wouldn’t want to put a ham in them or anything like that.” :eek: :smack: Of course, I caught myself and laughed and said, “well, I guess you really wouldn’t want to put a ham in a Purim gift basket, would you?” She got a big laugh out of it and told the other ladies that were sitting in the room with her and they all thought it was hilarious. Luckily, she wasn’t offended.
Hee. Similarily, I walked into a new deli in our neighborhood in the Bronx and asked for what I usually get at delis, a sausage, egg and cheese sandwich. Of course it was a kosher deli and he just gently shook his head at me.
Another time, a friend had just had his long-time buddy shoot himself in the head with a shotgun. My friend was playing Snood and got into a jam and I recommended the only recourse; “Yeah, just kill yourself”.
For a while I was being a dork and throwing in French words here and there so at one point I told my housemates I was headed upstairs for a douche. :smack:
I feel like I could go on and on, but perhaps I have blocked out a lot.
ETA another one: My friend was dating a new guy and said she wasn’t sure what I would think about his looks, and whether he was cute. I said, It’s not like he has scars all over his face, right? Well, actually he does have little scars from a bike accident.
I’m four years older than my boyfriend and his friends. The college financial aid market changed a LOT in those four years, I know now - when I got that National Merit thing I actually got tons of state universities that I hadn’t even applied to sending me letters accepting me and offering me a free ride. (Auburn, Florida State, University of Florida, and several others, off the top of my head.) Pretty much everybody also got Palmetto Fellows, which sent you to school here in state for free too. Even though I went to a little private women’s college and didn’t take advantage of all that money, I still got maybe three quarters paid for in grants, not loans.
So, like, I figured it was still like that.
So Himself and his friends were bitching about their loans, and I said, wait for it, oh god I can’t believe this fell out of my mouth: You paid to go to a state school?
The players: about 7 or 8 friends, aged 16-17, girl/boy mix.
The scene: a gazebo in the backyard of an abandoned house, packed closely in a circle on the bench lining the inside of the gazebo.
The mental state: totally loaded on some serious pot. Maybe even hash… I just know that I was SooperStoopid.
I launch into a tirade about a particular girl that I think is an idiot, a bore, and whom I find utterly without redeeming value. (Why I felt the need to do this I have no idea.) After ranting for some time, I finally realize that no one is agreeing. No one is disagreeing. No one is saying anything. They are looking at me like…well, like I’m on drugs, which I am.
I’d have to be to have gone into such a rant when the subject*** was sitting directly beside me, her leg pressed against mine.***
My recovery was pretty good, though. I just totally owned it. “Well, Chris… you know it’s true!”
I am close with several of those same people to this day and that is still cited as an all time foot-in-mouth moment.
Early this spring, my 70 year old aunt’s cat was killed by the dogs next door to her house. She saw it happen, and couldn’t get over the fence to do anything. The neighbor guy from the other side was able to get the cat away from the dogs, but by then it was too late. This cat was 19 years old, and she had raised her from a kitten. Huge trauma, the entire family was heartbroken.
A month or so afterward, my mom and I were traveling though and took her and one of my cousins out to dinner. My mom and I were on our way back from the Oregon coast and were talking about all the small shops and whatnot that we had stopped into looking for treasures.
Antique store are plentiful in that area. <-- What I should have said.
Noooo…
“You can’t swing a dead cat without hitting an antique store on the coast.”
Open mouth, insert both feet up to the knees. I truly just wanted to slide under the table, out the door and into the gutter, I felt so bad. Still, just typing this makes my heart hurt.
From memory, but I believe it was something like “You should never say anything that even implies a woman might be pregnant unless you can see an actual baby emerging from her at that moment.”
I was talking to a gay acquaintence of mine. He showed me a wedding ring on his finger. He said he got married now that same sex marriage is legal in California. He said the couple had “gotten married” before, but it was not legal, so they “got married again” and got more wedding presents out of it.
My response, “Unfortunately, my marriage was legal the first time.”
[What I meant was that I was disappointed that I couldn’t get “re-married” to collect more wedding presents.]
My Indian friends, who are Hindu, had invited me over to see their new house they had just moved into. Walking from one room to another, I politely commented on their decor which was truly very nice. In the last room we came to, I was drawn to the items displayed in one corner of the room. “Oh, all this bric-a-brac is really interesting - did you get it at a flea market?”, I asked. “No”, they said, “this is our shrine.”
Mine was the incident that caused me to permanently swear off making derogatory jokes about people I don’t know.
Several years ago I used to work alongside my best friend, cooking in a small diner. One day I spotted a pair of rather unattractive older women coming into the restaurant and, finding their appearance amusing I quipped, “Oh look! Fat old ladies in baseball caps!”
My friend never said a word, and it wasn’t until he went out to speak to the women that I realized I had seen them before. They were my friend’s mother and sister.
Thankfully he isn’t the type to hold a grudge and we’re still good friends to this day. But that incident taught me to be watch what I say about people - you never know who’s listening.
Never tell a pregnant woman she has no conception of something.
Especially a woman in labour.
And I’ve put my foot in it right royally a number of times, once on this board. On another occasion, I told a female friend - and a very good cook - that her cooking was almost as good as my mother’s. :smack: Literally true, as my mother is an exceptional cook who can match top-class chefs in quality and taste of food - but she can’t run a commercial kitchen - but not the thing to say when I had dined so well.
So, I’m just getting of work at 10:30 PM. I go over to a friend’s house for a going away party. It had been a long, stressful day at work and I was very much looking forward to a drink.
I got to the party and found that there were drinks in the fridge. I got to the fridge and saw someone standing in front of it. I had met this guy a couple of times, but I wouldn’t really call him a friend. More of a FOAF. Anyway I asked him excuse me so I could get into the fridge - at least that was my intent.
At the time, when I was excited about something, I would lead the sentence with a ‘hoo boy’. As in, “Hoo boy, it’s hot out here.” Or “Hoo boy, that a long way down.” Ok, so it even sounds dumb typing it out - which is why it’s been elimnated from my speech.
When I was really excited, the ‘Hoo’ part would get dropped. “Boy, that guy is moving”.
Well, in this particular case, my exact words were “Boy, you need to get out of my way”. Which of course, he interpreted as “Boy, you’d better get your nigger ass out of my way before we gets us a lynchin’ party a goin!” Oh, did I mention I’m a white guy? Did I mention he’s a black guy? He’s not quite what I’d call a militant black guy, but he’s definitely not the type to let such a blantantly racist remark go.
It took some fast talking to get across what I had actually meant - but that could have ended badly.
I invited a Jewish gal to my house once for a barbecue because my parents were out of town. What was the main dish, you ask? Pork chops. :smack:
This one is REALLY BAD:A friend of the family secured a grant to have a suicide awareness/prevention party. My little brother is in a band. My mom told me he was playing at a party, and I said, “Oh, is he playing at that ‘Don’t shoot yourself in the head’ party?” My aunt (mom’s sister) killed herself that way about fifteen years ago. I am an asshole.
