Foot in mouth syndrome, Or how not to console your friend.

Miscellaneous and Personal Stuff I Must Share
1

To preface this story, I must tell you that my friend Shane’s mom died a week ago.

That out of the way, let us begin.

We work in a factory. You know the type, lots of guys, swearing, cussing, telling off color jokes, and being generally uncouth, as guys are wont to do in the absence of the fairer sex.

Now, this job consists largely of rote, repetitive actions, and Brain, feeling he is above such menial tasks, tends to turn his attention elsewhere and leave the various parts of the body to fulfill tasks as they see fit, and mostly, they do this just fine, thanks to the crib sheets Brain has thoughtfully made up for them. Ever the egotist, Brain has even worked up a crib sheet of snappy, sarcastic answers for Mouth to deliver on demand, lest people realize Brains wit isn’t as sharp as he pretends.

Hand and Arm had just finished with a particularly messy job, and the pair had somehow gotten themselves covered up to the elbow with some sticky red pigment, looking something like thick, nasty blood. It was at this point that my friend Shane came up to me laughing and asked. “Dude, what the hell did you do to your arm?!”

Brain, as always, was off somewhere in La La land, thinking about the movie he had just seen the night before. No matter, Ear had this covered, and as per standing orders, relayed the question directly to mouth for a sarcastic response. Mouth dutifully checked his crib sheet… No… No… Yeah, this will work. Selection made, he relayed his choice to brain. “Hey brain, I’m using 37a!” which brain absentmindedly acknowledged.

“I”

Brain: Wait, what number was he using?

“Shoved”

Quick… Where is that crib sheet… 35… 36… 37… 37a. Here we are…

“It”

Ah, yeah, this one. Its a bit stale, but a good choice considering Arms condi…

“Up”

Oh no. Oh no no no no…

“Your”

MOUTH! EMERGENCY!! ABORT! ABORT ABORT ABORT!!

“Mom’s”

FUCK!

“Ass”

Did you need something Brain?
:smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack::smack:

Thankfully, my friend wasn’t offended, and got an even bigger laugh at the expression on my face when it dawned on me what I had just said, but man! I have never felt so awful in my life.

:smack:

2

At the wake of my friend’s sisters funeral, the conversation went to chocolate and I was stating that I didn’t like to eat a large amount of chocolate. When asked why not, I blurted out, ‘Because it makes you feel all sick, like you’re dying!’

Smooth.

3

When we were in college, one of my friends bought a virtual pet kind of like a tamagotchi, but a cat. One day she tells me that her “cat died.” Oh, says I, I guess you’ll have to reset it, no big deal.

She promptly burst into tears and told me that I was horrible.

I was all :confused: :confused:

Turns out that she had a **real cat **at home that I didn’t know about, and it died. Oops.

4

Oh good lord! I’m dying over here!!! :smiley: :smiley: :smiley:

5

No idea what you are talking about. And is “Brain” supposed to be the same character as “Shane”? WTF is a crib sheet? This story really doesn’t make sense.

6

This was just last week…

I was on the interview committee. Hiring a new teacher.

One candidate talked about how she was looking forward to being in a grade school where she could watch the kids grow up even after she was not their teacher.

Oh, man. This candidate was sooo boring. I started to space off. She continued rambling for a few minutes. Then my principal, sitting to my left, turned to me and said, “You’re probably the most qualified to respond to that.”

I said, “Oh, totally. That’s one of my favorite parts of the job.” Then I kinda did that squint thing and nodded my head as I said, “I know *exactly *what you mean.”

I was responding to the first part of what she said. Of course, though, I was *actually *responding to where she went next with her drivel.

After I responded, there was just a heavy, awkward silence. Another teacher finally spoke up and said, “Well, I actually got my position because someone retired…”

My response basically said to everyone at the table (parents, teachers, my boss): “Oh, yeah, you can TOTALLY take over someone’s job from them. You just have to do whatever it takes to get it.”

(The candidate had finally gotten to her point, which was to ask about ways to “advance” to other teaching assignments.)

7

The OP has personified his own various body parts: Brain, Mouth, Ear, Hand, Arm, etc. Try putting “my” in front of each one if you still don’t get it.

A crib sheet is a list of answers or other material used for cheating on a test, or a quick-reference list of facts.

Basically he’s saying he made a smart-ass remark to his friend whose mother had just died because he was distracted and his mind was elsewhere. He realized he was making a faux pas as the words were coming out of his mouth, but it was too late.

8

I was telling a co-worker last night about the episode of 30 Rock where Alan Alda says “A grown man crying about a chicken and a baby? I thought this was supposed to be a comedy show!” and then I had to explain to her about the episode of MASH. About midway through, I froze and apologized profusely…

because last week I was at her grandbaby’s funeral… and I do mean baby.
:smack::smack::smack::(:(:frowning:

FORTUNATELY, she was very OK with it.

Btw, “open casket baby funeral” are four words I hope to never again see combined in my experience.

9

FOAF in high school had a habit of appending “your mom” to whatever people had just said. One day, he walked into the cafeteria and sat down just as another student finished saying, “… died of cancer.” FOAF blurts out, “Your **mom **died of cancer!” Pause for awkward silence from the table before the other student replies, “Yeah, that’s what I was just talking about.”

One of my best friends had two guinea pigs. One year, on her birthday, I was over at her apartment for the first time in a few weeks. The pigs’ enclosure wasn’t in the living room where it normally was; I assumed that she’s moved it to the bedroom to make space for the birthday celebrations. So, of course, I asked, “Jeeze, Emily, what’d you do, kill your guinea pigs?” Aaaaaaaand they’d both caught some respiratory thing and died. :smack:

10

I was visiting my uncle after he came home from the hospital and rehab after his right right foot had been amputated (and leg, but below the knee).

A few other folks were there and a guy was talking about someone else and some trivial thing and said something like “He’s got a forehand serve I’d give my right leg for” (The what is what I don’t remember. The “I’d give my leg for” part is a direct quote)

There was one beat of silence. My uncle’s and my eyes locked. In the space of that beat it was somehow clear that commenting on it would make it worse, that the guy would probably torture himself even more if it was acknowledged in any way, even if we laughed or joked about it.

11

My wife did something similar when she was a sophmore in high school working as a nurses aide. The patient had lost a leg to amputation and was in danger of losing the other and was feeling bad about something someone in her family had said. And my wife said something like’ oh I am sure they didn’t mean anything by that comment, the were just pulling your le…g’…she said she couldn’t pull the words back fast enough.

12

A friend of mine exaggerates everything he says. A large group of us were eating at a restaurant and he caught the waitresses name and she said that her sister probably knew us. When the friend heard the sisters name, he did his usual “Oh, me and her go way back! We’re great friends! How is she doing?” The waitress said “She died in a car wreck two years ago.” He looked embarrassed started stuttering something at about the same time that I spit my drink out.

13

Whenever a customer asks me if this or that movie is any good, I give my honest opinion. The other day a girl brought Passengers up the counter and asked me about it, and I said, “It was one of the worst experiences of my life. I don’t know how I didn’t kill myself halfway through.”

Then I realized why she looked so familiar: her brother had worked in this very video store a couple years ago . . . until he killed himself at 19.

I’m still cringing every few minutes at the thought of this, several days later.

14

Once while delivering the morning update brief, a fellow soldier commented on something or another. I just tagged it with “Your DAD [something or other]”. It was the 1st year anniversary of her dad’s tragic death.

A few weeks ago, I said something similar to my friend, despite his mother having been dead since we were 6 years old. It actually came out “Your Mmmm {silence}” I have no idea if he knew what I was going to say.

15

Several years ago, my friend Dan died at the age of 24 due to tragic and sudden circumstances. Before I arrived for the visitation, his family warned me that he didn’t look like himself in the casket. None of his suits fit anymore, so they dressed him in one of his grandfathers old suits. Normally he was a pretty fashionable guy and this suit was definitely not stylish.
The mood at the funeral home was very somber and I had to hide my reaction to how unlike himself Dan looked in his grandfathers old-fashioned suit. I almost thought I was at the wrong funeral home for a second when I saw him, since he looked so different.
Then Dans best friend Ted comes in. They were best friends since the second grade and Ted is taking his death very hard. He is sobbing very hard and can hardly walk. I grab his arm to support him and slowly walk down the aisle with him to the casket. Ted looks at Dan laying there and throws his upper body over him to hug him. This gets me sobbing as well as everyone around us. Ted finally stands up and looks at his friend.
“What kind of suit is that?” he asks between sobs.
“It’s his grandfathers old suit.” I whisper, still crying.
Ted starts getting annoyed. “Why did they dress him up in that? It doesn’t even look like him.”
“I don’t know.” I say
He gets more upset and sobs, “I mean really! What were they thinking? Dan would never be caught DEAD wearing something like that!!”
Suddenly, this look of horror comes over our faces as we both realize what Ted just shouted for all to hear. It got quiet for a second, but then we couldn’t help but find it a funny thing to say. It definitely lightened up the somber mood and made us both laugh and feel better.

16

My friend’s friend since childhood killed himself when they were in high school. My friend was working as a temp in our office and a day or two after the suicide it was a slow day and he was playing Snood. He started to lose the round and shot off snoods just to get it over with as I said, “Yeah, when it gets like that, kill yourself.” :smack:

17

Yeah, so there’s me and my best buddy from high school. We’re standing in my kitchen and there’s a jar of Tiger Balm sitting on the table. I say “people put that on condoms you know”. He asks why. I say “it stimulates the clit and vagina - just ask your mother”.

He just stood there with his mouth hanging open.

His dad had died two days previously.

On the flipside however, when my aunt died last year, as the coffin was being walked into the crematorium, my uncle, the recent widower and her loving husband of forty years, turned to us mourners and said “they’re about to fit it into the trebuchet”.

He earned my undying respect for that.

ETA: “Undying” pun unintended, showing how easy it is to do.

18

My cousin bought her children a baby chick for Easter. (I know.) The oldest child was five and a bit of a handful. Rough with toys and what most people would consider on the wild side.

We dropped by for a visit a few days after Easter. My husband, just thinking he’d be funny, entered the house with “So did Billy kill that chick yet?”

Yes. Billy had. On accident of course.