While at lunch meeting my girlfriend’s best friend from back home, I ended up going into a long rant about pharmacists being overpaid glorified pill counters (actually I work with many RPHs, and don’t really believe that, so was really just joking) only to be told that the friend’s brother was a pharmacist. Awkward.
I think I just decided to shut up and drink my beer at that time.
I have forgotten the exact context but in the course of a discussion with my last gf I said “Shit what a train wreck that’s gonna be”…
Her mom and dad were hit by a train coming back from seeing Santa, she died on Thanksgiving, he died Xmas eve :eek:
“Oh, look over there! A big shiny change of subject.”
Fake a stroke.
I’ve done it. The one I feel worst about, and yet was quickly forgiven, was when I was working at the factory one day and our supervisors kept threatening us with overtime. I was sitting at the table with some co-workers and I mumbled something about “if they tell us that one more time, I’m going to hang myself. That’ll teach 'em.” I get a sharp elbow to the ribs and I look up, annoyed, at my seatmate, only to suddenly realise that sitting across from us is a kind lady whose son had hung himself a couple of years before. I felt like the biggest asshole in the world, and I stammered, sincerely and earnestly, an apology, but the lady was an absolute saint. I know it did still haunt her, as she couldn’t speak of him without tears coming to her eyes, however, she looked me directly in the eyes and smiled, and told me gently that it was okay, she knew I didn’t mean anything. I still felt like an asshole, but I felt like a forgiven asshole. And she was still just as kind to me afterwards as before. But good god damn.
These days, now that I am forced to deal with the public on a regular basis - not just any public, but pregnant public (!) - I overshoot. ie:
“Oh, what a beautiful baby! Was your labour quite long?”
“Why, I’m his grandmother!”
“Impossible! You look so young!”
“Oh, why thank you!”
Or:
“I’m glad to hear your baby is getting better. You look very pretty today, as well. How is your partner feeling?”
“She’s doing great, thanks.”
Or even, with a baby, I wait for cues as to the sex of the child: I will admire, coo, and then say, simply:
“How old?”
“He is three months.”
“Oh, he’s beautiful!”
So far, so good, and my customers think I’m a sweetheart. 
And I avoid much talk of hangings or death. 
I had a boss who took me along on client calls because he had a tendency to stick his foot in his mouth at the worst possible moment. My entire role at those meetings was to wait for him to say something stupid and quickly jump in with
“What we’re trying to say here is…”
My most awful moment ever…unfortunately very true…
I was a student working as a library receptionist in a university when a professor walked in to check out a bunch of books. He checked out about 12 or so, then said,
“Can you help me out to the car with these? You see-” and the rest was a soft mumble mumble mumble that I couldn’t hear. He then started twitching and huffing while looking at me, by all accounts looking like he was laughing at a clever joke he’d just made.
Well, not wanting to be a heel and using my best counter-assistant-customer-service skills :smack: I laughed along at the joke that I had thought he’d made, my brain still trying to parse exactly what he’d said.
I grabbed the books to walk out with him.
He picked up his cane to follow…I noticed the tremors in his body as he followed me…my brain connected the dots…
“…You see, I’m suffering from Parkinson’s” is what he’d said.
I’ve never felt more an ass than that moment.
I’ve found “Look! Elvis!” (pointing off in the distance) to be surprisingly effective.
At a cousin’s wedding, I was talking to another cousin - M - and joking about hoping to meet a nice fella at the reception but every fella there was either related to me or drunk out of his skull, “who the feck would marry a drunk?” ROFLMAO
She stared at me…
Several months later I overheard a conversation between M’s sister and D’Mother…
Apparently M’s alcoholic deadbeat husband was back in town.
waits for hole in ground to open
I generally try digging my way out. Example:
In a conversation with my Mother and one of her friends (we’ll call her “Rachael”), the topic turns to magazine models and how they often portray an unrealistic image of women. I say something like, “I don’t think they’re that good looking anyway.” Then my Mum kindly tells me that Rachael is model. And I say,
“er… well, you know, I meant the successful ones.” D’oh! :smack:
And that is why you never assume pregnancy unless you can actually see a baby on its way out. (Dave Barry, I think…)
I was with a bunch of people talking about an old acquaintance I hadn’t seen in years. Conversation went something like this:
Me: I saw Freddie Smith last week.
Ed: Really?
Phil: Holy shit, what’s he up to?
Me: Was fired, found a new job for less money, got married last year, and he’s totally bald now, like he’s on chemo or something, poor bastard.
…
a minute later after conversation
Phil (to me): Just so you know, Ed’s dad has cancer and is in chemo.
Me: God I’m an asshole.
Since that time I never use chemo in any conversation - period!
I made the following remark after attending my (female) boss’s wedding. It was held in a small village in northern England, and some local women were hanging around the entrance of the church, presumably to get a glimpse of the bride.
ME: “Oh, they do that at home too. But only for the really pretty brides”.
I really didn’t mean it to come out that way… talk about a career limiting moment.
Well, if we’ve learned anything from television, FOR OG’S SAKE DON’T BRING UP BOBBY MCFERRIN!