Something my husband told me yesterday inspired me to start this thread. He works in a craft store, and was working on a store display while his boss was working the till. A customer came up and dumped a whole bunch of packages of feathers on the counter. His boss was focusing on sorting the product and had not yet looked at the customer. As his boss was ringing them through, he casually remarked, “Buying decorations for your Indian costume?” Customer did not respond.
Boss looked up.
Customer was a big Native guy.
My husband said his boss turned all different shades of red and apologized a million times. I would try to remember one of my stories to relate, but I can’t think of one nearly as embarrasing as that one. :eek:
Most recent one: I was working the front cash at my job (a local grocery store) and someone with short-cropped hair and a t-shirt with jeans had just nicked something off the counter.
“Sir!” I yelled loudly at the retreating figure, flailing my arms, pointing, wondering why he wasn’t turning around. “Sir! Sir!”
One of the grocery guys finally tapped him on the shoulder, and he turned around.
It wasn’t a he. :o
Everyone was staring, the other cashiers were convulsing with laughter, and I think I sunk into the floor then and there…
We had a new receptionist. She was cute. Really cute.
I came out front as she was unpacking the box of supplies that had just come in from Staples. She pulled out a very fancy-looking document stand. My natural reply: “Hey, nice rack.”
It wasn’t even fully out of my mouth before I realized what I had said. I turned and walked away, composed myself, and went back to apologize. No harm done, thank Og!
I was trying to get a friend to sign a petition. She was being hesitant, and I said “Look, it’s just a petition for a new school. It’s not like we’re asking for your first born.”
I then remembered that her first born son had been a victim of a murder :eek: suicide by his father in one of those horrendous custody battles that never happen to anyone you know, until it does. I damn near died, and she just left without signing.
Walking through a parking lot with a friend I spy a Pontiac Aztek and say loudly to my friend “Who in their right mind would drive an ugly ass car like that?”
As we walk by it I notice the driver sitting in it with their window open.
Walking down a path in a public park (forest) with my two nephews. They decide to run ahead on the trail. As they disappear around the corner I yell after them jokingly “Look out for the elephants!” As I round the blind corner I come face to face with an agry looking very obese couple. My face red all I can mutter as I walk by them is “hi.”
In college I was walking to the central building on our campus that housed things like mailboxes and a cafe. There were four of us, I was carrying on a conversation with my friend, and they were carrying on an animated conversation in Arabic. Tariq was illustrating some point by making a chopping motion with his right hand at the elbow joint of his left arm and laughing. We all look up to see a guy with serious venom in his eyes, he was, of course, missing his left arm below the elbow.
Apparently this gesture is common among Arabic speakers, and means something far different from, “Hey look at him, he has no arm!”. I wish I could remember what it means, because it made perfect sense when he explained it later.
When I was a kid, our family had a pet raccoon (you can already see where this is going). One day, she turned up missing, and my father went round to the various neighbors (the nearest was a half mile away) too see if she had wandered that far.
So he goes to the third or fourth house, and asks if they had seen our “little black coon”, and only then realizes that the guy he is talking to is black. Fortunately, the guy had a sense of humor, realized exactly what was going on, and took no offense.
When I was in my early teens, I was somewhat under-socialized and usually on the fringes of any cliques at best. I had not yet learned the value of thinking through what popped into my head before it came out of my mouth.
So at Christian summer camp, we’re hiking along some trail and my camp counselor exclaims: “Look at how big and baggy these jeans are on me! Why did my mom buy me such huge pants?”
I, without a single filtering or screening process in my head, immediately reply: “Maybe because she thought you were fat.”
:eek: :eek: :eek: :eek: :smack:
Everyone went dead silent, and the counselor looked very hurt. No one really talked to me for the rest of the day. I later apologized to the girl and told her that I didn’t mean it, that I had no idea why I said it and I wasn’t trying to be hurtful. She accepted my apology and brushed it off laughingly, saying that she often said stupid stuff too. But to this day I feel horrible about it, and I still don’t know why that thought popped in my head, especially considering I was heavier than the camp counselor in question at the time! (Perhaps it was some subliminal self-loathing projecting itself? )
Even though the girl forgave me, I know how comments like that stick with you for the rest of your life, popping up when you’re at your most vulnerable. I don’t think I’ll ever live that moment down, and truly hope my insincere brain chatter didn’t scar her forever!
A woman I work with married a guy at our office. He subsequently got a job somewhere else. His wife was working in my area and we were very friendly.
One day a group of us were chatting and I asked about her husband. “How is C,” I asked, “He’s a nice guy. I wonder when he will come to his senses and dump you.”
“Well he already has,” she replied, “He’s left me for someone else.”
I thought I was going to die on the spot until I heard myself saying, “Gee I always said he’s a nice guy but I nevere said he was smart. What an idiot.”
I got a hug and kept a friend which was lucky. I’m sure I responded before I had time to think.
The worst one I ever heard was at the pub. A bunch of us were congratulating a friend on her pregnancy and one guy blurted out, “I hope the baby isn’t stillborn.” It was obvious looking at him that he didn’t know what he had said, it was just what he was thinking. I felt uncomfortable for everyone but most people got angry.
One of my worst was in high school. Before school, a bunch of us would hang around chatting waiting for the first bell, and B. was obviously upset about something. I enquired, and I was informed her cat had died the night before…so my lovely brain, knowing humor always cheers people up…
…well, I asked if she flushed the cat down the toilet :eek: . Cue everyone staring at me like I’d suddenly grown a second head, my friend B. bursting into a fresh crying jag, and me suddenly realizing what an awful thing I’d said. I think I spent the rest of the week apologizing for that one. :smack:
Mine still gives me shivers evertime I think about it.
In high school, I was on a field trip to the National Aquarium in Baltimore, and we were given time to hit some of the shops in the Inner Harbor. Me and a couple of friends were in a sporting goods store, and I saw something I wanted to show my friend. His last name was Kuhns, which we had shortened to Kuhn as a nickname. I shouted across the store to him “Hey Kuhn, look at this. Hey…Kuhn, look at this.” It was then that I noticed an African American man between me and my friend glaring at me, and looking like he was about to knock my teeth down my throat. I immediately realized what was going on. He assumed I was talking to him by refering to him with a racial epithet. I quickly said my friends first name and actual last name to hopefully smooth over the situation. I so badly wanted to go up to the man and explain myself, but I don’t think I could have even gotten the words out.
A stupid boyfriend took me to meet his family. At dinner, I was sitting next to a charming, delightful young man who appeared to be around 10. At some point I called him “kid”, and he said, “I’m not a kid.” “What are you then,” I chortled, “a midget?”
A deathly silence fell upon the room.
A group of us were sitting in a restaurant at a rather small table. One of my friends was playing busboy, stacking dishes, moving things out of the way, etc. He asked if anyone wanted water, so we all held our glasses out, and he began to pour. I said, in my typical “If you didn’t know me, you’d swear I was a bitch” voice "I hope you don’t think you’re getting a tip. I heard a meek “OK” and looked up to see a very embarassed looking waitress, who thought I was talking to her. (I swear she appeared out of nowhere).
Didn’t help that the entire group burst into laughter.
I don’t have an example that would top any of these but I do have one that I still feel badly about.
A few years ago, my father-in-law was recovering from a very serious car accident and had just recently returned home from a long stay in the hospital. I went to visit after a really long day. I was tired and felt like I was coming down with a cold. What did I say as soon as I sat down in the living room where my father-in-law was laid up on the couch in his casts and stitches?
“Boy, I feel like I’ve been run over by a Mack truck!”
:o
My father-in-law actually had been run over by a Mack truck (or T-boned, rather).
My doctor had a new receptionist and we were shooting the breeze before I was called into the office. One thing she mentioned to me was that she volunteered with at risk youth. She had good and bad stories about how some of the kids turned out.
Later we were talking about restaurants and that we both agreed on the best place in town for breakfast. She asked me, “you know the thin gal who wears a long braid on Sunday mornings?”
Thinking it was one of her at risk kids I replied, “you mean the one who acts like a tweaker (speed addict)?”
“Yeah, that’s my daughter.”
I felt sick to my stomach. Then she told me not to worry. They didn’t talk much because the daughter really did have a problem with speed.
Wow, after reading some of these I fell a lot better about mine. It really is a toss-up between the midget and the murdered first-born.
My mother and her good friend were showing me some wedding photos of her friend’s oldest son, whom I hadn’t seen in years. I looked at it for a second and then blurted out: “Oh my god, is that LOU!?! I can’t believe how much wiehgt he’s gai…” and looked up to see them both staring at me horrified. I felt like such an ass. Calling my mom’s friend’s son fat. Very classy. :smack:
Me: “Are you excited about your party this weekend?”
Her: “Huh?”
Her friends who were throwing the surprise party: :mad: :mad: :mad:
Some time later I was sitting with friends having coffee, talking and trying to keep the conversation light as one of our friends had just had his house burned to the ground. I was genius enough to use the phrase “Fire Engine Red” in one of my “keep the mood light” stories.
Everyone at the table just looked at me like I had gone mad…then we had a good laugh at how I ALWAYS do/say things like that.
)
