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| Word master. |
I know you’ve done it.
I know I have.
Blurted out something that sounded a whole lot different in your head.
It’s true.
Your brain coughs up a thought.
And hits ‘send’.
Then, somehow, during transition, it gets . . . mixed up.
Maybe exposure to the air changes it.
And it ends up sounding like . . . nothing you intended.
My mom was a master at this.
Example one:
Picture Christmas Eve.
Every available surface in the kitchen groaning beneath seven layers of freshly-baked Christmas delicious-ness.
No supper in sight.
A starving son-in-law, passing the piles of goodies.
Hunger overcomes discretion.
He pops a butter tart into his mouth.
Mom, emerging from the point of action in front of the oven, red-faced and carrying yet another pan of treats, “Don’t eat that! It’s for Christmas!”
Example two:
Mom brings home the good peanut better.
Not the cheap stuff which comes in a tin, allowing all of the oil to rise to the top so that the upper layers are too creamy and the bottom layers need to be chiseled from the container with a hammer then passed through the meat grinder to make them of a consistency to spread.
Which tin, I should mention, is still on the shelf gathering dust.
Sooo . . . the good peanut butter.
Which is immediately set upon by the ‘finickily-starved’ (I just made that up) peanut butter fiends that inhabit the house.
“I’m going to stop buying that peanut butter. You kids just eat it!”
Mom taught her daughters well.
I, too have had my share of ‘things-said-that-didn’t-come-out-just-right’.
We were discussing a young man of our acquaintance who had been born with weak joints in his hips.
My mother-in-law was cautioning my kids not to jump off the retaining wall in her back garden, citing this young man as an example of ‘damage that could follow’.
I knew that his condition was genetic.
Or congenital.
Which mean the same thing.
What came out was, “Oh, but I thought his condition was genital!”
Wait. Everybody un-hear that!
Just let me suck those words back into my mouth!
Admit it.
It’s happened to you . . .
Well, just last weekend, we were out of town and watching performer at a summer evening event. He was juggling fire on batons, and I saw that there was a large hoola hoop lying in the grass...so I blurted out, "That guy has a really big..." I never got to hoola hoop because so many people were turned around looking at me and when I realized what they thought I was about to say, I started giggling uncontrollably. So, yes, I join you in the blurting out club where all we can do is laugh at ourselves!!
ReplyDeleteGiggling uncontrollably. That's my solution, too! :)
DeleteMore times than I care to admit.
ReplyDeleteThat's why we're such good friends . . .
DeleteAlmost daily I blurt something in my "outside voice" that should have remained "inside".
ReplyDeleteYeah. My outside voice needs a lock and key . . .
DeleteWhat's a butter tart? (do you see a trend here?) LOL
ReplyDeleteOooh, Carol! More buttery, gooey deliciousness! Yep. Butter!
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ReplyDeleteOh, yes, I've done it ... but I can't give you any particulars because I am repressing those memories big time. But I sure have done it :) "Everybody un-hear that" - so funny and so true! This is why I'm better off writing my thoughts down in a letter than calling people on the phone ... that little 'delete' button :)
ReplyDeleteI LOVE the 'delete' button. Why, oh why don't I have one on my mouth?!
DeleteSo funny! My mom once called Michael Douglas "such a philanthropist" (we were talking about his affair, so I think she meant philanderer). My dad wouldn't let us use the electric locks in his new company car, because we "might wear them out". Huh? I'm the offspring of these two, so you can only imagine what comes out of my mouth! When my son was 5, he was having a spectacular tantrum, and I told him to stop acting like a "child". Oh well.... :)
ReplyDeleteBwahahaha! I love your parents! They sound just like mine.:) And you sound just like me! Kindred spirits . . .
DeleteBeen there; done that; got the T-shirt...
ReplyDeleteI'd like to read that T-shirt! :)
DeleteLet me put it this way---I have a box of letters written, but never mailed because with snail mail, by the time you've addressed an envelope, affixed a stamp and found a mail box, you've had plenty of time to reconsider sending the letter. With email---not so much. To make matters worse, there's that dangerous "reply all" button and the people who just keep threading one email after another into an endless stream, so you don't realize that some of the old stuff should have been shredded. Finally, did you hear about the time I thought I was forwarding an email to my law partner---not our competitor............
ReplyDeleteOh, no! Bwahahaha! Probably funnier much, much later . . .
DeleteI agree with Suzanne Fluhr - sometimes blurting isn't just spoken. I once was really annoyed with someone for delaying my daughter from getting home on time. I meant to text her to say they were being rude and she should excuse herself, and realized too late that I had sent that text to the person who was delaying her!
ReplyDeleteThat's getting the info right where it needed to be. Unfortunately . . . :)
DeleteHahahaha...you'd get along very well with my mother. She's well known for her foot in mouth faux pas!
ReplyDeleteShe can sit by me . . .
DeleteSeven layers of freshly baked Christmas deliciousness?
ReplyDeleteI want to live at your house, okay your mum's house.
Laughing at "you kids just eat it!"
And I too have blurted out many a wrong statement. None come to mind right now, but they're out there!
Oh, they're definitely out there . . . sigh.
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