Today, on the eighth day of Enza’s blog tour, we’ll be stopping off at Hanging Off The Wire. I hope you can stop by and say hi.
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We’ve all had those moments. Times when, even before the words have left our mouths, we wish we could call them back. Or that we could have pinched our lips together quickly enough to keep the entire stupid sentence from escaping. It happens to me on a fairly regular basis.
Someone catches the corner of the doorway with their little toe as they’re walking past… How many of us have actually stood there, wincing as we observe, “Ooh, I’ll bet that hurt, didn’t it?” The poor person staggering around, moaning and groaning…probably turning the air blue with profanity, is obviously in pain. Yet our brains send the words shooting out of our mouths like they were bullets zooming out of the barrel of a gun.
But it’s not just things like this example that have caught me. It’s never limited to questions only. Nope. I can take it a step further…by offering opinions that would be best kept to myself. Shopping with a friend, spotting a super ugly dress…and actually saying, “Whoa! That is so hideous I wouldn’t be caught dead in it!” An ‘if looks could kill’ expression will quickly clue you into the fact that the friend owns whatever item it is you just insulted.
Hard lessons learned there. Anyone wants an opinion on anything these days and the first words out of my mouth will be, “Hmm. What do you think?” Or, “It’s not really something that would look good on me, but I can see where it would be perfect for someone else.”
Someone gave me an old book called ‘Color Me Beautiful,’ and it’s saved me from a whole lot of grief. For instance, now I know why I look so bad in browns, yellows and oranges. I have pink undertones (read the book for a more thorough explanation). Now I can honestly say, when someone shows me a brown and yellow tie-dyed tee shirt, “Those aren’t my colors,” instead of, “Eww. That’s just about the ugliest thing I’ve ever seen!” (By the way…pink is one of my colors…yay!)
I know, I know. There are some who would say I should be completely honest. Well I won’t do it anymore. I won’t ever lie, but just because I think something is dumb, unappealing, or stupid doesn’t mean that everyone else on the planet has to think the same way I do.
All of this to tell you something my son said a couple of nights ago…
He doesn’t like it when we have septic tank issues (like I do?), so he tries to come up with ways for me to solve the problem as quickly and painlessly as possible. Sorry, son, this is going to require an electrician…and even if a ‘normal’ person could take care of the repair, Mom isn’t touching anything in a septic tank!
While he’s rattling off several ideas and opinions, I’m trying to catch him in a pause long enough to ask my daughter a quick question. But there was no pause, long, short or anything in between. By the time he finally wound down, he’d distracted me enough so that I said, “Darn it! Now I forgot what I wanted to ask your sister.”
He looked at me for a second, then turned around and headed back to his room. A minute later he came zipping back past the doorway, whipped his sister’s door open and asked…
“Do you remember what Mom wanted to ask you?”
I couldn’t help it. I burst out laughing. So did she. I’m sure it was one of those moments when he wished he could have pinched his lips together in a hurry. I really do love my son!
Sometimes saying the wrong thing can be really funny. Pay close attention at 25 seconds in.
I hate when people ask my opinion. Because the truth is my first instinct. Sometimes I just blurt it out. But when I’m on my game, I have to go Hmmm and make weird thinking noises so I can force those words through my filter. 🙂
Oh I can relate to that, Kourtney! Maybe I just need to change my filter from time to time. I’m much better at it than I used to be, but there are still times when I wish I’d slapped some duct tape over my mouth before venturing out anywhere. 🙂
I have ‘blonde’ moments quite frequently. All you can do is laugh it off and think twice next time before you open your mouth.
Isn’t that the truth! Are you the same Emma who is moving from Ireland to Florida? If so, could you bring a sexy Irish guy with you for me please? 🙂
I wish I was moving to Florida! Nope, stuck in Ireland for the time being 🙂 If I do every go to the sunshine state I will bring some sexy Irish men along
Well…since you’re not the Emma moving to Florida, then you could just come to Michigan instead. It’s a prettier state (says the girl born and raised here)…and it would be easier to deliver the sexy Irish men anyway. 🙂
when anyone has talked as long as I have they certainly do have some notible ones, too many to list in one comment! glad I’m not alone in doing some ‘word bloopers’ 🙂
I think almost anyone over the age of ten has that problem. Well, under ten they do, too…the only thing is, kids that young are pretty honest. They haven’t learned the fine art of tact yet. Although no one ever learns it well enough that they’re completely safe from word bloopers. 🙂
I am excellent at saying things I wish I could take back. I need to be silent more often. And the sad thing is, I don’t talk all that much. 🙁
Do you ever have moments, though, where you’re kind of glad something slipped out? 🙂
I’ve definitely had those moments where I wish I could call back something I’d said. I think I’d getting a little better with age.
I am getting better the older I get…but there are still times I just want to find a hole to crawl into. Fortunately it doesn’t happen too often anymore. 🙂
discretion is definitely the better part of valor…and so is silence.
They sure are. Unfortunately some of us learn that the hard way. LOL…sure hope I don’t need to have the lessons repeated. 🙂