November 12th, 2008
I didn’t think
Speaking before you think… it’s a practical impossibility, and yet somehow we all manage to do it.
Like the time I was talking to a gentleman in a wheel chair about the lack of ramp access in town and I said that if I was him I wouldn’t stand for it.
Eventually there will be some sort of injection that will give us immunity, but until then it’s just something we have to recognise and deal with.
Still we can all take solace that someone, somewhere has said something even more stupid.
So, it’s a dual thread. What’s the daftest thing you’ve said and the silliest thing you’ve heard (or over-heard) someone else say?
I do that often… and usually when it is least appropriate. Nothing specific springs to mind right now, but I do recall that I said something absolutely terrible to a cancer survivor a month back… and didn’t even realize until I’d left the room. I must’ve seemed like an idiot. Oh, and by the way, I absolutely love your work, it’s much funnier and more intelligent than the usual, and to top it off, the comments here are a discussion, rather than on other sites, where the comments are usually just people saying either how they didn’t understand the joke, or someone being forced to explain it in excruciating detail. I’ll be pointing friends to this site in future.
I think the brain has a unique capacity for blocking that sort of thing out… you can only remember that you said something, just not what you said.
Thanks for your kind comments… and for offering to point people in this direction. I should mention, that by commenting you are already a member of The Flowfield Unity, so welcome, pull up a chair and let’s find out about the contents of your mind…
Discussion is what we do, it’s a two way street too… if there is anything we can help you with, or anything you want to show us, feel free.
Oh, and as for not understanding the joke, I’ve said it before, but occasionally there is no joke, at least not one that I get.
I don’t know if I can repeat either in public, there’s a gene in my family that triggers all sorts of involuntary vocal ticks. I have deep-seated guilt over making a crack about beating my head against a wall to someone with a traumatic brain injury, for instance. It gets so much worse.
I offered my cousin’s boyfriend (who is in AA) a sip of my alcoholic beverage. Last weekend, speaking to my friend’s husband about their newly conceived child, I told him at least he’d have the next 11 months to prepare. He corrected me that it was eight but I insisted it was 11 (that number was in my head because that’s the age difference they’ll have between their two small children).
The worst I’ve ever heard came from my friend Amber, who is a fan of “Your Mom…” comments. We were out drinking with our friend Jim- who I had found out the night before lost his mother in a devastating accident- and Jim made some smart remark that had the word dead in it. So Amber (not knowing about his mother) said “Your Mom is Dead”. I knew it was coming and was moving in slow motion trying to hit her before it left her mouth but I was too late. Poor guy clammed up and went off by himself for awhile.
Oh, I did a similar thing when I gave a vegatarian a meat-vector… I honestly thought it was vegetarian, but when I realised it wasn’t I had a problem – Do you confess, at the risk of their anger and possibly disgust, or do you remain silent and hope they enjoy the pie and never know?
Haha. When I was a vegetarian, I would have dreams where I inadvertently consumed a meat product.
If the person was a friend or loved one, confession would probably be the best route. A stranger? If they’ve taken a few bites before you realize the error and they don’t notice anything amiss, back away slowly while whistling innocently.
Oh gods… I’ve been vegetarian long enough that if I eat a bit of meat, it upsets my digestion something awful. I once ate a casserole that Sarah’s grandmother had made that was cooked with bacon fat, and it had me (and Sarah too) vomiting for most of the night. It actually hit her a lot worse than me… but man. Since then, I’ve been extra careful. If Adam hands me any food, I’ll remember to check it very carefully.
I find myself talking out of my ass most of the time… if only could get words out of my mouth.. then maybe one day ill start using my brain!
Nice, by-pass the brain/mouth link altogether.
Actually, that does make me think… do people who sign ever put their foot, or their hands, in it?
Yes classic foot in mouth syndrome. It afflicts us all from time to time. Like when you call someone a dirty hippy for having a Prius and then you get a wiff of Patchouli and hear Jerry Garcia over their radio.
What’s the problem with that?
My favourite is when I’m hanging around the boysy boys on my hockey team and someone new to the team starts mouthing off on arts students, writers, lefties and academics – which is my entire family.
You don’t normally see a deathly silence, a la “Dude! His mum was just IN a terrible car accident!” over some dude two beers spouting populist right-wing talkback with his mates, but it is fun to introduce myself afterwards …
Shortly afterwards …
Or (because I’m supposed to be working) another example was this t-shirt:
http://franzy-writing.blogspot.com/2008/09/it-was-just-after-owner-of-caravan-park.html
“I don’t approve of your shirt,” she said.
“Oh? Why not?”
“I have VERY strong ties to Buddhism, mmhm.”
“Really? Wow! Me too! My parents go to meditation all the time and temple too! Did you know that my dad actually built a prayer bed for the Lama Zopa on his last visit to Australia?”
“… hrm, well …”
The same thing goes for any deity, or spiritual leader, in my eyes… they have to have a sense humour.
Which is why I am always surprised that a large number of followers of such religions seem to have a complete lack of humour.
That’s a cool Franzy fact too, and it means I have only three degrees of seperation from Lama Zopa.
I prefer to call someone a dirty hippy for having a ‘Pious’. It works so much better…
But yes, really embarassing when it turns out that they really are a dirty hippy.
Q: What did the Grateful Dead say when the drugs wore off?
A: Jeez, what’s that fuckin awful music?
haha, that is gold.
Have you seriously never heard that before…? It’s classic, where I come from.
i think you’re giving this speaking before you think a pretty bad wrap. sometimes it can work out for the benefit of everyone! like the time i had thought of a particularly confunding thing whilst in a calculus class and then proceeded to inform my teacher that ‘infinity is so confusing, it annoys me to no end!’ then realised what i had said eafter everyone else did. see, a happy result for all.
Haha, calculus.
I definitely used a limit to disprove St. Anselm’s argument for God in my intro to philosophy class.
Granted, the proof might not have held up if anyone in the room had actually had any idea what I was talking about, but it felt good to find an application for that random math.
It also saves a great deal of time. See also jumping to conclusions, judging a book by its cover etc. On a similar tack, I’ve always found first impressions to be extremely reliable…
this is very true. it’s pretty much the way i buy books. or at least it usually makes some small part of the book-buying decision for me. man i haven’t bought a book in a LONG time. come the end of my final exams i will read many, many many books of my own choice, i.e. not ones i read because my teacher is making me write an essay on them.
I have said my fair share of things that I regret.
At TAFE, it is common fare to make “your mum” jokes, but with one guy, it just wasn’t working.
So, I made a “your sister” joke.
Turns out his sister was three and he was very protective of her. I had burning things landing in my welding booth that day
I love the witty instantaneous banter that occurrs when ppl talk with out thinking things thru.
oh yeah, i never think before i speak. the outcome is usually harmless, but of course there are those times.
“I hate faux-hawks honestly the stupidest haircut ever” Then i turn and see my friends brother has one. In panic i point to him and say, “I rest my case.”
well, i didnt end up looking stupid, but i did look like an ass.
Cant remember any of my own (I know cheesy excuse but true
) But one my X Girlfriend did.
.
I was on my way to work about 7 yrs ago and she rang me on my mobile I answered and her exact words were “Have you got you mobile on you….” she instantly relized what she said but it made my day
I can relate to this one. My friends will often call me during the day and ask me where I’m at or what I’m doing and since I have a 9-5 M-F job I thought it would seem obvious. My answer is always “well I’m at work” and invariable they call days later and ask the same thing. As if the concept of a 9-5 meant nothing to them.
9-5 M-F means very little to me. I’ve worked in construction and been self employed most of my working life, or worked in mining with damn strange hours, like: 6-7 M-S or 7/7, 7/14, 19/9, etc.
So, I spend alot of my time resenting my friends with normal hour jobs, but when I am free during the week and can do normal dole bludging stuff, they generally resent me.
I’ve done a nonvocal form of “speaking before you think”. “Moving before you think”, if you will. My dad’s been totally blind since I was 7 years old but I still will occasionally wave goodbye to him or offer to turn a light on for him.
“Oh, this looks like an easy problem. Let’s try this first…”
Yeah… I have a bad problem of making fun of libertarians, then realizing that someone in the group is one. Invariable. Luckily, Libertarians like to argue good naturedly, so it never turns out badly… just embarrassingly.
there’s a kid in my chemistry class who keeps saying incredibly dumb things about physics, all while professing to love it.
but i won’t even go into the stuff i’ve said. >_<
In high school a guy was making fun of me for being a nerd.
My retort: “A nerd is just someone who actually has half a brain.”
He nodded sagely and said, “Exactly.”
Of course, my point was that everyone else has less than half, but he didn’t take it that way. And so the conversation wound up with him looking clever and me looking stupid. Since then I’ve tried to choose my words very carefully.
As for other people’s quotes… well, I knew someone once who said his mother had called him a son-of-a-bitch… she must’ve felt pretty silly after that.
I once warned a coworker not to keep using his favorite phrase to defend himself against angry clients: “I’m not the Anti-Christ, you know.” He continued to use it, and one day he said it to a born-again Christian.
Incidentally, he is still employed by the company that laid me off due to budgetary constraints. I wonder how much rope it will require before they can actually say they’ve given him enough rope.
It’s not daft, it’s just plain offensive, but about 3 months after my friend’s mother died from cancer, I made a “your mum” joke to her. The memory of it still makes me want to punch myself in the face for being so, so, stupid.