The Curse of Saying the Wrong Thing at the Wrong Time to the Wrong Person

Saturday night, my husband and I went out on a double date. We don’t do this very often. Read on to find out why.
When we got to the restaurant where we were meeting our friends, Jack turned to me and said, “Remember, this is Jill and Bill’s anniversary. So don’t ruin it for them. Whatever you do, don’t say anything.”
Now, you might be asking yourself, “What is it that he didn’t want me to say anything about?” The answer: ANYTHING.
Unfortunately, I have been cursed with the uncanny ability of saying the wrong thing at the wrong time to precisely the wrong person.
As a child, I got the first clue that I had this curse. Before my family would go to any social gathering, my parents would warn us, “Now don’t say anything to anyone.” They had four children, but they would both be looking directly at me when they handed out this order.
Growing up didn’t seemed to relieve me of this curse.
For five years, I cared for my wheelchair-bound father-in-law. It was an exhausting period in my life, in which at one point I had to put my writing career aside.
A couple years ago, we were enjoying a cocktail before dinner and conversation turned to the topic of our pets. We have two dogs, one of which we had acquired during half-time at a football game. (No, Piranha Puss was not the door prize.) Later, at another football game, a woman was trying to give away a litter of kittens.
In telling Grandpa about how I had put my foot down to my son about getting a kitten and kept it there, I said, “I would love to have a cat. I used to have a Maine Coon named Duchess. She was beautiful and I would love to have another one. But as full as my life is right now, I just don’t have room on my plate for a litter box. Someone is going to have to die before I have room on my plate for a cat.”
Grandpa, whose hearing was quite good, sat up straight in his wheelchair and looked right at me. He said nothing.
I had just told my father-in-law that when he passed away, I was already planning to replace him with a cat!
Wishing that I could suck those words back in, I looked at him.
For a long time, neither of us said anything.
Finally, I broke the silence. “Want another brandy?”
It has been a year since Grandpa passed away and I have yet to replace him with a cat. I didn’t mean it the way the words came out. Luckily, he suffered from mini-strokes and I think he forgot about what I had said.
In my own defense, I don’t think these verbal blunders are completely my fault.
Last night, during our double date, the subject of a couple we both knew had come up.
The last time I had spoken to the wife, I had asked how her daughter, a recent high school graduate, was doing in college. With a wail, the woman covered her face with her hands and ran outside hysterically never to be seen again.
Since the girl was the same age as Jill’s daughter, I asked if she knew what was going on.
Jill’s face dropped and she looked across the table at Jack, who glared at me as if to say, “Didn’t I tell you not to say anything?”
This was when I learned that the daughter had dropped out of college to become a stripper. “Everyone knew. That’s why you should never mention her name to her mother.”
Sure! Everyone knew! Except me! Show me the memo saying not to mention this couple’s daughter to them.
I don’t like the word ignorance. It has derogatory meaning behind it. Personally, I don’t think those of us who suffer from this curse of saying precisely the wrong thing to the wrong person at the wrong time are ignorant. I prefer to think we suffer from a lack of knowledge.
The fallout seems to happen when those on the receiving end of our verbal curse suffer from an over-abundance of sensitivity.
After college, I was dating an Army officer. When we met a group of friends at a happy hour, I made the blunder of telling a fat joke that someone else had told me that day. While our friends laughed, my boyfriend looked at me with a stone-like expression. As soon as we were in the car, he berated me. “How dare you tell that fat joke in front of Lisa?! She’s at least 40 pounds overweight!”
Once again, I failed to get the memo informing me that Lisa was 40 pounds overweight. Apparently, Lisa didn’t get the memo either. She had laughed at my joke and invited me to lunch two days later. We struck up a great friendship while the Army officer dumped me with the excuse that I could never make it in his high society circles.
Here is my suggestion for how to handle encounters with those suffering from the curse of saying the wrong thing to the wrong person at exactly the wrong time: Don’t think too much about the words that come out of our mouths. Give the cursed the benefit of the doubt. Assume they didn’t get the memo telling them that your daughter decided to become a stripper or that you were fat.
And then, like Grandpa, sit up straight in your chair, look them straight in the eye, and order another brandy.