Open mouth, insert foot

[alli]

Ever have any times you can remember that you really wish you could un-speak the words that just came out of your mouth? I just remembered one of the times this happened to me, so I thought we could all bask in horror and embarrassment together.

 

Several years ago I was taking a chemistry class at a small community college. I was wearing a necklace of the DNA helical structure and coincidentally, another guy in class had a similar tattoo of the DNA structure.

 

I think that sometime earlier on this particular day, we were joking around in class with the instructor about bribes to get a better grade. One girl in class noticed my necklace and complimented me on it. My brain connected the two topics and I said something like "At least I didn't get it tattooed on me". And of course, the dude with the DNA tattoo was sitting right next to her when I said it.

 

I meant it as in a joke about permanently altering your body to bribe an instructor for a better grade, but of course it sounded more like I was insulting the guy and his tattoo. I definitely didn't mean it that way and I actually liked his tattoo. I realized what I had said after a few moments and apologized to him the next day. Still, it makes me cringe to think about it!

[ParisPaulette]

I think that sometime earlier on this particular day, we were joking around in class with the instructor about bribes to get a better grade. One girl in class noticed my necklace and complimented me on it. My brain connected the two topics and I said something like "At least I didn't get it tattooed on me". And of course, the dude with the DNA tattoo was sitting right next to her when I said it.

 

Oh no, but at least you apologized and set the record straight with him.

 

Me? Too many times to count. Worst one was at a bar with friends back in my long gone past and one of my guy friends had just broken up with a girl who'd been treating him badly and left him for another guy. He was really down and we were all working to cheer him up and I'd gotten up to get us drinks. I sort of danced over to the table, and as I laid the drinks down I said, "Well, Keith (not his real name) drink up and forget your ex, obviously she'd rather have peanut butter than beef steak." And then I sat down only to realize she was sitting at the table across from me, eyes red from crying. Apparently Mr. Peanut Butter had just dumped her and she'd run back to my friend, Mr. Beef Steak. While I'd been at the bar getting drinks they'd been making up and vowing anew in front of our mutual friends to work things out.

 

You could have heard a pin drop in the place. Keith and his now not ex shot me a look so black it could've scorched my hair, so I got up and calmly said, "I think I'll go home now." Went home, totally flustered and forgot I'd been the designated driver so everyone had to take cabs home that night on their own dime, which made people doubly not happy with me. (I couldn't even blame my comment on being drunk that night) I found out the next day they got back together, I was not invited out anywhere with them again, and some of our mutual friends stopped speaking to me. Mortifying at the time.

 

Is it wrong of me that I felt a twinge of satisfaction to later hear she'd dumped Keith again for someone different? Poor guy.

 

Inevitably my life has been one of those "He/she is standing right behind me aren't they?" movie scenes.

[mhowe]

I was at college, visiting my bf during summer term. I had called my parents for some reason and my mother asked if I was heading home Sun or Mon morning. Without thinking, I said "oh I am leaving tonight. David doesn't have an alarm clock".

 

My parents thought I was at school to visit my roommate. They didn't know I had a boyfriend, nor that I was sleeping with him. Yep...over the phone lines, mhowe admits to parents she ain't a virgin no more.

 

As soon as the words were out of my mouth I willed that lightening would strike. Needless to say, mom caught it but waited until I got home to unleash the dogs of fire and brimstone.

[WithLove]

Oh man, I'm almost shrinking away from this thread.... It embarrasses me just to read about other's embarrassment!

 

In my senior year of high school, I met a guy online and we dated for a few months. I had picked the college I was going to and during spring break that year, I decided I wanted to visit the town I'd be going to college in so I could take a look at my school and also look around for places to rent (as I wasn't staying in dorms). I travelled the 4 hours it took to get there and planned on spending about 5 days in the city.

 

Well, I actually ended up finishing everything I had gone there to do in just 2 days. My boyfriend, who lived just across the state line at the time (about 2 hours from where I currently was), asked me how I felt about driving up to visit for the remaining spring break. And since I was close enough anyway, I decided to do that.

 

Needless to say.... I left much earlier the day I was supposed to have been returning home so that my mother, whose car I had borrowed, wouldn't suspect. And then I was facing so much anxiety all the way, wondering how I'd explain the hickey on my neck. I ended up calling her before I got home and explaining about the bf (who I hadn't told her about). But I lied about driving to see him - I told her he had driven to my college town to see me. To this day, she still doesn't know that her car had driven an extra couple hundred miles that wasn't planned on.

[Cheetarah]

This one happened when I was 14, and as an adult I see how wildly inappropriate it is. And also, how differently it would be treated now than it would be then. Not that I'm elderly, but you know..

 

When I was a freshman, Biology was my last class of the day. I was terrible in science classes and often stayed for tutoring. I also had a very fun biology teacher, who I'll call Mr. J. Fun enough that the girls doing volunteer after-school work or extra curriculars would often drop by to chat for a few minutes.

 

So one day, he leaves the room for whatever. There were some girls in my Spanish class there, and we started innocently writing sentences on the board in Spanish, for practice. Then people started writing sexual stuff on there(en espanol). One of them wrote "Mr. J is small" in Spanish. For the record, he was very tall...

 

So then they hear him coming, and they all scatter out of the room like cockroaches - And I am left with the incriminating dirty sexual innuendo evidence on the blackboard. So he looks at the board, shakes his head a little bit and sort of gestures to his height and says "I'm not small." And I go..."Well ,that's not how we meant it."

 

I do not know what possessed my 14 year old mind to say such a wildly inappropriate thing. As soon as it came out of my mouth like word vomit, I did not INTEND to say that(!!) I felt my stomach drop and he gave me a very weird look. I packed up my things and got the hell out of there. Our teacher/student relationship was never the same. He wouldn't even look me in the eye for the rest of the year. I still cringe when I think about it, especially with how it would be handled these days. Gah.

[Seraphim]

I'm sure I have innumerable examples but I can't seem to remember a specific one... Lol