Sunday, November 28, 2004
Open Mouth
Insert foot.
While I'm not as prone to slips of the tongue as my good friend Andrew, I have known to say things out loud before thinking about them. I guess it's the price of trying to have a sharp wit - sometimes it ends up stabbing people in the eye.
I like to think I don't do it as often as Andrew, who really can take the cake sometimes. His classic was during fraternity rush, when he found out a guy was from Utah, and said something like "How do you deal with all those Mormons?", to which the guy replied, "I am a Mormon". Needless to say, he didn't pledge our fraternity.
So, this was a big weekend for Sam and I. My parents threw us an engagement party, and a lot of people attended. Sam's father and his girlfriend, Taylor, flew into town from Houston. Now, neither Sam nor I are religious at all, and I know that Sam's father is not, either. I did know that Taylor was a Southern Baptist, although I did not have any idea if she was devout or not.
At any rate, the four of us were in the car having a conversation about computers. Taylor asked me if I knew anything about "Macs". Well, after determining that she wasn't talking about Sam's cousin "Max", I told her that no, I didn't. She told me that she had just gotten Sam's dad's old Mac, and was having trouble figuring out how to use it. She has been using tech support, and I commented that I generally didn't find tech support to be that useful. Taylor replied that she considered tech support to be similar to God. I then blurted, almost immediately, "Yeah, they're about as useful." Surprised, she said, "Oh, how rude!", and then commented that she generally found them both to be useful.
Sam and her dad just said nothing, but I definitely could sense the tension mount. I felt bad, so I just kind of redirected the conversation back to tech support. I really want just trying to be funny, but realized that in the process, I had probably offended her to the core of her very being. I could see it all crumble before my eyes: Her telling Sam's dad that she couldn't be with a man who would condone the marriage of his daughter to this heathen; Him getting upset and having a falling out with Sam; Sam leaving me for a sexy, God-fearing Spainiard named Hector.
Fortunately, no such thing happened. I apologized to Taylor later, and she claimed it was no big deal.(I'm not convinced she wasn't offended, but if she wasn't going to make a big deal about it, I sure wasn't.) Sam later told me that she had definitely noticed it, and had thought it very amusing. Sam's dad punched me in the nose and told me never to offend his woman again. Ok, ok, that last one was made up - in fact, Sam's dad is very cool and supportive.
So, my big mouth got me in trouble. Although, c'mon - you have to admit that my comment was kind of funny! Just maybe a different setting would have been more appropriate. Like my wedding.
While I'm not as prone to slips of the tongue as my good friend Andrew, I have known to say things out loud before thinking about them. I guess it's the price of trying to have a sharp wit - sometimes it ends up stabbing people in the eye.
I like to think I don't do it as often as Andrew, who really can take the cake sometimes. His classic was during fraternity rush, when he found out a guy was from Utah, and said something like "How do you deal with all those Mormons?", to which the guy replied, "I am a Mormon". Needless to say, he didn't pledge our fraternity.
So, this was a big weekend for Sam and I. My parents threw us an engagement party, and a lot of people attended. Sam's father and his girlfriend, Taylor, flew into town from Houston. Now, neither Sam nor I are religious at all, and I know that Sam's father is not, either. I did know that Taylor was a Southern Baptist, although I did not have any idea if she was devout or not.
At any rate, the four of us were in the car having a conversation about computers. Taylor asked me if I knew anything about "Macs". Well, after determining that she wasn't talking about Sam's cousin "Max", I told her that no, I didn't. She told me that she had just gotten Sam's dad's old Mac, and was having trouble figuring out how to use it. She has been using tech support, and I commented that I generally didn't find tech support to be that useful. Taylor replied that she considered tech support to be similar to God. I then blurted, almost immediately, "Yeah, they're about as useful." Surprised, she said, "Oh, how rude!", and then commented that she generally found them both to be useful.
Sam and her dad just said nothing, but I definitely could sense the tension mount. I felt bad, so I just kind of redirected the conversation back to tech support. I really want just trying to be funny, but realized that in the process, I had probably offended her to the core of her very being. I could see it all crumble before my eyes: Her telling Sam's dad that she couldn't be with a man who would condone the marriage of his daughter to this heathen; Him getting upset and having a falling out with Sam; Sam leaving me for a sexy, God-fearing Spainiard named Hector.
Fortunately, no such thing happened. I apologized to Taylor later, and she claimed it was no big deal.(I'm not convinced she wasn't offended, but if she wasn't going to make a big deal about it, I sure wasn't.) Sam later told me that she had definitely noticed it, and had thought it very amusing. Sam's dad punched me in the nose and told me never to offend his woman again. Ok, ok, that last one was made up - in fact, Sam's dad is very cool and supportive.
So, my big mouth got me in trouble. Although, c'mon - you have to admit that my comment was kind of funny! Just maybe a different setting would have been more appropriate. Like my wedding.
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