Horrible Moments

Marilyn Armstrong’s interesting post last week on Picking [noses] reminded me of a staff meeting about twenty years ago. Our relatively popular Boss held large weekly meetings with his extended staff. Most of us had known each other for many years. Before the meeting came to order, he motioned to an attractively mature dark haired senior manager as if she had something on her upper lip. After some confusing gestures and stage whispers, it became horrifyingly obvious that he had mistaken a bit of a mustache for something he thought was a smudge or errant piece of food. The elephant was in the room but at least we had an agenda to distract us. The two principals in the drama always seemed on the best of terms before, during, and after the incident. But I expect they both have bad memories of that meeting. When I was at a college party, a friend who had a mild stutter got stuck on a phrase. A girl who apparently was unaware of his affliction stuttered back at him in imitation of what she apparently thought was a fluke misspeak. Or who knows what she thought. But the deafening pause in the party let her know she had made a big mistake. I am identifying faux pas of others rather than my own doozies because my Blogging Coach insists I stop writing so much about myself. I make huge blunders because I take conversational risks necessary to respond quickly and be considered witty. But quick responses breed big mistakes. One of the advantages of Blogging is that you can take all the time you want to be witty. But that just makes your failures worse.

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