Insert Boot in Mouth

Over the weekend, I attended a social function. I’m usually quite good at these things. I enjoy meeting people and mingling.

However, this past weekend I didn’t do so good. I don’t know what happened,  I opened-mouth and inserted-foot at every turn.

I’m a person who doesn’t know how to pretend. What you see is what you get. So, before I speak, I have to filter what’s going on in my brain a little more than most people. Even in my posts, I say what I think, I just have time to find tactful words, draft them, let them sit for a while, recheck them, fix them a bit, and then post. I may hold back some thoughts, but I always say what I mean and mean what I say.

Over this past weekend at that social function, I didn’t filter too well. I realized later, after I got home, that … oops, that probably wasn’t the most proper thing to say.

I’m embarrassed, but it was something said about someone’s height, or lack there of.  I thought I was being funny and self-deprecating, since I’m extremely short and referred back to me as well. But, there ya go. I hang my head in shame as I try to forget it. (See little miss shorty-pants – below)

I wish I could say that was my only misstep, but it wasn’t. To be fair to myself, my second blunder came when a certain woman there kept kissing my butt, over-doing her praise of me in front of a bunch of people. It was obvious to me that it was a passive-aggressive way to purposely embarrass me (I know this woman and it’s her style). I didn’t know how to react. I didn’t say too much, but my face felt like the color of a tomato, and all that came out was an embarrassing “aww shucks” type expression.

Oh, did you think those were my only two blunders? Naww, I was on a roll. My three little nephews happened to be at the same event. One of them kept trying to egg-me-on with a negative comment about me. I’d like to say I acted like the adult with that child, but I didn’t.

I don’t know where my filter was that day. Thoughts that came to the forefront of my mind just popped out of my mouth. The only thing I could come up with is that after so many years being isolated in another state without friends or family, my filter didn’t get much use. The only social interaction I had in Florida was with authors, and I usually did okay.

I’m not making excuses for my behavior. I laid it all out in this post … the entire shameful muck of it all.

They say confessions can be freeing.

Have you ever inserted your foot-in-mouth and didn’t realize it until it was too late? If so, how did you handle it? Have you ever had someone praising you to the point of embarrassment?

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