So few of us are able to keep our mouths, ears and eyes shut at times.
Blurting out exclamations and/or proclamations during stressful encounters can be especially embarrassing, traumatizing and/or downright dangerous.
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THINGS I’VE SAID AND WISHED I HADN’T
“If Grandma ever does that again, I’ll kill her.”
My mother-in-law watched my kids while I worked, and often helped me out with household chores. Sometimes things didn’t get put back quite the way I wanted them. My husband was working armed security and had a pistol permit. The day after I blurted out this threat, my young daughter dragged Grandma up to the master bedroom, pointed to where the gun was stored (how she knew is beyond me), and told Grandma I was going to shoot her. Use your imagination as to how this went over with Grandma, and how long it took for the whole thing to eventually blow over.
***
“I could just kill you!”
[Is there a pattern here?]
I can’t recall what my very young daughter had done to make me say that. But as a young mother, I always made sure to carry through on promises to my kids. Needless to say, this “promise” was taken literally. Thank God, “kids are resilient” (in the unforgettable words of John Candy, playing the polka guy in the movie, Home Alone).
***
“I hope you drive off the road and kill yourself.”
[By now, you’re beginning to wonder about sweet old Cordelia’s Mom.]
My husband and I had an argument as we were preparing for our annual trip to bring my daughter back from college, and I muttered this under my breath just as we were leaving the driveway. Said daughter had loads of stuff, and we only had sedans, not trucks, so we were taking two cars. My husband drove in the lead, and being a good little wifey, I followed. About an hour out of Buffalo, my husband reached for a snack in the back seat of his car (while going 70 mph), miscalculated, and veered toward the edge of the Thruway, actually crossing the rumble strip. Two thoughts immediately ran through my mind: “Oh, God, why did I say that?” and “How am I going to explain this to the insurance company?”
***
“I’m really hard on my hands.”
I was 26 years old, and the company I worked for had a softball team on which I played. The very day I made this comment to a co-worker, we had a game wherein I somehow tried to catch the ball in my non-gloved right hand, breaking the fourth finger on that hand. In fact, the finger was hit with such force that the knuckle disintegrated. I knew it was really bad when I heard the x-ray tech exclaim, “Wow, look at that!”
***
“Sure, I can handle any computer system you have.”
This statement was made during a job interview, for a job I really, really wanted. The interviewer took me literally – sat me at the computer in her office, and gave me a project. It took me a really long time to figure out how to even turn the darn thing on (this was way back when computers were still using the DOS system with a C: prompt). Eventually, I managed to complete the short project. All turned out OK – the interviewer was impressed by my ability to work through my fear, and I was hired on the spot.
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AND THEN THERE ARE THINGS I’VE HEARD AND WISHED I HADN’T
While trying on intimate apparel, I heard this from the next fitting room: “Well, I don’t know what size I take any more because things aren’t where they used to be.”
After the neighbor’s kid ran into the street and almost got hit by a car, I heard said neighbor shout out her window: “If I ever see you do that again, I won’t let you play in the street any more!”
The day after the above incident, the neighbor’s kid and several of his friends were playing in the neighbor’s car, which was parked on the street during very warm weather. The young mother from across the street went to said car and I overheard: “If you’re going to play in the car, at least roll the windows down. And you know not to play in the trunk, right? …. Right?” [and where is little Johnny, anyway?].
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AND, OF COURSE, THERE ARE THINGS I’VE SEEN AND WISHED I HADN’T
My 46-year-old neighbor (who thinks she’s 16) sunning herself in her string bikini.
All the fire trucks and other emergency vehicles with lights on parked in front of said neighbor’s house after she called 911 because …………………………………………… her smoke alarm needed a battery [I kid you not].
The photoshopped picture of shirtless John Hamm wearing Rihanna’s sparkly transparent dress, which was published in I Am Begging My Mother Not to Read This Blog.
That damn red car.
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How about you, folks? Want to share similar incidents you’ve experienced? Just leave a comment below so all the world (or at least all 10 or so of my readers) will know that you, too, are a faulty human being, just like Cordelia’s Mom.
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I love to hear from my readers. You may comment on this post, comment on my Facebook page, or email me at cordeliasmom2012@yahoo.com
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Images by: Roy Schreffler, and Black Country Museum, and KAZ Vorpal, respectively
Cordelia's Mom, Still 
I don’t know that I’ve said, seen, or heard anything that trumps your illustrations, but I must say I am concerned with your urge to kill people or have them kill themselves. 🙂
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Actually, Doobster, right now I’d like to kill myself (just kidding). I accidentally hit PUBLISH instead of hitting UPDATE! This post was supposed to run in July. Guess now I’ll have to add a post for things I wish I hadn’t done.
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Well, if nothing else, I’m impressed that you have posts “in the can” for publishing on future dates. I tend to write mine a day or two before posting them, except for the prompts, which I write on the day of the prompt. Way to be so organized!
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Well, it started off as a good idea because I had lots of posts already written when I started my monthly schedules. But now I have to have all 4 posts of a month written by the middle of the month before, and it’s becoming harder and harder. We’ll see how long I can continue to be organized.
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I’m with Doob – you have posts written 2-4 weeks in advance? Whew. That’s impressive. Great post, I enjoyed the little stories. Speaking about kids in the trunk – my wife and I were looking at cars one day when our kids were tweens and they could get a bit rambunctious. We were looking at an Intrepid and the sales person was a bit on the, shall we say, slow side. He proudly opened the huge trunk and was demonstrating how wonderful it was when I said to my wife:” Look, there’s lots of room in there for both kids.” He took me seriously and was taken aback: “You can’t put children in the trunk, sir. And if you did, there is a release handle inside so they could get out.” To his amazement, I expressed my concern that they could escape and asked to see a car with no internal trunk release. My wife was tryng very hard not to crack up. I then expained to the salesman that I was joking, but I don’t think he completely believed me.
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We also looked at an Intrepid, but never thought to put the kids in the trunk. Might have saved some grief during their teenage years. So, did you ultimately buy the Intrepid from that salesman?
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Yes, we did buy it. I loved that car and was sad when it had to go after about 8 years. It was excellent on fuel, comfortable to drive long distances and had lots of head room (I’m 6′ 3″). It was also quite heavy and did really well in the snow and ice. Sigh.
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Reblogged this on Cordelia's Mom, Still and commented:
As I try to figure out what I’m doing with my life (and my new posts remain sporadic), enjoy this re-blog from my earlier days.
(Does anyone else miss Doobster as much as I do?)
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For most of my life, I’ve said I want to kill so-and-so, or that my husband was gonna kill me … Of course none of us has done anything of the sort. Nor would we! But I always worry now that someone will take me seriously!
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For most of our lives, Elyse, those types of comments didn’t really mean anything. Everyone understood we were just blowing off steam. But these days, we all have to be so careful.
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Absolutely. Although I never did threaten my MIL!
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There’s a little dEvil in all of us. LOL Ψ(ﾟ∀ﾟ)Ψ
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For sure.
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Her smoke alarm needed a battery? My goodness, her brain needed a battery! The common sense unit obviously wasn’t working at full capacity. I’m afraid I laughed out loud at the bit about the x-ray technician, and then immediately felt bad because it must have been very painful. Sorry! 😦
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I don’t mind that you laughed about the x-ray technician. Truth be told, after the softball game in which I broke the finger, we all went to a local bar – where I attempted to drown the pain. When I went to the hospital the next morning, I was still fairly well anesthetized and the pain was minimal.
As for the neighbor – the firemen were a little annoyed, too, but I believe they did replace the battery for her. Now every time one of my smoke alarms beeps, I ask my husband to call 911 – and we have a good laugh.
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It was nice of the fire fighters to help her like that, even though she was wasting their time.
I’m glad to hear, by the way, that the finger didn’t cause you too much pain for, um, whatever reason. 🙂
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As an aside CM, I have a guest post over at Barb Taub’s. If you have time to drop by, I would be honored. Thank you. https://barbtaub.com/2016/06/23/if-it-has-tires-or-testosterone-guest-post-by-paul-curran-throwbackthursday/
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