Are better left unsaid...
Isn't that what some people say?
Ever since I was a child I've had the habit of just blurting out what was on my mind. Most of the time it was funny, at least to me it was... But most times it got me in trouble. It got the nuns of the Blessed Bleeding Hearts of the Stormtrooper so cross they beat the living shit out of me from time to time. I'll never forget the look on my mother's face once when I was ten or so... We were at some restaurant that had an all-you-can-eat buffet and I just blurted out "Yeah, like he really NEEDS that fifth plate of shrimp!" When a very portly gentleman was going for yet another round at the feeding trough... It wasn't what I said really, it was how I said it... So loud the entire patronage of the dining establishment heard me... The look on my mother's face was precious. My father on the other hand had his face hidden behind his hands and was shaking uncontrollably in what at the time I thought was tears of mortification but I later learned was muffled hysterical laughter.
I've learned to stifle it most of the time now, but sometimes a little retort will slip out...
Yesterday for instance. What should have been a very solemn moment I turned into an absurdity. I was at the Laundromat doing my wash and stepped outside to have a smoke during the rinse cycle. As I'm standing outside the building a funeral procession passes. And being the gentleman my parents raised me to be, I doffed my ballcap, stood up straight and bowed my head as the hearse drove by. A man who had been shopping at the Deli Mart passed by me at that very moment and asked me...
"Hey, who died?"
And it just came spewing out of my piehole unrestrained...
"The guy in the first car..."
I really wish I could capture the look of that guy's face and turn it into a picture. It was the same vacuous look I've seen so many times but never ceases to make me laugh out loud...
Like I stated earlier, I've got those urges pretty well under control. But sometimes, usually the most apt times they do come gushing forth, consequences be damned. Like the time several years ago I was working crowd-control at an animal-rights demonstration. A fellow officer who was on the detail walked up to me and innocently asked...
"You having fun yet?"
And yet again, I couldn't resist...
"You bet! This is more fun than clubbing baby seals!" loudly enough for several of the demonstrators to hear me...
My dad always did say that I had terminal diarrhea of the mouth.
I could totally keep it under control, but you know what I say?
Fuck em' if they can't take a joke.
Copyright 2005 Thomas J Wolfenden
5 comments:
I actually really appreciate honesty in a friend. Usually makes for a good time!!!
The first one hit the mark for me. I just got off a cruise and I sooo wanted to say something like that soo many times. "Put the fork down sir and step away for the plate, sir. You are under arrest for the death of 20 cows in the past 5 days!"
Thanks for the early morning laugh.
That's so funny. I love when people say what is on their mind. You can really tell who someone is if they say what they want.
I myself do this often. People usually appreciate it after the recover from the shock. If I were at that buffet I'd be laughing hysterically with your dad too.
I used to joke like that in client meetings. My bosses really didn't appreciate it much. Oh well.
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