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Foot in the Mouth Moments

phongonephongone 1,652 Posts
edited April 2012 in Strut Central
Here's a few of mine.

I once remarked to a work colleague I had not seen for some time that I liked her new short hairstyle. She responded that she had just come back to work after a long hiatus because she had been diagnosed with cancer and had undergone chemotherapy. Her hair had fallen out from the cancer treatment. OOF.

Back in my ethnocentric college days, I went to a dinner with a bunch of students who were members of the Asian-American club on campus. I remember getting angry and telling this hot asian girl how I hated how the asian girls on campus would date white dudes and not asian dudes. I did not realize her white boyfriend was seated at the same table a couple of chairs down. OOF.

Got any foot in the mouth moments?
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  Comments

  • batmonbatmon 27,574 Posts
    Harden Deserved It!
  • KineticKinetic 3,739 Posts
    I told a paedophile joke at work once to straight crickets.

    Thing is I should have known better since the group of 10 or so people I was talking to were mostly middle aged female community workers. So... they tend not to find stuff like this funny. People still bring it up as "that joke M*** said that time."
  • kitchenknightkitchenknight 4,922 Posts
    Too many to count. I tend to speak before I think.

    As my old boss told me, "I prefer Rocky Road to Vanilla myself, Gareth," after one particular instance. Do it with enough obnoxious charm, and you can get away with that shit.
  • Fred_GarvinFred_Garvin The land of wind and ghosts 337 Posts
    My boss and I one day had a guy walk into our office who we hadn't seen around in a while, and my boss says, "Hey Ken, haven't seen you lately! Looks like you lost some weight!" to which Ken casually replied "Yeah, I had a stroke". I could almost taste the awkwardness in the room.
  • badder_than_evilbadder_than_evil 951 Posts
    I worked in a Supermarket that had two floors.
    We would take people in wheel chairs up in the lift if requested. One day when taking a lady in a wheelchair upstairs with her husband, we were going through one of those uncomfortable silence moments which prompted me to advise them both to "please ignore the grafitti on the walls".
    The lady said "That's ok...I'm blind"
    Back to silence..
  • Bon VivantBon Vivant The Eye of the Storm 2,018 Posts
    Moments? I have full-on episodes where I can do no right.
  • tripledoubletripledouble 7,636 Posts
    i was at a gas station after midnight, paying the clerk when a straight up junkied out blonde chick walks in. tracks all over her arms and shit. the clerk seemed to know her and she was talking to him about how there was a warrant out for her arrest. baaaad news. i glanced at her face and really wish i hadnt. so i walk out the minimart toward the car, where my buddy was waiting in the passenger seat. half way there and i hear the junkie calling out to me, "hey. hey" i turn around as she gets close and she asks "hey do you get high?" to which i reply "definitely not." and turn back toward the car. i start pumping gas and talking to my buddy, "yo that chick was a straight up train wreck. tracks on her arms, looking crazy as shit. faces of meth type shit. im telling you. baaaad news." On the other side of the pump is a middle aged lady, pumping her gas. after a minute we make eye contact and i nod cordially and say hello. "how you doing tonight?" "could be better," she replies. half a minute later, the junkie chick reemerges from the minimart and ges in the middle aged ladies car. i was mortified and my friend was just laughing his ass off at my tactlessness. oops
  • skelskel You can't cheat karma 5,033 Posts
    IT dude and myself standing by the printer. IT dude in dispute with company over a few trivial issues but cumulative effect is brewing.

    Me: so Neil, how's it going with Chris (HR dude)?
    Neil: not getting anywhere really, stalemate.
    Me: you should tell that xxxx to blah blah blah he's out of order etc etc
    Neil: why don't you tell him yourself, he's standing right behind you
    Me:oh hii Chris, how you doing, you alright?....

    BAM
  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,955 Posts
    I once heard that the boss' girl wasn't getting any (I got the goss from a friend of hers). I used to really hate the boss on that job and his bird was like, well too good for that shithouse. So one time, she'd called in to see him and we were both leaving the building at the same time.

    She asked me how I was and I replied (for some reason I will never understand) that I knew how she was, and if she wasn't getting any, I would happily sort her out. As the words were leaving my mouth I knew I had embarked on a road with no other outcome than driving off the edge of that conversational cliff, but y'know, there were no logical mid-sentence U-turn spots available.

    It was not meant as a serious offer (or was it?) but I felt like a stalker after the full stop and we went our separate ways to a crescendo of crickets. Later you could see in his eyes that he had gained familiarity with the whole deal. He must have been seething, so, y'know... Every cloud and all that.
  • paddlissimopaddlissimo 58 Posts
    Was having a conversation with a few dudes and the boss at work about some people's jobs must be such a cakewalk. I preceded to tell a story about how a friends friend does a similar job at a similar company for pretty much double the money.

    Boss straight ice grilled me while thanking me for the story. On some 'Thanks..... Thanks a lot. No really. Thank. You.'
  • JuniorJunior 4,853 Posts
    badder_than_evil said:
    I worked in a Supermarket that had two floors.
    We would take people in wheel chairs up in the lift if requested. One day when taking a lady in a wheelchair upstairs with her husband, we were going through one of those uncomfortable silence moments which prompted me to advise them both to "please ignore the grafitti on the walls".
    The lady said "That's ok...I'm blind"
    Back to silence..

    This is fantastic.

    I have a long and reliable history of this mainly based on incorrectly believing that I should be filling dead space. My nan who taught me every thing I know on this matter used to call it opening your mouth to change feet.
  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,955 Posts
    Junior said:
    badder_than_evil said:
    I worked in a Supermarket that had two floors.
    We would take people in wheel chairs up in the lift if requested. One day when taking a lady in a wheelchair upstairs with her husband, we were going through one of those uncomfortable silence moments which prompted me to advise them both to "please ignore the grafitti on the walls".
    The lady said "That's ok...I'm blind"
    Back to silence..

    This is fantastic.

    At this point, I would have to chime in with some Steve Wonder/Cheesegrater japes. I am sure blind folk must crack blind jokes with other blindies. And the punchline can always be (in unison) "Aaaah, but how do you know I am blind, right? Hahahahaha!"

    PLEASE GOD LET ME KEEP MY SIGHT.
  • badder_than_evilbadder_than_evil 951 Posts
    This could quite seamlessly morph into a thread about stupid shit you said while trying to chat up a female.

    I had already pulled a very nice young lady and tried my best to look like a weirdo while walking back to her place..
    She was wearing a sheepskin jacket(not a long Motson one) and it reminded me of a girl in a Prodigy video dancing with her hands in her pockets.
    I proceeded to compliment her on the jacket and said "Like the jacket it looks good on you..you could dance with your hands in the pockets".
    No response.Silence. This gave me time to realize what I had said and how strange it sounded. Explaining the Prodigy video connection wouldn't have made it better either...total cricket time.
  • LoopDreamsLoopDreams 1,195 Posts
    badder_than_evil said:
    This could quite seamlessly morph into a thread about stupid shit you said while trying to chat up a female.

    I've had so many retarded moments when trying to make sense to the opposite sex. The one I regret most was back in Uni has to do with this absolutely gorgeous asian girl that had a look that was impossible to place. I was chatting with her and, mesmerized by her lips, found myself saying: 'where are you from?". Answer: "TORONTO". I couldn't recover, she was pissed... man she was hot, now an architect in NY.

    :walk_away_son:
  • badder_than_evilbadder_than_evil 951 Posts
    One of my friends came out with the best failing opening lines with some girl in Magaluf.

    "You've been looking at me all night haven't you?"

    "NO"

    Exit my friend..
  • DuderonomyDuderonomy Haut de la Garenne 7,789 Posts
    badder_than_evil said:
    This could quite seamlessly morph into a thread about stupid shit you said while trying to chat up a female.

    Think this was from the Guardian:

    Movies and television shows are full of scenes where a man tries unsuccessfully to interact with a pretty woman. In many cases, the potential suitor ends up acting foolishly despite his best attempts to impress. It seems like his brain isn???t working quite properly and according to new findings, it may not be.

    Researchers have begun to explore the cognitive impairment that men experience before and after interacting with women. A 2009 study demonstrated that after a short interaction with an attractive woman, men experienced a decline in mental performance. A more recent study suggests that this cognitive impairment takes hold even when men simply anticipate interacting with a woman who they know very little about.

    Sanne Nauts and her colleagues at Radboud University Nijmegen in the Netherlands ran two experiments using men and women university students as participants. They first collected a baseline measure of cognitive performance by having the students complete a Stroop test. Developed in 1935 by the psychologist John Ridley Stroop, the test is a common way of assessing our ability to process competing information. The test involves showing people a series of words describing different colors that are printed in different colored inks. For example, the word ???blue??? might be printed in green ink and the word ???red??? printed in blue ink. Participants are asked to name, as quickly as they can, the color of the ink that the words are written in. The test is cognitively demanding because our brains can???t help but process the meaning of the word along with the color of the ink. When people are mentally tired, they tend to complete the task at a slower rate.

    After completing the Stroop Test, participants in Nauts??? study were asked to take part in another supposedly unrelated task. They were asked to read out loud a number of Dutch words while sitting in front of a webcam. The experimenters told them that during this ???lip reading task??? an observer would watch them over the webcam. The observer was given either a common male or female name. Participants were led to believe that this person would see them over the web cam, but they would not be able to interact with the person. No pictures or other identifying information were provided about the observer???all the participants knew was his or her name. After the lip reading task, the participants took another Stroop test. Women???s performance on the second test did not differ, regardless of the gender of their observer. However men who thought a woman was observing them ended up performing worse on the second Stroop test. This cognitive impairment occurred even though the men had not interacted with the female observer.

    In a second study, Nauts and her colleagues again began the experiment by having each participant complete the Stroop test. Then each participant was led to believe they would soon be taking part in the same ???lip reading??? task similar to the first study. Half were told that a man would observe them and the other half were led to believe that a woman would observe them. In reality, participants never engaged in the task. After being told about it, they completed another Stroop test to measure their current level of cognitive functioning.

    Once again, women???s performance on the test did not differ, regardless of whether they were expecting a man or woman to observe them. But men who had been told a woman would observe them ended up doing much worse on the second Stroop task. Thus, simply anticipating the opposite sex interaction was enough to interfere with men???s cognitive functioning.

    In today???s society people frequently interact with each other over the phone or online, where the only way to infer somebody???s gender is through their name or voice. Nauts??? research suggests that even with these very limited interactions, men may experience cognitive impairment when faced with the opposite sex. Although the studies on their own don???t offer any concrete explanations, Nauts and her colleagues think that the reason may have something to do with men being more strongly attuned to potential mating opportunities. Since all of their participants were both heterosexual and young, they might have been thinking about whether the woman might be a potential date.

    The results may also have to do with social expectations. Our society may place more pressure on men to impress women during social interactions. Although this hypothesis remains speculative, previous research has shown that the more you care about making the right impression, the more your brain gets taxed. Such interactions require us to spend a great deal of mental energy imagining how others might interpret our words and actions. For example, psychologists Jennifer Richeson and Nicole Shelton found that Caucasian Americans who hold stronger racial prejudices face similar cognitive impairments after interacting with somebody who is African American. In these situations, individuals who hold strong prejudices must try hard to come across as not prejudiced. In a different study, Richeson and her colleagues found that less privileged students at elite universities experience similar cognitive impairments after being observed by their wealthier peers.

    Overall, it seems clear that whenever we face situations where we???re particularly concerned about the impression that we???re making, we may literally have difficulty thinking clearly. In the case of men, thinking about interacting with a woman is enough to make their brains go a bit fuzzy.
  • phongonephongone 1,652 Posts
    J i m s t e r said:
    I once heard that the boss' girl wasn't getting any (I got the goss from a friend of hers). I used to really hate the boss on that job and his bird was like, well too good for that shithouse. So one time, she'd called in to see him and we were both leaving the building at the same time.

    She asked me how I was and I replied (for some reason I will never understand) that I knew how she was, and if she wasn't getting any, I would happily sort her out. As the words were leaving my mouth I knew I had embarked on a road with no other outcome than driving off the edge of that conversational cliff, but y'know, there were no logical mid-sentence U-turn spots available.

    It was not meant as a serious offer (or was it?) but I felt like a stalker after the full stop and we went our separate ways to a crescendo of crickets. Later you could see in his eyes that he had gained familiarity with the whole deal. He must have been seething, so, y'know... Every cloud and all that.

    Let me get this straight - you told the boss' girlfriend that you heard she wasn't getting any sex and then told her you would give it to her? When does this approach ever work?
  • pickwick33pickwick33 8,946 Posts
    When I was in college, I worked in the gym at my school.

    There were two floors. I worked the desk at the actual gymnasium. The upper floor had a pool room. (Swimming pool, that is.)

    A guy named Craig worked the pool room. Black dude who talked in an absurdly fake British accent, hung out at cheesy dance clubs, and fancied himself a ladies' man. Problem was, he had body odor something terrible.

    I had to sub for him while he went off to get lunch. I opened a drawer at his desk, looking for something, and was greeted with this godawful stench. That's where he kept his old socks.

    Later that day, I called up to the pool room to bitch about Craig and his homely odors. I thought I was talking to one of the other guys who worked there. Turns out it was Craig all along.

    He never busted me out for it, strangely enough. But between his body funk and his arrogance, I really don't regret doing it!

    If anything, I really wish I'd have given him a gift-wrapped six-pack of soap.
  • jjfad027jjfad027 1,594 Posts
    I was at a party about ten years ago with a friend. We were on a crowded balcony talking with a girl we had met there. She said she was from CO. My friend asked what highschool she went to. She replied "Columbine". My friend instantly blurted out "Oh my god were you there?" She said "yeah". You could here a pin drop after that.
  • HarveyCanalHarveyCanal "a distraction from my main thesis." 13,234 Posts
    When I was in college, I asked this dude Ahmit something about being Muslim. He abruptly informed me that he was Hindu. Not even close...oof!
  • DB_CooperDB_Cooper Manhatin' 7,823 Posts
    This happened just a few weeks ago. I've been in a Mexican standoff with my old landlord because it turned out our entire apartment building is infested with bedbugs. We'd written tons of certified letters, filed complaints in housing court, the whole nine. They sent cut-rate exterminators to our apartment half a dozen times, but since (we later found out) all of the apartments surrounding us had bad infestations, they just kept moving from apartment to apartment and would return again. Finally, we just moved out and had all of our stuff fumigated in the moving van. End of problem. However...

    I'm talking to my new landlord at our first meeting, having just moved in to the second floor of his home. Nice apartment, nice guy, but with totally understandable worries that we might have brought the bedbugs with us. So I launch into the story:

    "Yeah, they're really hard to get rid of. We had exterminators come a bunch of times, but the other apartments were infested, so they kept coming back. Don't worry though???we had all of our stuff fumigated on the truck. It was with this super-potent chemical that Dow makes, and we just gassed them all to death. Forget exterminators. You got to gas them. It's really the only final solution."

    I'm listening to myself with mounting horror as the words are coming out of my mouth. Thankfully, he laughed. I was mortified.
  • jjfad027jjfad027 1,594 Posts
    My parents own a cabin in Tahoe. Some years ago there were some bad fires that took out a bunch of houses. My mom was at the cabin afterwards talking to a neighbor. She said, "Gee we're really lucky that the fires didn't burn our houses down." The neighbor said, "Actually our house burned to the ground. This is our other house." Ooof
  • GrandfatherGrandfather 2,303 Posts
    I was chatting up some girls at a bar. Subject of school came up and I just casually asked them "..So what year were you supposed to graduate." I just assumed they were drop outs. They were some hoodrats to be fair.
  • ElectrodeElectrode Los Angeles 3,129 Posts
    A few years ago on my birthday, my dad took me to a local steakhouse. God bless him, but he's not very tactful or self-reliant. Also, he comes from the old-school; born and raised in the South. Anyhow, he pulls into the parking lot where a black man in a suit is standing on the painted curb outside of the place under the entrance awning, probably waiting for a friend, coworker or somebody. My dad pulls over, puts the car in park and gets out. I think you can predict how this went over....
  • TheKindCromangTheKindCromang 1,463 Posts
    Electrode said:
    A few years ago on my birthday, my dad took me to a local steakhouse. God bless him, but he's not very tactful or self-reliant. Also, he comes from the old-school; born and raised in the South. Anyhow, he pulls into the parking lot where a black man in a suit is standing on the painted curb outside of the place under the entrance awning, probably waiting for a friend, coworker or somebody. My dad pulls over, puts the car in park and gets out. I think you can predict how this went over....

    Did the guy then proceed to steal your dad's car?
  • AlmondAlmond 1,427 Posts
    LoopDreams said:


    I've had so many retarded moments when trying to make sense to the opposite sex. The one I regret most was back in Uni has to do with this absolutely gorgeous asian girl that had a look that was impossible to place. I was chatting with her and, mesmerized by her lips, found myself saying: 'where are you from?". Answer: "TORONTO". I couldn't recover, she was pissed... man she was hot, now an architect in NY.

    I've been asked "where I'm from" on a number of occasions, but what should be a FITM moment for the other person usually in turns into that for me, as I proceed to talk about the neighborhood I live in and what my favorite exits off the interstate are. It's sometimes a good minute before I realize they're wondering what ethnicity I am. I've always lived in CA, so I guess it's cognitively hard for me to classify myself as an outsider in my own backyard.

    If you want to know what ethnicity someone is, just ask! Way better than assuming they're from "someplace else." And giving a barbed compliment like "your English is really good, where are you from?" just makes it worse!

    HarveyCanal said:
    When I was in college, I asked this dude Ahmit something about being Muslim. He abruptly informed me that he was Hindu. Not even close...oof!

    This happens to me all the time since I have an uncommon name. Funny now, but was tough as a child.
  • JimsterJimster Cruffiton.etsy.com 6,955 Posts
    phongone said:
    J i m s t e r said:
    I once heard that the boss' girl wasn't getting any (I got the goss from a friend of hers). I used to really hate the boss on that job and his bird was like, well too good for that shithouse. So one time, she'd called in to see him and we were both leaving the building at the same time.

    She asked me how I was and I replied (for some reason I will never understand) that I knew how she was, and if she wasn't getting any, I would happily sort her out. As the words were leaving my mouth I knew I had embarked on a road with no other outcome than driving off the edge of that conversational cliff, but y'know, there were no logical mid-sentence U-turn spots available.

    It was not meant as a serious offer (or was it?) but I felt like a stalker after the full stop and we went our separate ways to a crescendo of crickets. Later you could see in his eyes that he had gained familiarity with the whole deal. He must have been seething, so, y'know... Every cloud and all that.

    Let me get this straight - you told the boss' girlfriend that you heard she wasn't getting any sex and then told her you would give it to her? When does this approach ever work?

    "For some reason I will never understand"... It was like, my brain vs. my mind, and my brain failed to show up.
  • MurdockMurdock 542 Posts
    Me and D Rock were coming home late from a gig and stopped by Dupar's for some WORLD CLASS PANCAKES. When we entered I noticed a table of people with their faces painted and wearing weird black clothes. I said "check out those jigaboos". The look on D's face was unforgetable cuz sitted right next to the table I was talking about was a group of black people. Of course, I meant Jugalos. Luckily neither group heard my comments. But, we had a laugh....
  • Fred_GarvinFred_Garvin The land of wind and ghosts 337 Posts
    LoopDreams said:


    I've had so many retarded moments when trying to make sense to the opposite sex. The one I regret most was back in Uni has to do with this absolutely gorgeous asian girl that had a look that was impossible to place. I was chatting with her and, mesmerized by her lips, found myself saying: 'where are you from?". Answer: "TORONTO". I couldn't recover, she was pissed... man she was hot, now an architect in NY.

    Seems like this kind of thing can depend on local culture to some degree... in NYC, "Where are you from" is generally a pretty innocuous question, a common part of general small talk when meeting/getting to know a person. I've certainly asked many people of varying ethnicity where they're from, and not one of them looked at me like I was expecting a particular answer. Changing locales has been common enough for long enough that I'm surprised anyone would be bothered by this... I think anyone who lives in a large city would understand that asking, for example, a Chinese person where they're from doesn't mean you're expecting them to say "Hong Kong".
  • phongonephongone 1,652 Posts
    Jigaboo story, the Nazi final solution and Strutters' awkward pick-up/dating techniques are killing it.
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