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Original poster

Horrendous foot in mouth scenarios

99 replies

KatnissMellark · 26/05/2019 18:17

Lovely kind nurse chatting to me prior to my discharge following some gynae surgery as a result of multiple IVF complications: on hearing I've only got one DC 'oh that's lucky, having two is a nightmare...blah blah blah', me 'not really lucky, that's why I'm here.. we've had seven IVFs, two miscarriages and a lost twin and I've just been operated on to sort some complications'. Felt a bit bad correcting her but she did know I'd just had pelvic surgery by a consultant specialising in infertility it doesn't really phase me after so many years of dealing with comments like this- people are really just making conversation/trying to 'help'/slightly misguided but I think this one was the worst (because of the context!). I wasn't upset but she was pretty mortified I think.

Anyone got any corkers?

OP posts:

amusedbush · 30/05/2019 12:33

My then flatmate mentioned that she'd bumped into someone from school and went on about how she couldn't believe how much weight the woman had put on. She said, "she's massive now, she must be about your size".

Thanks. Prick

magicstar1 · 30/05/2019 13:19

I bumped into an old friend from college and asked him how his mother was...completely forgetting I'd been at her funeral a few months before.

Nesssie · 30/05/2019 14:52

lurkingfromhome Love that!

Interested in this thread?

Then you might like threads about these subjects:

Families General health

spellingtest · 30/05/2019 17:12

My ex MIL used to wrap Christmas presents in boxes that weren't in any way related to the actual gift inside. It was my first Christmas and no one had told me about this.

I proceeded to open the parcel and it was a dualit toaster box. Somewhat overwhelmed by her apparent generosity I gushed about how I had always wanted one but could never justify spending so much, what an wonderfully thoughtful gift, far too much etc etc. The rest of the family looked rather awkward and my DH said you should open the box. Inside were a pack of tea towels that had clearly come from the local market......

TheBitchOfTheVicar · 30/05/2019 22:27

'What's that, Davina? You've got a son called David? Of course you fucking haven't. Only a complete TWAT would name their only child of the opposite sex so obviously after themselves.'

Repeat a few times. I was ADAMANT.

Oops.

TheBitchOfTheVicar · 30/05/2019 22:33

@Willowkoko I have one to match: idly charting to a mum at preschool (luckily I can't remember who!) who had a lovely red-headed daughter.

I said something similar about it looking better on girls. Fuck knows why - I don't even believe it. Just mum-with-young-kids tiredness which came out as intense social awkwardness.

Anyway, it turns out that her daughter was a son. So not only had I mistaken the child's sex, I had also said he looked awful.

Peacocking · 31/05/2019 02:06

Someone above mentioned that they didn't believe tales of people asking one armed people if they need a hand. A good friend of mine has a totally paralysed arm. I often said things like 'I'll give you a hand with that' etc. Neither of us were ever embarrassed as it's a figure of speech and trying to avoid normal chat would be far more awkward.

Telling my friend who was mid chemo and with no hair that I was having a bad hair day was pretty crap though. I did a much much worse foot in mouth a few months ago - a truly awful awful one. It's so raw I cant bring myself to write it down yet - not even slightly funny. Maybe when another of these threads appears in a few years.

BenWillbondsPants · 31/05/2019 05:57

I'm going through chemo just now and my hair is just starting to come out. I was having a moan about it to my neighbour yesterday (I could see her looking at my hair and I was embarrassed). She said 'thats a shame, you have to be really pretty to carry off the bald look'.

The worst thing is that I know I'm just a very average 52 year old woman who will look awful when it does go completely and I'm planning to shave it as soon as it get too bad, but having someone say it to my face when I already feel shit made it worse. I'm not s crier, but I cried yesterday.

TemporaryPermanent · 31/05/2019 06:21

Can't bear to write mine.
So I'll shame someone else...

A lovely family member was reassuring me that ds would be ok after dh's death by explaining that the evidence was that natural events such as death from illness tended not to result in children going off the rails, difficulties only really arising after unnatural deaths like murder or suicide. Dh took his own life.

Bloomburger · 31/05/2019 06:54

My sister had to have a pregnancy terminated at 27 weeks, and whilst she was waiting to go into Labour I had a rant about someone who had been incredibly rude and thoughtless to me only having half a brain, which was exactly the reason the pregnancy had to be terminated.

She was (deceased now) a bully and dreadfully abusive but I have to say I deserved her vitriol that day.

When I was young and at school I was taken out of class whilst the other children were making Mothers Day cards, the woman who came into to get me asked which one was the little girl with the dead mum. It still makes me tear up 40 years later.

Runmybathforme · 31/05/2019 07:00

My Mum went into her local sweetie shop one morning. Neighbour says, “ oh Mary, cheer up for God’s sake ! It might never happen “. My Nan had died the day before. Ouch !

SarahBeeney · 31/05/2019 07:32

@AndOutComeTheBoobs I did a similar thing!
I was slagging a bloke off with a small group of people I work with. Saying how he tries it on with all the new women and generally pervy when one of my friends said "meet his sister" who was standing in the group.
I felt dreadful and couldn't apologise enough.

Another time,I was at a wedding and in the line up greeting/shaking hands with the important family members. I got to one Lady and said "oh you must be Mother of the Groom"...... she said "no I'm his sister"! I wanted to disappear but was stuck in the bloody line up! There was silence and so I said "I love your dress" in a really insincere and flaky way.

SarahBeeney · 31/05/2019 07:32

Ignore the biscuit,supposed to be embarrassed face!

ChristineBaskets · 31/05/2019 10:52

Cheekychop84 I don't get what's wrong with what you said? That's not offensive at all!

Cheekychop84 · 31/05/2019 14:37

ChristineBaskets
I was embarrassed because i said that I'd heard that hearing loss could get worse to the man who was deaf. It was a slip of the tongue but don't think he took offence. I just felt awful in case I'd inadvertently caused upset.

AngelaJ18 · 31/05/2019 19:45

Whilst observing the Remembrance Day silence customer tries to get my attention, I end up tapping my (non-existent watch) and mouth ‘it’s 11am’. Afterwards I apologised for keeping them waiting and the guy says ‘oh that’s ok I thought you were deaf’

My reply? ‘Actually I am deaf’ (well partly but wasn’t going to bother explaining my hearing issues). He went very quiet, apologised and made a quick escape!

TheBitchOfTheVicar · 31/05/2019 20:55

@Bloomburger

WeeDangerousSpike · 01/06/2019 12:08

@Bezalelle

I assure you I really have said do you need a hand to my friendd with one arm. What an odd thing not to believe

It's something I say all the time to everyone, just a turn of phrase I use, so it comes out automatically when I want to offer my friend help, you know, because I like them...

Thatsnotmyname4291 · 01/06/2019 12:29

Someone once said to me ‘oh that coat’s lovely. Is it the Primark one?’

Er, no, it cost £90 (in 2001) thank you.

Once in a group message a friend shared a screenshot of in the night garden. I bumbled in with ‘my mum says it looks really relaxing and that she wants to go there when she dies’. Friend’s mum had died a fortnight earlier. Mortified. Still get all hot and awkward thinking about it.

TwitterQueen1 · 06/06/2019 20:15

Ben I don't know if you saw what I posted immediately on this thread - my friend told me I had a very masculine face - when I had just gone bald through chemo. Just how fucking insensitive do you need to be?! People are so very stupid.

Iwantacookie · 06/06/2019 21:18

Hanging out at my friend's house and the music video to Ed Sheeran Thinking out loud comes on. (Him twirling a woman around a ballroom)
I turn to my friend and say "Oh wouldn't you love to be that woman"
She replied with yes because my legs already don't work. She's in a wheelchair
I was mortified and apologised but she knew I just didn't engage my brain.

user1494670108 · 06/06/2019 21:25

I once rang a colleague and said "I'm ringing to pick your brains if you can find them"

QuestionableMouse · 06/06/2019 21:57

I have a horrible one that makes me go hot with shame when I think about it.

I'd been on a ten hour shift at work and was knackered when a family came in. Two parents, a younger child who was clearly a girl and a teen in a hoodie who I just couldn't decide if they were a boy or a girl.

Do I engage my brain? No, I walked over and said

"Do your girls want some of this burger that were sampling?" that was probably not too bad, but then I looked at the teen and decided they were a boy, so dug myself in deeper by saying "oh, sorry, your son and daughter..." then looked again and said "oh I mean your girls". This went on for at least two more rounds of me going redder and redder and trying to figure out what to say.

None of them helped me out in the slightest. They just sat and looked at me. I think I just squeeked sorry in the end and went and hid in the stock room.

3luckystars · 06/06/2019 22:32

Oh my God I could fill a thread all by myself but first things first, that girl from Game of Thrones is not chubby?

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