Remarks that leave a bit to be desired

[The Boston Crab]

For when it came out badly, for when you made a boob, for when you just shouldn't have opened your fat trap.

Soon after I began relations with my previous girlfriend, a Chinese, I got up one time after a bout of lovemaking and said "Great, I can go and phone my mate Martin now and win that fiver!" She said, "What do you mean? Did you bet that you'd sleep with a Chinese girl or something? Fuck you!" I should have just left it at that but I couldn't resist telling the truth...Every word I said towards the completion of the next sentence was a mistake and I knew it.

"He...bet me...five pounds that...Chinese girls have...a...horizontal...pussy."

I could hardly believe I'd said it, or used the word 'pussy' for that matter. She disappeared for about a week and then came back to berate me to death. Soon enough all was forgiven but never forgotten.

Any more tales of foot in mouth syndrome?

[Mister Six]

I was at a Japanese restaurant* with tables made from tree stumps cut lengthways and varnished. However, the uneven surface caused my beer bottle to slide off the table and almost into my lap, causing me to exclaim:

"Argh! I hate slopes!"

:(



*Little Tokyo in Leeds - highly recommend it, excellent food though not cheap for a Northern restaurant.

[supinebeing]

ahh good, my favourite topic, or at least the one i have most to contribute to

where do i begin? i believe i have a congenital case of foot in mouth disease and have been fauxpaing on and off now for 25 odd years.

the most recent one came during a really important meeting at work. wont bore with details but basically a quite overweight man was part of a visiting delegation, and his gut and manly busom were struggling to remain inside his buttoned shirt. i was on a girlfriend-imposed detox so no chocolate or biscuits for me that day, but unfortunately there were biscuits on the table. my colleagues, knowing of my detoxing were intent on tormenting me by waving a fox classic in my face moments after fatman and important delegation had walked into our tight, otherwise silent meeting room.

in an attempt to fend off my tormenting colleagues, a guttural utterance pored forth from my mouth in the form of two syllables that i almost shouted into the silent room 'MAN BREASTS!'. i'd actually meant to say 'I don't want man breasts thanks so stop waving that biscuit in my face' but the subconscioous faux-paing touretteesque monster within me decided to say the worst thing at the worst possible time and condense the sentence into two, massively inappropriate words - there was no malice on my part, just pure unconscious action, i swear

Rotund delegate's eyes met mine, narrowed, and in a split second conveyed towards me millenia of fatman sufffering and hatred. i sat in mute silence for the rest of the meeting, everyone silently acknowledging what a cunt i was to have drawn attention to the delegate's mammaries.  it burns still

[Morrisfan82]

Three more posts and there'll be enough material in this thread to make another series of Extras.

[Steve Lampkins]

Once, in company, I referred to a Chinese person as 'a Chinese'.

[Howj Begg]

I accidentally advocated the absolute genocide of the semitic peoples to my chief of staff - he's only gorn and dun it!!

[buttgammon]

I was watching TV with a room full of my family once. Anyway, someone came on the telly with really synthetic looking red hair so I mimiced The Day Today by commenting "What hair colour is she wearing? Chili hot peppper?" I didn't seem to notice that it as the exact same colour as the one my aunt has applied every two weeks for most of her life! Cue lots of "It looks silly on some people but others can pull it off I suppose."

[duckorange]

I used to work with this lovely young lady, who, let us be sexist here, everybody wanted a go on. She got a proper job and I didn't see her for several years until I ran into her at Paddington station.

"Ooh", says I, pointing at her heavily pregnant-sized belly, "When's it due?"

"I'm not pregnant."

It was pie.

I would have got away with it too, had I not been in the company of my father, who mentions this episode as often as possible.

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

A month or two before my friend became a father, I was at his place and gestured towards one of those cat-carrier cages in his kitchen. "Been getting things ready for the baby?" I said, in an appropriately jolly ho-ho-ho way. However my mate took great offence and the tension caused me to make my excuses.

Luckily, two of my best mates were there and we've been pissing ourselves about the whole thing recently. The strange thing is, the daddy friend usually had a fantastic sense of humour about All Things.

[Small Man Big Horse]

Years ago I was watching the female American football league highlights on some odd sky channel when an enormous woman appeared who looked exactly like my friend's girlfriend. I mentioned it to him and he got ridiculously angry, and in the end I had to apologise for ages, it took about a week for everything to go back to normal between us.

The thing that annoys is that there were about six other people there that night, and every single one of them later said that she was the spitting image of his girlfriend.

[Shoulders?-Stomach!]

At school, I adopted the line from Brass Eye to make 'would anyone care if he just died', and directed it at a certain individual that I still assert is a talentless useless tosser with social skills that would embarrass a mole.

At the time people thought I was being genuinely nasty, but when I thought of using it I remember thinking that it would exaggerrate for comic effect and probably be funny.

The other night I said "Christ, you've put on weight." to an old school friend, and felt horrible about it for a few days afterwards. We do have a history of jokingly insulting each other but that came out all wrong and was quite viciously delivered. Unintentional, but a fuck-up nonetheless.

Plus- this is one to add in the scrapbook- I've said something that has made someone reply "Actually I've got pancreas cancer."

What a boob I've been.

[Lookalike Mark Chapman]

I did once bark 'You're wrong and you're an ugly, ugly freak!' to a girl I lived with, as a joke. Sadly, she hadn't seen The Day Today, and (terrible thing, coincidence) she was actually quite ugly, and got upset. Silly cow.

[Banana Woofwoof]

I work in a police station (or at a workshop in Nine Elms) doing communications stuff on site.  On my first day, I was on site in a police station.  The two engineers I was working with were very nice. We talked about our families. I meant to say, "My parents hate the police" but instead I bellowed, "MY PARENTS HATE THE FUCKING PIGS!" I really didn't mean to shout it like that. There was a frozen silence then furtive checking in the corridor for errant policemen and women. No-one untoward heard so it was okay. My dad was probably laughing his bollocks off in heaven.

[actwithoutwords]

I'm guessing Quadraspazzed and Ciarán probably know this guy, and will presumably correct me if I have got this story wrong. But during the tenure of a certain former students union president in Trinity, Nelson Mandela paid a visit to the university, to receive an honourary degree I think. Anyway, this guy was a socialist, and with Bertie Ahern in attendence he decided he wanted to make an impact. As the entourage of cars left the college, this guy leapt out of the crowd and aimed a two fingered salute at what he thought was our prime minister's car.
You can fill in the blanks yourselves as to who it turned out he was flicking V's at...
Nice story to tell the grandkids isn't it?

[Godzilla Bankrolls]

It would have been better if one of the chaps said "I understand - my parents hate the fucking Paddies".

[Little Tommy Titter]

I was seeing a girl from Dover.
Just after the Townsend Thoresen disaster.
I was sitting at her dining room table, with her mum.
She came in, leaving the kitchen door open.
Mum says "Close the door, dear"
I say "Yeah. Close the door! We may sink! A-hur-a-hur-a-hur"
*silence*

[actwithoutwords]

Oh that reminds me. When I was working in HMV a few months ago, I served some guy who was clearly pissed and talking almost entirely incomprehensibly. This was all very awkward, and as I was trying to get the transaction over with as quickly as possible, he correctly guessed that I was Irish and started rambling about how he had lived in Ireland in the 80's Northern Ireland. My brain decided that the next question was to ask did he enjoy living there, which is my obvious stock response to anyone saying they visited/lived in Ireland. However before I got to ask this, he added the crucial information that he had been in the British Army. My brain nonetheless decided to discard this as irrelevant and pressed on with the previously decided on "So did you enjoy your time there?"
This met with a confused look and a predictable, "Well no not really to be honest" answer. I had no option but to mumble something incomprehensible that hopefully sounded sympathetic along the lines of "yes well of course that must have been horrible mumble mumble" hand him his metal CD's and go bright red.

[Little Hoover]

^ That reminds me of how I'll sometimes answer the question, I think people are going to ask me.

[Small Man Big Horse]

My dad was probably laughing his bollocks off in heaven.

There is no heaven.

Shit, I've just gone done one now!!!111

[petula dusty]

I was seeing a girl from Dover.
Just after the Townsend Thoresen disaster.
I was sitting at her dining room table, with her mum.
She came in, leaving the kitchen door open.
Mum says "Close the door, dear"
I say "Yeah. Close the door! We may sink! A-hur-a-hur-a-hur"
*silence*

I thought that was a limerick at first.

I was once chatting to someone at Uni and we were discussing our weight. I was a size 16 at the time and she looked slightly bigger than me I thought.  She then  mentioned how heavy she was and I exclaimed 'You weigh less than me??' then tried to backtrack by saying 'No, I just meant if you only weigh that much how huge must I look?'.  I've learnt that not speaking to anyone at all ever is a good way to avoid situations like that.

[non capisco]

I was doing a 'Frenchman' impression at work for reasons that I've now completley forgotten, when unbeknownst to me our French facilities manager was standing round the corner with some guy he was showing round the building, also French. There's no way he doesn't think I'm a small-minded idiot. I'm still baffled why this was never brought up.

[clareQuilty]

Probably saving it for your evaluation?

[mwude]

After university I returned home for a year or so to live with my nice mummy & daddy who cooked meals for me and provided a roof over my head at no charge.  So quite why in the middle of a friendly & relaxed chat I decided to let them know...

"I only live here cos it's rent-free you know"

...I'm not quite sure.  It was the truth, obviously, but perhaps not the most tactful thing I've ever said.

[Neville Chamberlain]

I'd have kicked you out there and then, you cheeky fucker!

[mook]

So would I, but not before I made you do the washing up and then kiss better your poor mothers noo-noo that you no doubt left in tatters as you made your ungrateful entry into the world. Either that or started charging you rent pretty sharpish.

[quadraspazzed]

I'm guessing Quadraspazzed and Ciarán probably know this guy, and will presumably correct me if I have got this story wrong.?

Actually I've never heard that story before. It's a good one! And I've no idea who the guy you're talking about is/was - looking on wikipedia I see Mandela got that award in 2000, at which point I was living in North Wales a long way aways from the intellectual bastion of Trinity.

Er, not that I've ever gone to Trinity other than to a-woo girlies. Well, once I wooed in Trinners.

I could fill a book with my foot-in-mouth moments, if only I didn't block them out of my memory. One of the worst I can remember was making an abortion joke in the presence of someone who had had an abortion (I didn't know she did).

[Big Jack McBastard]

This thread reminds me of a couple of Mitch Hedberg lines:

"You should never wave at someone you don't know, cos what if they don't have a hand? They'll think you're cocky, 'Look what I got mother fucker!'"

and

"You should never say someone has a nice dimple cos maybe they were shot in the face with a BB gun"

The realm of saying the wrong thing is usually my dad's in our house, asking fat women 'when it's due' and so forth, but I had one a year or so ago in our shop when I said 'Alright fella hang on minute' to a girl with a mans haircut. I stand by the fact that she needed to be told.

[Mister Six]

"You should never wave at someone you don't know, cos what if they don't have a hand? They'll think you're cocky, 'Look what I got mother fucker!'"

Am I the only one who tries not to run past people in wheelchairs in case it looks like I'm rubbing it in?

[Small Man Big Horse]

Speaking as someone currently in a wheelchair (only due to a broken leg fortunately), yes, yes you are.

[Oscar]

On the whole I'm missing the guilt chromosome that allows me to feel bad when I've said something wrong, in fact with most of my friends I tend to practice saying things as offensive as possible (and they say similar things back to me) which means I should be covered if I mistakenly step out of line.
I think everyone has a few trigger topics, that if you mention them or make a joke out of them they will be offended, but to be honest fuck that because there's no possible way to know.
It's fair enough to argue why you think a joke is wrong or to ask not to discuss a certain thing, but anyone who gets tetchy because someone else mentions one of their sensitive subjects in a "I can't believe you were sooo heartless when I have suffered blaah blaah" or "Well, actually you shouldn't make that joke because I knew some who blaah blaah" is, on the whole, being a bit of a tit.

disclaimer: this theory doesn't account for those genuine tourettes moments that we all have, where the wrong thing falls out of our mouths for no apparent reason, but then it's always possible to apologise and explain that it was such a moment.
disclaimer 2: It also doesn't apply to any bigotted comments or genuine insults.