Have you ever felt like your life is just one big typo? I never have, but I thought I’d ask anyway—since I thought of it. Maybe you’ve at least felt that you have a unique ability when it comes to bloopering and blundering? I don’t know that I’ve ever felt exactly that way either, but that’s closer.
These questions aren’t getting me to my paragraph-destination as quickly as I thought they would. Point is, I’ve made a number of stupid mistakes in my day and I have a list to prove it. They’re mostly small things—the kind that you revisit over and over and over (and over) and over again in your head, thinking of the numerous ways you could have avoided them or half mended them at the time. And the worst of it is, most of them never really mattered in the first place. Ah! You’re smiling. I knew you’d identify.
So I sat up last night compiling this list that highlights my abundant lack (if you can have an abundant lack) of sophistication, and I found I had even less of it (sophistication, that is) than I thought I had previously.
Did I ever tell you about the time that a few friends and I were getting ready to record a song on Audacity? We decided to lay down a metronome beat first. Simple. We would just put the metronome up next to the microphone and hit record. The only thing left would be to wait, listen, and be quiet. Except, we didn’t factor in how difficult it can be to stay quiet in a situation like this. You know how it is: everything funny is ten times funnier, even if it wasn’t funny. Mid-way through I was struck with a brilliant idea. If I were to turn off the microphone while we were recording, we could be as loud as we wanted! I acted on this thought immediately, and almost as immediately had a second thought. Okay, I had a second thought as soon as they asked me what in the world I was doing. So I may not be the brightest star in the sky. Especially after 9pm. Or at least there’s a rumor spreading around town that I turn into a pumpkin at about 9:05 every night. I let you be the judge on that one.
And of course there are those absolutely unintelligent things that I’ve said, which are the worst. Like the time my voice teacher listened to me say that 6×2 is 14. Yes, I seriously said that! And to make matters worse, this happened just last year. I did know better, I promise. It was one of my first lessons and I was a bit nervous. When she put me on the spot my brain completely froze up. It was so embarrassing! Talk about giving homeschooling a bad name.
Once, when my dad’s car was new, my neighbor-friend’s mom asked me what kind of car we had bought. I told her that I couldn’t remember, but I thought it was either a Toyota or a Camry. Little did I know that it was actually a “Toyota Camry.” She told me as much, and I took the liberty of mentally supplying the, “you dummy,” to her sentence, whether she meant it or not.
And once upon a time when I was young enough that my mom was drying my hair for me, she made some comment about my hair and asked what kind of conditioner I had used. When I told her I had used “hairball” conditioner, of course that didn’t sound right. So I made a trip to the bathroom to retrieve the herbal conditioner.
My brother and I used to attend quite a few classical concerts, back when we were young enough to get in free. Friends of Chamber Music still gives that sweet deal to students 18 and under. So we went regularly enough to these that we felt a bit artsy, or at least at home with the artsy crowd. Until the time one lovely, soothing piece of music was interrupted by the most glaring, bone-rattling, ugly tune you’ve ever heard, coming from . . . my purse! I totally forgot about that cell phone my mom handed me when we walked out the door. I dumbly, furiously, hopelessly and helplessly clutched at my purse hoping to stifle the noise. But it was no use. Bryan was forced to come to the rescue in a dramatic way. He grabbed my purse from my hand and sprinted through the door of the auditorium to safety (cell phone still ringing all the while.) They had some free snacks and juice for after the concert, but we didn’t stick around.
You know I’m hopeless when I make a biscuit-topped chicken pot pie and accidentally leave out the chicken, and the cream of chicken soup. Plus the biscuits were doughy. And of course I picked a day to do it when Mr. Burchett was eating with us. It’s one of those recipes you ought not to be able to mess up—all you really do is open up cans and assemble—but I failed miserably.
This is not even half of my list. I may continue it some other time.
By the way, feel free to fess-up to your own blunders in a comment. I’d enjoy reading them.
Or does my audience not blunder?
Awesome, Laura!
Ha, you already know all about many of my blunders.
Laura,
I really like your honesty. It’s a little bit refreshing to hear a blog post where one willing voices the hard facts and doesn’t tiptoe around them. I will admit I have had my fare share of blunders. Just recently I was asked the time. The little hand was barely touching the seven-O’clock mark and the big hand was just past the fifty-five marker. So, to any normal human, the time would have read 6:56. But, I, being the smart one that I am, spoke before I thought. “It is aproximately six till seven”. About, all of a second passed by before my obvious, stupid mistake was realized. I’ve also flunked a history test my co-workers put me through. They asked simple, pre-school questions, I responded, they laughed, and I blushed.
Jacob, am I understanding correctly that you simply stated the time two minutes slow? I’ve been reading your comment over for like the last five minutes trying to figure out how this situation could be classified as a bad mistake
I’d share some of my own stories, but I don’t seem to find the time these days. Maybe sometime I’ll write a blog post about ‘em.
Is that a smiling face I see in your comment, Amy?
Laura, do I really have to say anything about my blunders in life? I truly think of myself as one of life’s greatest blunders…but hey, it keeps things interesting
Thanks for the post, it sure made me smile
Sarah–yes, you have identified correctly a smiley face in my comment. I will freely admit to you, I have (to a degree) changed from my previous opinion of smileys. They may be found in my writings these days much more than you might expect.
I still don’t like to use them excessively, nor am I fond of them turning yellow, as these do, but I am not nearly so opposed to them in general as I once was =)