How many statements have you wanted to retract in a lifetime? For me, I’ve got about five to seven zingers. None of them were intended to be hurtful. My parents (while able to balance most things) stopped at mean talking, though now that I think of it there were rides home from parties sprinkled with a few did you see what the hell she was wearing? Does she think she’s a teenager?
So one day we’re in a department store shopping. There was this hideous orange dress with a flower representing every color God’s been able to create to date. I point to it and say check out this mess of a dress to my mother whose face immediately starts getting blotchy. Another woman down the aisle was goggling at it like it was the solution to the tiny black dress. Now even though my mother would have said the exact same thing had she seen it first she glared at me saying let’s move on Jeffrey.
Once behind a rack of bras, she went off. Do you have any awareness of other people’s feelings?
Well I explained I wasn’t insinuating the woman was a mess, just the dress she was looking at. Oh, that’s different then, she said.
So we finish up shopping and are walking out of the store. We spot the woman with hideous dress in a garment bag to which my mother says man, I can’t believe she had the poor judgment to buy that hideous thing just when the woman’s car ran out of gas and things got awkwardly silent.