Sometimes the wrong words slip out. We can't take them back, though we wish we could. But saying the wrong thing usually makes for a good story.
freg35 asked Reddit: What is the biggest "I shouldn't have said that" moment you've ever had RIGHT AFTER you said it?
Submissions have been edited for clarity, context, and profanity.
Could be worse.
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I was picking up my daughter from my wife who was in a meeting for work. The meeting consisted of a bunch of the managers from the local area and the district manager was doing the meeting. We both work at the same company so I know who he is and he's a great guy that is pretty personable. On my way out of the meeting room he says to me, "See ya later, dad."
Just out of pure instinct to say something funny, the words "That's daddy to you" slipped out.
That's not embarrassing, that's just funny.
Don't call your wife a potato.
My wife and I were going somewhere...
W- "Do I look OK?"
She was wearing brownish capris, a light colored camisole, and a brownish shirt over it...
I tried to come up with something cute and brown...
Me- "Like a potato."
It is now the basis for all clothing related questions.. 20-ish years later...
W- "Do I look like a potato in this?"
B- but a cute potato. A tater tot
Edit: I love you stranger. I'm happy my internal monologue made ya happy.
When men should just say nothing...
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Not me, but my boss and I were riding up the elevator. I was 6 months pregnant at the time and it was obvious (2nd kids shoo). There was also another pregnant lady standing right next to me, then another lady who appeared pregnant. My boss who is a very nice lady said "oh look at you three standing there!" The one on the end said, "Oh, I'm just fat."
Cue exit, stage left.
My friend's mom has a bit of a tummy and whenever she would get asked when she was due she would tell people that she had just miscarried and not lost the weight yet. Made more of an impression than if she told them it was a rude question to ask.
I'm just cackling.
Almost nailed it.
A number of years ago, my wife was complaining about being overweight. She wasn't overweight at all. In an attempt to comfort her, I put a hand on her shoulder and said 'you'd be perfect if I was blind.' Her reaction was not what I had in mind.
Good try.
Oh, no no.
I'm adopted.
I was in trouble and told my mom she she couldn't punish me because "she isn't my real mom".
The look on her face made me feel worse than any punishment. INSTANT regret.
Fellow adoptee.
I said this way more times than I care to think. I also said something along the lines of wishing a different family adopted me. Little brat.
But I think every parent knows their kids are ungrateful punks. Even non-adopting parents get hit with the "I hate you"s.
I genuinely think adoptive parents should be told to expect their kids to say this, even if they have a great relationship with their kids. Just the nature of being a kid.
I'm an adoptive parent. Can confirm, we're ready for our kid to say this someday. Not that it probably wouldn't hurt to actually hear it for the first time, but I'm not going to be shocked and astounded or furious or anything like that. It's just kid stuff. My kid is allowed to express his emotions, and he's bound to sometimes mess up and say hurtful things as he's learning how to be a person in the world.
Close enough.
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During my wedding ceremony I said "with Lusting devotion" instead of LASTING devotion..... I mean, both phrases work..... I don't mind having to commit to lusting devotion for the rest of my married life.
Wedding vows are the best time for verbal fails. My husband promised his fatality instead of his fidelity!
FINISH HIM!
Snails are delicious.
I told the toddlers at my work whilst in the yard "Fun fact; some people eat snails like that one" Cue me running around stopping children under my care from eating snails.
You done f*cked up.
This is sad.
My mum was in hospital. As it turns out, she would never leave the hospital. But at this stage she was sick but not THAT sick.
She had a private room with a little enclosed garden outside. She had a blue tongue lizard who lived in the garden and she would pass her long day's watching the lizard scurry around and catch bugs and lazing in the sun.
She would tell us every time we visited what the lizard had been up to. The funny things it had done and made her smile during the day. She lit up when telling me about its adventures.
One day when I came in to visit, the blue tongue was out the front of her room in the car park. It had been hit by a car and killed.
I went to visit mum and she was very sad - she hadn't seen her friend the lizard all day.
I said to her "oh yeah I saw him out in the car park - he won't be back - he got run over by a car."
As soon as I said it, I tried to suck the words back in. But I couldn't.
Her face crashed. She was crushed. I tried to say maybe it was another lizard or that her lizard would be back - but it was no good. The damage was done.
A week later she died. She had been in the hospital for 3 months and was getting better they thought. But this day, she just died. They thought she had just given up.
That was in 1996. 22 and a bit years ago. And I still wake from sleep "thinking" about that. I still shudder every time I recall how stupid I had been. I'm now a 50 year old man and I can never and will never forgive myself for that stupid statement. It still makes me cry.
Don't beat yourself up! I think it would make your mother more sad that you were so torn up about this than she was about her lizard. It's unfortunate. A lot of people seem like they are getting better in the weeks or days before they die, you didn't cause that to happen. And consider if you hadn't told her. She would have just sat there waiting for her little lizard to come back, not knowing. That would have been just as difficult and sad for her, if not worse. You must be a very caring person to be so upset by that. I know it is so hard to lose a person that you cared for dearly, but please give yourself a break.
Didn't see it coming.
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I was at a rehearsal with a blind opera singer, accompanying her as part of a string quartet. The venue was pretty cramped, and they didn't bring any stands for the music, so they set them up on chairs. I didn't bring my glasses that day, and was squinting a little bit to read the music, so the audio technician asks me if the setup is ok. To which I reply:
"It's ok, I'm just blind"
The worst part is, everyone gives me a weird look, but I keep on trucking cause I didn't even realize. Until ten minutes later when I get the realization that I called myself blind in front of an actually blind person...
She was very nice about it, but it was still mortifying.
I'm visually impaired, and have several blind friends. Relax. People do this all the time. We don't mind.
I was out front of my house with my kid and he wasn't listening so I said something like "jeez what are you, deaf or something?"... not noticing until it was too late that my across the street deaf neighbor was out front too.
I actually started to go apologize and then a split second later I realized she didn't hear me anyways. She could read lips though so that would have been awkward as fuck if I'd actually gone over and tried to explain myself 🤦♀️
Let's hope we don't have to find out.
Business school interview over Skype. They were very interested in a global conference I was helping organise and suddenly asked, "What would you do in the event of a terrorist attack?"
Blanked out. First thing out of my mouth was, "Well, the event's going to be a bomb."
I didn't get in.
The hell is supposed to be the answer? "Die?"
"Which side am i on?"
Face palm
I made someone cry by accident.
A friend of mine told me her grandmother passed away recently. And how much she was struggling to cope with that.
So, later that day we were discussing about a school related project with some other friends. We were not going to finish our project before the deadline, so I jokingly said: "Well, what if we pretend someone's family member died, and that's why we couldn't focus that well."
Right after saying that I looked at my friend who began to tear up a bit. I immediately thought: "oh shit that's right.. I'm an idiot.".
Hey, it could have been worse. At least you didn't follow it up with "Oh, that's right, we don't need to pretend!".
"Because your grandma's dead, isn't she? Cold and dead and buried."
Date Night
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Me and my friends were having a group photo session for prom at one of our houses. Everyone's parents were there taking photos of their daughters or sons with the dates they had. I was going alone and one of the parents asked me who I was going with. I immediately blurted out "My right hand". Dads were holding back laughter, moms were standing there shocked. Good times all round.
More Studying
In my middle school music class we were studying the Underground Railroad. Our teacher asked us to name famous African Americans from the period. My hand goes up. Now, I had the image of Harriet Tubman in my mind. I still have no idea why I said what I was about to. Teacher calls on me. I answer, "Martha Stewart". Class roars with laughter.
I can't remember exactly where I was, probably school I think, but there was a group of us playing some kind of trivia game. When the group was asked "who was the first person to walk on the moon?" Without really thinking I blurred out "Neil Young!" I was immediately aware of the mistake I had committed but the damage was done.
Doh
I did something similar. When I was in high school, I had a part time job at a store. One day, probably in April or something, a girl I hadn't seen for a while came to my register with her mom. As I was ringing them up, I tried to make conversation.
"Haven't seen you at school recently. Have you picked your university yet?"
She sort of looked away and mumbled "I don't go to school anymore." Her mom looked pretty embarrassed.
My stupid sheltered, education-first-and-foremost ass hadn't even taken into account that some people might not have an answer to that question. I rang them up as quickly as possible and vowed never to ask it again. I didn't see her after that. She wasn't in high school anymore and likely hadn't been for some time. I didn't see her at graduation, either. I felt pretty badly for putting her on the spot like that at the store.
That said, I'd probably feel worse about it if she hadn't spent what felt like every waking moment from sixth grade onward bullying the shit out of me. Ah well.
That No Fun-eral
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I went to my uncles funeral a couple of days ago. As we were about to leave to go to it, we were wondering what family would be there.
Without thinking I said "I wonder if uncle Steve will be there."
That's who the funeral was for. Right away, I was like omg no why did I say that.