Foot in Mouth Disease

by Tonia

"Don't put your foot in your mouth, because then you can't talk...and you can't walk." - Milton Heide

Putting your foot in your mouth is not to be confused with shooting yourself in the foot – although, if particularly skilled, I think you could probably do both. I have done both.

Recently I walked into my hair salon without an appointment and asked if I could get a hair cut and a blow job. Embarrassing, but at least I didn’t scream out the wrong lover’s name during an orgasm. The receptionist ignored me and my hair dresser threatened to hold my head under water at the wash basin. 

Another time during graduate school, I needed an author’s permission to use a questionnaire, but found out that he had passed away. In frustration, I whipped off an email to my professors stating that I was going to have to hold a séance to get permission from the GD dead author. One of my committee members responded – she gave permission. It was her deceased husband who was the author of the questionnaire. I wanted to drop dead.

The next story didn’t happen to me – but to a friend of mine in high school. She had applied to several colleges but was desperate to get into Cornell. She thought about Cornell her every waking moment. She finally got an interview on campus, and was nervously lining out things to say. She planned on asking, “How many of your students go on to get a master's degree?" Instead she said, "How many of your students masturbate?" Needless to say, she did not get in.

If putting your foot in your mouth could earn air miles, I think it might look something like this:

Putting foot in mouth                         1,000 miles

Swallowing pride                               5,000 miles

Opening a can of worms                 10,000 miles

Picking up the pieces                         2 free trips 

I know I can’t possibly be the only one gnawing on my toes. One of the great things about girlfriends is that you can share these stories without judgment – just an acknowledged “been there, done that” laugh. Tell us your foot-in-mouth stories.

And, at your next girlfriends’ get together, ask your friends to write down some of their verbal faux pas on index cards. Make sure that they include their names. Read these out loud without the names and see who can guess which girlfriend belongs to each big mouth blunder. Create a Foot-in-Mouth Award for the biggest blunder.

And, if you’re feeling particularly creative, make some of these chocolate and peanut butter feet candies. Simply buy the mold, melt the candy (I like the microwaveable kind), pour into the mold. Stick it in the freezer for a couple of minutes and then pop them out!