Open mouth and insert foot

I think I put my foot in my mouth this evening. I was talking to Fleur and I was supportive of her and not as supportive of Geoff. What I said was true but it was the end of the day and I think that my timing was off. It was one of those things where I saw the reaction and thought, "Oh shit". It will probably blow over and I know that everyone is sensitive right now because they're tired and frazzled, including me. Actually, I'm surprised that I haven't got into hot water before this considering that it has been going on for more than a year already. Maybe my batting average isn't so bad.

It's left me thinking about what we choose to see and what we choose not to. Don't we all do it? Even if we may be able to see a 'truth' at a later date, we may not be able to see it, or hear it, the first time it's pointed out. Hell, it may never be pointed out. Especially in hind sight, the 'truth' may have been so obvious that we can't imagine how we didn't see it all on our own. When your mother says to you, 'Time will tell', well it it really does!

There have been a few times in my life when I wished the floor would just open up and swallow me. In one of my jobs, the company decided that they were going to lay off one of the management staff. They were trying to decide when they would do it and eventually told me the date. I had his assistant in one of my ongoing workshops and I had to talk to her for some reason. I walked into her office a day after it was supposed to have been done and said something commiserating to her. She looked at me strangely and asked what I meant, and I knew something was wrong.

It turned out that they had decided to offer him early retirement instead and they had only done it that morning. I couldn't say that they had originally meant to lay him off but had changed their minds so I had to do a fancy two-step and try to extricate my foot from my mouth. It turned out that senior management had forgotten to tell me what was going on. I had egg all over my face that day and looked like a complete idiot.

Something that plagues me more frequently is the 'frog jumping out of my mouth and landing, splat, in the middle of the butter dish on the table' scenario. I used to do it quite often when I was a child, before I knew I was picking anything up psychically. I would open my mouth, with no intention of saying anything significant, and make a comment or ask an 'innocent' question and bam, the unexpected reaction would come and I'd be left scratching my head. Most of you will know this about me.

You'd think that with age and experience I'd be able to control this but it isn't always the case. It's in the nature of this sort of comment that it comes without warning and without intent. In such instances I suppose I'm just the pipe through which the water flows. I'm slightly hesitant to say it but this hasn't happened to me for a while. Perhaps it's tempting fate to mention it!

Ah well, suffice to say that it happens to the best of us and be forgiving of myself. Perspective is all Lucca, perspective is all.