Knuckle Head Speaks

Over my last two shifts, I've had an pretty interesting run of saying stupid things. Not the customers saying stupid things, but me. Which is particularly disturbing for me, because you see, I was a latch-key kid who, due to the beauty of syndicated reruns, watched about two hours of M*A*S*H per day, so I've prided myself of having a Hawkeye Pierce like ability to wield the witty bon mot. When I make knuckle-head comments, well it's even more devastating than it might be for others.

Comment One:
I'm waiting on an eight top made up of a nice family - Parents, grandparents, teenage boy and girl. So the mom likes bantering with me. At dessert time, I tell them we are out of cheesecake, the teenage girl groans saying that is what she was wanting. I make an apology, joke a bit, the girl goes with chocolate cake, to which I reply,
"Oh, the chocolate cake is better anyway."
The girl says, "Whatever," in a joking way.
The mom says, "You must be off your game if can't fool a fourteen-year-old."
In my head I'm thinking they know I'm a Junior High teacher.
I say, "I spend my whole day trying to fool fourteen-year-old girls!"
Silence followed by nervous laughter.
I realize I never mentioned being a teacher, it was another table I had that conversation with.

Awkward!

Before they left, I worked into the conversation that I was a teacher. But still, I felt like an idiot.

Comment Two:
I was waiting on a nice couple at breakfast Saturday. While waiting for their food to come, I stopped to see if they wanted more coffee. They said they were good.
I said, "Don't want too much coffee huh? You'll get all jittery."
Well, once the food comes, I notice the gentleman's arms and head jerking all over as he eats. Clearly, he has Parkinson's or some similar illness.
As this dawned on me, it dawned on me too that I had inadvertently told someone with Parkinson's to watch out for the jitters. Nice.