Open Mouth, Insert Foot!!!

Again, I make a comment without thinking and don’t realize the consequences the comment may have. The phrase is “engage brain, open mouth.” I need to repeat that mantra over and over in my silly little head…

I still hadn’t decided about that mediation course, so I sent an email to the facility offering the training on Monday afternoon. I’m a little (ok, a lot) bit of a stickler about responding to texts and emails. If you contact me, I try to get back to you ASAP and I expect the same in return. Since this email was sent to a business, I surely expected to hear from them-by the end of Tuesday at the very least. By yesterday afternoon I still hadn’t heard anything back. More than angry at the lack of contact, my feelings get hurt and I think these people don’t like me and that’s why I don’t hear from them. Yes, that’s stupid and makes no sense, they’ve never even met me. As I left work yesterday, I used my nicest phone voice and left a voice mail for them, ensuring that they got my email.

By late morning today, I was getting mad that no one had returned my email or phone call, I had pretty much written the idea off. The deadline for signing up for the discounted rate is tomorrow. The training is expensive, so saving $200 is worth signing up early. Just as I was bitching them out in my head, my cell phone rang, which scared me. My cell  phone doesn’t ring, it sends and receives texts, but no one ever calls me. The number was unfamiliar to me and I answered… It was one of the women who teach the training.

She starts the phone call with an apology for taking so long to respond. She had seen my email, then got my voice mail but was traveling this week so her time was somewhat limited. I thanked her for calling me and said, “And I’m a bit of a stalker anyway.” My stalking abilities are somewhat impressive, but really not hilarious. That woman laughed like I just said the funniest thing in the world to her. We chatted quite a bit and I found that I really liked her. She’s knowledgeable and passionate about what she does for a living. It helped that she complimented me by saying she liked my humor and thinks humor is a good tool in this field.

Then she said something that took me by surprise. She laughed and said, “I think I may use your quote. If I remember, you said you were stalking us?” She laughed really hard and shared with me that she’s attending a “Violence Against Women” conference in Atlanta. Um, really?! I immediately apologized for being inappropriate with my stalker comment, and she laughed again and said it wasn’t inappropriate, it was funny. I guess I am used to people in this sort of field being sticklers for "political correctness." If my inappropriateness is construed as comic relief in this field, this might just be the place for me.

xoxo

Ice Princess