Regrets

I've done & said some really dumb things in my life. No, really. I have. I sometimes do this thing where I don't THINK before I SPEAK. I know, weird. I've decided to compile a list of some of those things I regret saying/doing (because I've done one recently). This is so you may learn from my mistakes and not endure the embarrassment, discomfort and sleepless nights I've endured because of my behavior. I asked Gty to help me remember some of them and he said "Oh geez, I could write a book with all the stuff you say." I'm pretty sure that is rude.

The first one I can think of dates back to my 5th grade year, Mrs. McCormick's class, Garfield Elementary. For whatever reason the entire class had lost their privilege to go outside for recess this regrettable day. We were all supposed to have our heads down on our desks. I look over at my BFF and she is discreetly giving Mrs. McCormick "the bird" under her desk. I find this to be hilarious. Not to be out done, I decide to be even bolder in my birding of Mrs. McCormick. I rested my elbow on my knee (so my head was still kinda down), put my chin on my hand and put up my middle finger so it was up on my lips like I was saying "Sssshhhh" but with my middle finger. I thought I was so bold. So funny. So gettin' away with murder! That is, until I hear Mrs. McCormick's voice... "Landee, will you please stay after class today?" OH MY GOSH! I almost died. I NEVER got into trouble. Never. I was beyond mortified. After class was done I remained behind....

Mrs. McCormick: Landee.... do you not like me?
Me: I totally like you! Why?
MM: Because when people do this ::holding up her middle finger:: to someone, it means they don't like them.
Me: ::getting over shock of seeing a teacher flip the bird:: Oh, well, uh... I wasn't doing that TO you! I always sit like that! I mean, when I'm at home, that's how I watch TV...and uh, you can totally even ask my mom! Seriously. I do.

Luckily for me she let it go and never asked my mom. If she had told my mom, I may not be here retelling this story today. Not even kidding. My big regrets here are 1)finding the bird to be funny. I still struggle with that today. 2) Trying to out-do my BFF for a laugh. This is what normally gets me in trouble. 3) Lying about it. I should have just fessed up & said sorry. She probably would have respected me for it.

Next, let's fast forward to about 1998. Gty and I had been married about 2 years. We are at his parents' house and looking through some old pictures. We come across one of Gty when he was about 17 years old. He had been working at Bear Lake all summer. He had the cutest blonde surfer hair cut. He was tan. His shirt was off & he had a serious six pack. I then say "Geesh, if you looked like this I'd wanna {bite pillows} with you everyday!" Now, in all honestly, I thought he'd take that as a complement of his 1989 look. But really he took it as a slam against his 1998 look. In retrospect, I guess I can see why. Oopsy! I regret this because I really should have thought through the many ways that could have been interpreted before I said it. But mostly because Gty has brought it up on a bi-monthly basis ever since then. "Remember when you said that if I looked like that...." If you're doing the math it's been 10 years of hearing about this 3 second slip-up. Regrettable indeed.

I'm at a meeting for the kids' school and a guy from our ward shows up. We give each other a high-five & shoot the sheesh for a minute. Another lady at the meeting goes "Oh, is this your husband?" Suddenly it's all awkward and stuff because we were both like "Uh, no." So I think I need to break the palpable awkwardness in the air a little so I go, "Oh, he wishes!" He wishes??? WHY MUST I DO THESE THINGS?? That only multiplied the awkwardness by about 100, btw. All he could do was kind of look down & not say anything, of course. I wanted to crawl under a rock.

So I had just been called as Enrichment Leader in Ohio. Attendance for Enrichment had been waaaay down. I didn't know why no one was going but my main goal was to get people there. For my first Enrichment I advertised the heck out of it. I put up posters, handed out individual invitations, called people, etc. Well, my hard work had paid off. There were TONS of people there. I was so excited. When it was my turn to say a few things about what we would be doing that night I stood up and proceeded to say, "Wow! It is so fun to see so many people here....can you feel the winds of change?" First of all, that is a dumb saying. Second of all, the lady who was previously the leader was sitting right there. Why do I say lame stuff like that? The second I said it I knew it was a rude thing to say. Why can't I think of this before I say it? Then, that lady left early. I don't know if it was because she was offended or not but I definitely interpreted it that way. I literally felt sick to my stomach over this for days. But I didn't want to call her and apologize because what if she totally didn't even think anything of it? Ugh. I hate even thinking about that now.

In this same ward there were some issues between the Primary President and her counselor (I was the other counselor). After a big Primary activity where some obvious issues were unearthed between these two the president called me to see if I had talked to the other counselor about it, what her deal was, etc. For whatever reason I thought I'd just tell it like it was at this moment and said "Well, the thing is that you kind of grate on people." It was one of those lapses in judgement where I thought honesty would be the best policy. I was dead wrong. We finished the conversation. She hung up and bawled. Her husband had to call Gty to try and smooth things over. It was really bad. Our relationship was never the same again. I now know that in those kinds of situations, honesty is rarely the best policy. I wasn't going to change anyone being that way but I definitely hurt some feelings and damaged relationships. I fretted over this for a looooong time.

My final regret (that I can think of right now) was when Gty & I were living in NY. We were at some friends' home for a party. Gty was going on with some bit of his where he thought it'd be funny to just put cans of pumpkin pie filling out on the front porch rather than actual pumpkins sometime for Halloween. Everyone was laughing & having a good time and for reasons I cannot explain I said "Hey Gty... take it down a notch, eh?" I guess he was getting too much attention? I don't know. What I do know is 5 minutes later he was across the room shooting daggers with his eyes at me and mouthing "LET'S GO." Yikers. I knew I was in trouble. We got in the car and drove half way home in silence. Then I ask "Why are you so mad?" He goes "Guess." Me, "Take it down a notch?" "You got it." I regret this obviously because it was rude but I am so glad it happened on a relatively small scale because I learned a huge lesson that night about how to treat your husband in public. I'm not sure why I didn't just KNOW that, but I didn't. I say I'm "naturally bratty." Poor Gty has had to retrain me all these years.

So that's it. I hope you have learned some things through my mistakes. My only saving grace is that these regrets are becoming more and more rare as I get older. Either that or I just don't realize I'm being offensive any more.