Stupid Tuesday questions, Rachel Hunter edition

Russell Saunders

Russell Saunders is the ridiculously flimsy pseudonym of a pediatrician in New England. He has a husband, three sons, daughter, cat and dog, though not in that order. He enjoys reading, running and cooking. He can be contacted at blindeddoc using his Gmail account. Twitter types can follow him @russellsaunder1.

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46 Responses

  1. Glyph says:

    Mine is actually somewhat similar to yours – workplace, female co-worker, Journey instead of Rod Stewart.

    She turned out to be not just the head of the local fan club, but actually was acquainted with Steve Perry and had socialized with him a little bit.

    Luckily, I hadn’t been too mean – just a few jokes about feathered hair and jeans/tux jacket combos, but I had not ragged on the music or anything (one of the first albums I ever bought was Journey). We ended up getting along fine.

    And I’m with ya on Rod (although in addition to the excellent “MM”, “Young Turks” is also good).

    Plus, there’s a probably apocryphal quote of his re: marriage/divorce that’s pretty funny:

    “Instead of getting married again, I’m going to find a woman I don’t like, and just give her a house.”Report

    • Glyph in reply to Glyph says:

      Another one, from the period when I was convinced Larry David was secretly filming my life for story ideas:

      Dinner party at the house of a friend we had not seen in a while, and his wife (who we’d never met before).

      Their house is FULL of Madonna (OG, not MG – that is, The Virgin, not Like A) tchotchkes – statues, paintings, etc. in every nook and cranny.

      Not knowing whether these indicated a genuine (and apparently fervent-bordering-on-obsessive) religious belief, or were just a collection (perhaps academic, or kitsch/hobby/interest), I asked about one painting, where it appeared Tori Amos had been used as the model; all the while inwardly congratulating myself on cleverly avoiding THAT minefield.

      Upon which our hostess informed us, no, that was a painting of HER (the hostess) – and, the artist who’d painted it was sitting right next to ME, observing this whole exchange.

      So I managed to sort of insult the hostess, and definitely insult the artist, in one fell swoop (since the hostess looked NOTHING like Tori Amos).Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Glyph says:

      So weird; someone told me that one just last night as a Robin Williams quote.Report

    • Tod Kelly in reply to Glyph says:

      @glyoh “Mine is actually somewhat similar to yours – workplace, female co-worker, Journey instead of Rod Stewart.”

      I’m not sure that’s something you need to feel bad about. If she was a Journey fan and knew Steve Perry, she had no one to blame but herself. Some people you just can’t help.Report

    • LeeEsq in reply to Glyph says:

      Socializing with him a little bit? Is that what they’re calling it now?Report

  2. J@m3z Aitch says:

    Sitting at the head of a table in a dining hall talking about accents, and mentioning how a Texas accent made a person sound stupid to me, only to realize that staring directly at me from the opposite end of the table was a friend who was from Texas. There’s just no walking that back. You apologize and confess that you’re the stupid one.Report

  3. Chris says:

    when have you ever performed a dental procedure on yourself with your own foot?

    Do you mean today? This week? How long have you got?

    Also, my mother will change the radio station upon hearing even one note or chord of a Rod Stewart song.Report

  4. BlaiseP says:

    Rod Stewart, in the context of the Jeff Beck Group, was a tremendous singer. Thereafter, he does nothing for me. Jeff Beck was such a jerk — fine player when he’s in the mood and has the right people around him — Rod Stewart was a decent enough man, brought a working-class sensibility to his craft, no snottiness about him.

    I tend more towards Jeff Beck than Rod Stewart. But Jeff Beck is such an unpleasant human being. Beck’s music is unreliable and uneven, flashes of brilliance here and there but too fussy and mannered.

    Rod Stewart’s hits were overplayed and he’s become a bit of a parody of himself since the 90s. Nonetheless, knowing some people who’ve worked for him, Rod Stewart transcended his genre, coming to terms with the blues in his own unique way, something every musician or artist should strive for, becoming himself.Report

  5. Reformed Republican says:

    My company used to be small and family-owned. At one point, I got the task of updating our MSDS. We had gotten proofs back from the printer, and they had screwed up pretty badly. I was talking with the sales manager and I was complaining about how bad they were, and I said something to the effect of “whoever did this must be a relative of someone, or else they gave us a really good deal.” He never said anything. A year or so later, I discovered his wife did the printing.

    I do not know if he remembers this or not. I would never bring it up. He has become one of my better friends at work, so it is water under the bridge either way.Report

  6. BlaiseP says:

    It’s a longish train ride from Chicago to Elgin, especially if it’s not the express. As people will, a bunch of us tended to sit in the same place, same group. Two bench seats face each other, four people. One group in the morning, another in the evening. Still have some friends from those days.

    I’m going home. Three of the four usuals were in our places, a newcomer was in the fourth seat. The subject of clean jokes had come up. Dirty jokes are awfully funny, a good many of them, but could a joke be both clean and funny? We dug around in our inventory of jokes, summoned up a few clean ones, tried to rate them.

    Came my turn. This was the joke I told.

    Three little old ladies with Alzheimer’s Disease lived in the same home. A sheltered situation, with helpers, but a nice enough situation. The first little old lady is walking up the stairs. Comes to the landing, where it takes a left-hand turn, has a little spell and says “Was I going up the stairs, or was I going down the stairs?”

    Second little old lady is sitting on a straight back chair beside her bed, getting dressed. Looks at her feet, has a little spell and asks “Was I taking my shoes and socks off, or was I putting my shoes and socks on?”

    Third little old lady is sitting downstairs at the kitchen table, drinking a cup of coffee. Hears these two old women — “Was I going up the stairs, or was I going down the stairs?” — “Was I taking my shoes and socks off, or was I putting my shoes and socks on?”

    “Thank God I’m not losing my mind like those two old birds, knock on wood.” (Knock, knock)

    “Now was that the front door, or was that the back door?”

    — the newcomer glares at me. “MY MOTHER HAS ALZHEIMER’S DISEASE”Report

  7. Burt Likko says:

    There was the time I called out my client’s name in the hallway, walked up to the person who identified herself, and then explained my entire strategy to her. She stood there and listened and after I explained that it would be about two weeks until I could have the deadbeat tenant out on the street, she said, “Well, you should probably explain that to your own client, who’s down the hall. I’m the deadbeat.”Report

  8. NewDealer says:

    You know what? I’m sure I’ve done this many times but I can’t think of a specific instance right now along the Rod Stewart lines. But I am sure my cultural snobbery has gotten me into trouble like this before.

    But there are a lot of times when I wonder when something I’ve said is an issue of being an absolute blunderbus or a non-response to something means I’ve pissed someone off and they are not telling me. Usually they are just busy or distracted and all is well. I dislike non-response.Report

  9. Mike Schilling says:

    There was the time I saw a co-worker dressed exceptionally well, and joked “You must have a job interview after work. Either that or you’re going to a funeral.”

    Yup.Report

  10. Tod Kelly says:

    Two moments come to mind. One I’ve already written about. The other:

    When I was in my early to mid-twenties, one of the first of my friends to get married and his wife bought a sweet but wee starter home. They had a house warming after they moved in, and my friend’s in-laws and I were the first to arrive. They gave a tour, and seemed pretty apologetic about the size of their house. (Goodness knows why – the rest of us were all still in apartments smaller than their house.) After the tour my friend, his wife, her parents and I stood having a glass of wine in their kitchen, and my friend kind of apologized once again for how tiny the house was.

    “Please, stop apologizing,” I said. “I think it’s amazing you guys have a house at all – you’re so much farther ahead than the rest of us.” Everyone agreed, and if I’d been smart I would have left it there.

    Sadly, I was an idiot and so I added, “Besides, you guys are just starting out. It’s not like you’re middle aged and live in a mobile home.” Everything got really quiet, and suddenly without being told I just knew that the wife’s parents lived in a mobile home.

    Scrambling to make things better, I added, “Of course, a lot of mobile homes are really, really, nice and a great value. I wasn’t talking about ALL people who live in mobile homes, of course. Just, like, the ones that have plastic slip covers over their furniture.” As soon as it was out of my mouth, it hit me that they were also going to have plastic slip covers over their furniture. Which they did. Of course they did.

    I left the party very, very early.Report

    • Mike Schilling in reply to Tod Kelly says:

      “But, you know, some people don’t care that much about material things. I admire that. It’s not like you lost all your savings in some stupid Ponzi scheme.”Report

  11. BlaiseP says:

    I’m the kind of idiot who takes cultural mores rather more seriously than he ought to. Badly embarrassed an American coworker in the Panasonic cafeteria. Shouldn’t even tell this story, it makes me wince to even remember it.

    The cafeteria serves mostly Japanese food. You get a bowl of rice with pretty much everything. And of course, it’s mostly chopsticks. We’re all sitting at one of the communal tables, an American is eating with chopsticks — and shoves his chopsticks into the rice, to hold them up.

    Japanese wouldn’t do that. The only time you put chopsticks in rice that way is when you’re making a Shinto offering to the dead. So I point this out to the American, who gets sort of indignant — and asks my (Japanese) boss — “is that true, not to put your chopsticks in the rice?”

    My boss, Kohata-san, blushes with embarrassment. “Yes, it’s true.” And my co-worker blushes with embarrassment. Now I’ve managed to embarrass two people. And I get embarrassed. And we all three sit there for a minute, just dying a bit…..Report

  12. Kazzy says:

    FWIW, I teach my kids to use the phrase “not for me” when discussing something they do not like. It focuses on the personal nature of preferences and allows for others to enjoy without judgement.

    As for putting my foot in my mouth? Every goddamn day. I’ll think of a particularly good example later.Report

  13. Damon says:

    I asked a cute young thing to one of my HS Proms and during the convo I said something with “my woman” in it when I meant “my date” or some such. Things were a bit frosty from then on and I heard back through the grapevine that she was pissed at me for the comment.

    That’s the first time I remember really putting foot in mouth. I’ve done it too many times to count since then….Report