Good day, my fellow Social Distancers! I hope this post finds you all hale and hearty, and ready to be entertained at my expense! Yes! That’s what I said. You’d think that being stuck in Chez Badass all by my lonesome (Seashell Jesus, Placeholder the Dog, and Honey Valentine the Bear’s presences notwithstanding), I would have almost no opportunity to bring mortification upon myself.
Well, you would be wrong.
As some of you know, I live upstairs in a building that once housed a Post Office, and I rent the main floor out to a museum – the Fashion History Museum (FHM). The FHM is of course closed currently, but my tenants still come in every day to do the work necessary to maintain this high-calibre museum. Over the years I have become very fond of Kenn and Jonathan (Chair and Curator of the FHM respectively, and a lovely couple as well) and we have developed a friendship far outside the landlord/tenant paradigm.
We’ve talked a lot about the pandemic lately, as you can imagine (from a safe social distance, of course). Last week I joked with Kenn and Jonathan that I was rationing my favourite red wine, just in case it became impossible to keep “in stock” at Chez Badass as things progressed.
Imagine my glee and surprise then, when I ventured downstairs to check the mail and saw 2 bottles of the same placed by the stairs going up to my apartment.
I saw through the frosted glass doors that the lights were on in the museum, so I stuck my head in and excitedly sang out:
“Well, well! Looks like the Wine Fairy has been by and left me something!!!”
Jonathan (he of the quick wit) laughed easily and pretended to be offended, and only then did the full import of what I had just uttered hit me: I HAD JUST USED A WORD ALSO USED AS A GAY SLUR IN FRONT OF – AND IN RELATION TO – A GAY MAN.
Shit, shit, shit! How could I be so thoughtless!?! I immediately apologized while dying a little inside. And spent the rest of the day beating myself up for being such a dumbass.
I can laugh about this NOW – days later – especially since I know my innocent comment was received as just that.
Sigh. Only I could manage to commit such a faux pas – a social gaffe – of this magnitude, while distancing and isolating myself. It’s a gift; what can I say? 😉
How about you? Care to share a faux pas in the Comments section?
Rock on,
The WB
