ON REGRET:

I have a pretty good memory. I tend to remember things beyond the time I should. In addition, I'm bored a surprising amount of the time. So I have ample opportunity to review stupid things I've said or done.

Example one: I was working at Walgreens. I had spent about twenty minutes on the phone with a repair technician, trying to get our front register working again. The person on the phone said they would call back in the afternoon to check and see if things were working.

Things weren't working, so when they called back, I took the call. And I remember this:

ME: I spoke to some guy about it this morning.
REPAIR TECH: You spoke to me...and I'm a woman.

I apologized profusely, and it seems like she had a good laugh about it. But I can't think about it without shuddering a little.

Example two: I was working at Aurelio's Pizza. As a new busboy (I was 15!), I still didn't know a lot about the restaurant. A family asked for a high chair. I went to where we kept the high chairs, grabbed one, and headed back to their table. I left it with them, got a top for it, then left them to it. About a minute later, they asked me how the top was supposed to attach to the chair. I didn't know, so I sent another busboy out to deal with it. He came back shortly thereafter...

JEFF: You brought them a stepladder!
ME: It was in the pile of high chairs!

As if that defended it. I had to endure a week or so of "Our kid wanted to eat pizza, not change a light bulb!" remarks, before someone else did something stupid and we moved on to that. But I still cite that as my "dumbest" work mistake.

Example three: Late in my high school career, I was trying to date a girl. I was smitten...just destroyed...by this girl. I would have done anything for her. Well, six weeks into our not-really-a-relationship, she told me she wasn't leaving her boyfriend for me. And in our subsequent conversation, through tears, I dropped this gem:

ME: If what I feel for you isn't love, then I don't want to know what love is!

Ugh. Not just because of the whiny, cry-y way in which I said it, not just because of the melodramatic aspects of the statement itself, but because I had thought of the line a week before (when a classmate had told me I didn't love this girl) and then waited for the right opportunity to use it! And that in the intervening week I DIDN'T REALIZE THE RIDICULOUSNESS OF THIS LINE!

Ugh again.

So those are a few of the stupid things I've said or done. And I have learned from them...sort of. I now do a better job at recognizing voices on the phone, or at least not committing to gender-related guesses when I'm unsure. I can now successfully differentiate between a stepladder and a high chair. As for the third...