Foot, inadvertently placed in mouth

Sometimes it just happens that way. I'm pretty sure that I'm not the only one who at least makes an attempt to try to think about what I say before I say it. This, I think, is one of the most important lessons we can learn from our parents, friends, and laughing stocks of the school. Several instances immediately stick out in my mind - examples of when I let my mouth run away from my brain and suffered the consequences... with sometimes mentally-scarring side effects. Take one such example: Me, aged 10, at junior school. Already the teacher's pet in the class and already being ridiculed for that status - amongst other things (such as "mushroom-style" side parting). I should have been watching my every word, but no... one rainy afternoon during a maths class I looked up from my work and asked the teacher for some help with something.... unbidden, without hesitation and loud enough to be heard throughout the class came the words "Dad, can you tell me how..."

Too late. Too damn late had I noticed my mistake. Its an easy mistake to make, but for the rest of my time at that school I suffered dearly for that foot that I oh so easily placed into my mouth.

There was an upside to this incident though... I learnt my lesson - and now its only on very rare occasions that I let something so embarrassing slip. Having said that - I can't be sure if this is because I'm better at thinking first.... or if its just that I'm not so easily embarrassed. Recently though, I seem to have been relapsing. Mainly, whilst talking to my girlfriend I'll say something that sheds some light on my ignorance of a subject - something I'm incredibly careful at not doing. Luckily she's forgiving (and indeed soon forgets) the incidents.

Some "incidents" however are of the more subtler cases of "foot in mouth" whereby you say something, but you have thought it through... only to find that your processing of that thought was fundamentally flawed. Take this recent conversation I had in the rather touchy subject of toilet habits (always a topic that should be thought through very well before commenting on or joining the conversation!):

After several minutes of discussions on toilet etiquette I thought it was reasonable to broach the subject of toilet paper and substitutes thereof. Bearing in mind that we had all just been talking about issues that are probably normally considered polite taboo for over-coffee social chats I considered my chosen subject carefully - emergency toilet paper. I figured that it must have happened to everyone, you've run out of toilet paper and not noticed until too late. There's no one else in the house to come to your rescue, but you happen to be reading (or have for general reading material) a newspaper. Paid for or free - it doesn't matter. So do you use that for a substitute?

Nope. Apparently that's just me. Oh dear. Too late - now my friends are looking at me in a slightly different light and the conversation has very definitely gone from "cheery taboo breaking" to "now you've gone a bit to far, you wierdo"... Once again I've gone and said something that unwittingly turned out to be embarrassing - but this time because I assumed I wouldn't be the only one to have done this in my group of friends.

One day I shall learn to successfully navigate my way through the pitfalls of self-humiliating conversations. On that very same day however, I imagine I will have been marooned on a desert island devoid of people to embarrass myself in front of.