Ooops!
Foot in mouth disease
2000 Archive
2001
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I was at a party one night and was socializing around meeting other
women. As I was chatting with one I casually mentioned that I had four
kids. She then asked me what were the names of my dogs. I gave her a
skewed look and said "I have four HUMAN children." All she did
was sniff out a haughty "OH" and walked away from me never to
talk to me again. I wasn't even trying to pick her up, just trying to be
friendly.
Ooops0209-03
Many years ago when I was in college my mother became ill, and it was
several months before the diagnosis was made and we were told that it was
terminal. During that interim I went with a (former) friend (whose parents
owned the company I worked for) to another friend's house and we talked
about things including how my mother was. To my incredible surprise my
then-friend (and I had no idea that he had become religious) said out of
the blue: "Well, you know your mother's going to die because she's
not religious, don't you?" I almost got out of a moving car. I was so
furious, appalled and upset that I never confronted him on this, and tried
to keep out of his way until I graduated from college and could leave the
job. Spineless on my part not to leave, I know. Ooops0303-03
In my early 20’s, I was working for a manufacturing company. I worked
in production administration, which means I had a cubical upstairs in
administration but spent a lot of time in the plant, on the manufacturing
floor. As we were an infant formula manufacturer, we were required to wear
lab coats over our street clothes when we ventured into the plant. As I
was in the plant more than at my desk, I normally put my lab coat on first
thing in the morning and left it on all day, over my street clothes.
One day the secretary to our safety manager came to me and said,
"I saw you leaving yesterday, and you weren’t wearing your lab
coat. Have you gained weight or have you always been that fat?" I was
dumbfounded and said not one word in response. It’s been 15 years now
since that conversation, and I still don’t know what an appropriate
response would have been. Ooops0414-03
My Grandmother was Anti-Semitic. She grew up in Liberty NY in the
Catskills (home of Grossingers) and the fact that trainloads of
vacationers rumbled not a hundred feet from the family house might have
had something to do with it. In later years if someone asked where Liberty
was, she'd say "If you see a town and it's full of Jews, you're
there."
Anyhow, here's the story. She was at a party with her husband (a
businessman) and was talking to a man I'll call "Harry Parker".
Somehow she started on the subject of how many Jews there were around, and
the troubles she had with them. Grandfather came over, caught the
conversation, and took her home. In the car he informed her that No One
should say such things, and WASN'T SHE AWARE THAT HARRY PARKER WAS A
JEW!!!
Grandmothers flabbergasted reply was to the effect that if he WAS
Jewish, he should at least have the courtesy to have a Jewish name!
Ooops0420-03
My am the mother of three children, my middle child (now seven) is a
bright and lovable girl who also happens to have Down syndrome. We have
been very fortunate in that she has not required heart surgery or had some
of the other serious complications that can arise with this syndrome. She
has, however, had a series of minor surgeries and will always require a
bit of watching in regards to her health.
When she was about a year and a
half old, my daughter was being followed for cyclic neutropenia (low white
cell count) and required blood tests twice a week. Eventually we were
referred to a pediatric hematologist who recommended a bone marrow biopsy
to rule out leukemia and lymphoma. The chances of her having either of
these cancers were very small, but it was nonetheless terrifying,
especially since I was dealing with my own depression and my husband
potentially being sent overseas for a year (we were a military family at
the time.) I was working at a steakhouse at the time as a waitress, and
one of the regular customers saw me bring my daughter in and asked me
about her the next time I was working. First question: "Is there
something wrong with her eyes?"
Long breath. "No, my little girl has Down syndrome, and her eye
shape is typical for people with DS." Second question: "Ohhhh…
I am sorry to hear that. Did something you did while you were pregnant
cause that?"
All I can say… is that she should be thankful I am a non-violent
person, and also was at work. I managed to keep my cool and reply that no,
it is a random genetic condition, though people often don’t think of it
as an issue for women my age (I was 23 when I had her). I will always hold
this as the most thoughtless comment I have ever received, though over
seven years I have heard some pretty ignorant statements!
Ooops0512-03
Yes, it was a clueless and tactless comment but I
think I'd rather have people ask ignorant questions than to continue to
stew in their stereotypes and misinformation. Each ignorant question
can be viewed as an opportunity to enrich the world with one more informed
individual.
When I was expecting my first child I was working for a women running
her errands and taking care of her critters and all that type of personal
assistant type of thing. One of the errands that I ran for her at least 2
times a week since about 1 year before I ever got pregnant was taking and
picking up dry cleaning. In that time I got kind of friendly with the
people at the cleaners, knew the names and the owners (admittedly the
owners only waited on me every other week or so not as often as the rest
of the girls--but still often enough) and could carry on conversations
about them me or my bosses daily lives. Basically they knew my boss was
single (she was fairly famous locally in the news often enough people
would recognize her if they saw her out and about) and her physical
attributes -- she was quite thin while I was on the chunky but not obese
side of things.
So at any rate I see these people frequently talk about my
pregnancy but admittedly mostly they just want to know anything I could
tell them about my boss as she was in the news and on a certain national
channel everyday (that I won't identify as it would totally give away her
privacy as the future comments of the drycleaners should not reflect on my
boss at all).
Then late summer of '95 after a ten month pregnancy I walk
in with my new baby there to pick up the dry-cleaning...and the drycleaner
says to me "Oh is that your boss's baby? (I'm thinking huh? you see
my boss on TV everyday asking me if I know anything about what she is
working on at least twice a month and you think my boss (a very skinny
size 5) might have been able to have that baby without anyone noticing?)
So I reply no this is my baby...to which she replies "Oh I just
thought you were fat....(oops..trying to catch herself after a short
pause) like me".
Well to add to this several years later still being chunky but not
anymore than I was before my pregnancy I was relating this story to the
wife of a friend of my husband's. Let me say that her kids' single two hour
visit to my house could make for nice rug rats stories on this site but I
digress. This is my first meeting with her as this is a friend of my
husbands through work we thought it would be nice to get better aquainted
as their boys were just about our child’s age. So in talking about our
pregnancies (she is slim) she proceeds to explain that she disliked
everyone telling her how fat she was while pregnant and I mentioned that
not too many people noticed I was pregnant (I had developed diabetes while
pregnant so worked out everyday trying to control the sugar and after
delivery weighed less than I had when I got pregnant which helps to
explain a lot) and then I told her the story of the dry cleaner lady...to
which she replied "Don't you hate that...people who are fat expect
you to notice they are pregnant? All upset you think they are just
fat?"...double oops...to this day we can only assume she didn't get
which part in the story I played, at any rate we never saw her again and
we have found other more tactful people to associate with. ooops0710-03
Page Last Updated May 15, 2007
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