Fleeing tongue

I had a moment today where I really wanted to crawl under the floor. Do you, Dear Reader, ever say something that you wish you could take back almost as the words are leaving your mouth? And there is no graceful way to recover.

I went into work today feeling quite under the weather. My sinuses were so filled and stopped up, my head felt like it was twice its normal size, it hurt with every move I made, and my equilibrium was non-existent. When I am feeling like this, everyone around me knows it, I can't hide it. I should have stayed in bed, but I had an appointment at work with someone who drove some distance and stayed in a hotel room the night before. I couldn't just stay in bed. That would require another day's stay.  Hmmm, the couple was selling insurance that I wanted to know about . . . Perhaps, I should have stayed in bed!

I went into work, sat down with this couple as they spread papers all over the table. Then they launched into their sales pitch and I began to sneeze. And sneeze. And sneeze. I excused myself, explaining about my sinus problems. When I returned, they pointed at graphs and charts and a dizzying number of numbers. I couldn't concentrate, pretty soon the couple themselves blended together. I couldn't tell who was speaking. They pointed to this graph, brought my attention to that paragraph, showed me anther chart.

Finally, they realized I was not responding in the manner they thought I should. One, was it the Mr. or the Mrs.? One asked about my health and I told the truth. I felt like something that I cannot put in this blog which is supposed to be family friendly.

"Well, why didn't you call in sick?"

Without thinking (oh, that gets me into so much trouble) I said, "Because you guys were coming in"

But this wasn't as bad as the statement I made to a teacher's question one day. I was taking Economics at a community college. I don't know swill about numbers. And to put those numbers into something called 'Economics' is pure torture for me. But, this teacher wanted to make sure everyone passed his course. He realized that most of his students were like me. We were in that class, not because we wanted to learn about economics, but because we needed the course to get our degree. So, to that end, he wrote ALL his notes on the blackboard. That's right, he would take chalk in hand and write verbatim what he was telling us on the blackboard. All I had to do was write it down! I didn't even have to pay attention. I've often wondered if he got carpal tunnel syndrome from doing that.

But, I digress. We took 2 tests in the class, one midterm, the other at the end of the course. For each of these tests, the questions were all discussion. I discussed alright. I discovered I have an excellent memory when I need it. I wrote down everything that I had written in my notebook - everything that came from the board.

The last night of class I was dumbfounded to learn I had an 'A' in that class. Simply stunned! As I was walking from the classroom, the teacher asked me how I felt about making the 'A'. In retrospect, I suppose he was fishing for compliments about what a great teacher he was and all. But, he made the mistake of asking me. Still in the dumbfounded mode of thinking (in other words, not thinking at all), I replied, "It's great! But, I don't know how I did that. I don't know any more about economics today than the first day I walked into this class."

His crestfallen face didn't register in my mind until I got to the car to go home.