Ever wish you had not said what you said? Or, having said it, wish you could take it back? Or maybe hope desperately that no one heard it? If you are a senior citizen, I bet you have wished all three. If you are a junior citizen, your time will come because, as we age, our height is not the only thing that shrinks. So does the connection between the brain and tongue.
Here are a couple of examples of foot in mouth happening episodes, followed by a procedure that can prevent 99 percent of such episodes. Guaranteed.
Once in the second grade, the class was speculating about weather issues, and when the subject of thunder emerged, a classmate announced that thunder was the angels bowling. Sister Mary David smiled but offered no counter thesis, nor had I as a seven-year-old developed a competing hypothesis for the phenomenon. In other words, I bought it. Thirteen years later I was a freshman in college and enrolled in a general science class. Professor Smith was lecturing on climatology, and he paused and asked, “What causes thunder, anybody?” And I knew! Oh, the shame. Later that same semester I encountered a Latin term I had not seen before and did not understand. I showed it to Dr. Smith and asked him what it meant. He looked at the term. Then he looked at me. “Cum laude,” he said, “and Chuck, don’t worry about this; it does not nor will it ever apply to you.” And it did not.
Ten years after the thunder disaster, I was again a student. I arrived once at an evening class before anyone else. This time I wrote and spoke a foot into my mouth. First the wrote part. I wrote on the board “pop quiz tonight.” As fellow students drifted in, they noticed the board and expressed alarm. No one was prepared for a quiz. The schedule had us giving reports that evening. Panic ensued. Students frantically scanned their notes for subjects that a pop quiz would cover. To end their discomfort but most of all to take credit for a joke, I owned up. . “Everybody relax. I wrote that. There’s no quiz. We’re giving reports tonight, remember?”
When the professor arrived, she took a seat at the rear of the class, and the first student began his report. Among the professor’s shortcomings was a profound absence of a sense of humor. When in the middle of the student’s report she spied the pop quiz notice, she interrupted the report and nearly shrieked, “You want a pop quiz? I’ll give you a pop quiz!” She did. No one passed it. 65% was the highest grade. The professor counted it, and several students, I among them, suffered a whole letter grade penalty in that class. Hardly a cum laude performance for me. My popularity among my fellows took a bigger hit than anyone’s grade point average. I wish I had not written what I wrote, and I wish even more that I had not admitted it.
Enter an irony. Cum laude or no cum laude, I became a professor. First a little background. When Japan attacked Pearl Harbor in 1941, it was termed a sneak attack. And so, students began referring to pop quizzes as “Jap quizzes.” Forgive the politically incorrect reference; I am reporting history, not attempting to be insensitive or racist, honest; that’s how students referred to unannounced “sneak” quizzes. On day one of my first class, I was going over the course syllabus, the document that describes course objectives, topics, assignments, due dates, grade scale, and office hours, when a student asked, “Will there be any pop quizzes?”
“Absolutely not,” I assured the class, and I told them why there would be no Jap quizzes. I explained to them about Pearl Harbor, an event that occurred years before most of them were born. I told them about my pop-quiz-on-the-board disaster. I repeated that there would be no Jap quizzes. I had learned my lesson. Again, absolutely no Jap quizzes.
Then my gaze fell upon the front row of students, where sat the very beautiful Sakura, who in addition to being very beautiful was very Japanese. Earth, please swallow me. Foot, leap from my mouth, please. What a way to begin my first teaching assignment!
After class, I apologized to Sakura. “Why?’ she wanted to know.
“Because I said ‘Jap quiz,’” I explained.
“Oh, I did not hear that. I guess I was not paying attention. You said, ‘Jap’? Oh, my.”
Had I not spoken the apology, I might have avoided embarrassment and remorse.
If only I knew then what I know now—that there is a way to avoid foot in mouth disease. It is the Bless It or Block IT prayer (BIoBI), and it is 99 per cent effective. Guaranteed.
Ever suffer speaker’s remorse? Never again. Bless It or Block It is the preventative. It is a spiritual tool available to believers and non-believers, an easily whispered secular prayer. One can avoid foot in mouth disease if ever prompted to offer unsolicited advice or to comment upon another’s clothing, appearance, ethnicity, weight, breath, chewing behavior, or political opinion simply by praying Bless It or Block It.
A remarkable thing happens. An answer comes like a green light, yellow light, or red light. Green light, go ahead. Yellow light, proceed with caution. Red light, better not say it. This works like magic, but it is not magic. The protection derives from the pause, the moment one takes to examine whether what he or she is prompted to say should be said. It may also come from an appeal to common sense or to one’s Higher Power. Whatever. It comes!
“Disciplining ourselves to whisper BIoBI in our mind’s ear can keep us from hurling a verbal projectile or free us to offer support. The unspoken barb will never come back to haunt one, but the spoken compliment—blessed instead of blocked—creates an opportunity to strengthen a relationship” (Liguorian, September 2014, p. 33).
Senior citizens, and junior citizens too, want to make friends and keep them? BIoBI!
Senior citizens, and junior citizens too, do you know people who really need to practice verbal restraint, and will you tell them to read this essay? This is a trick question. BIoBI!
Finally, there will be no unannounced quizzes.
Thanks to Andy Pope for the photo of my reliving a spoken faux pas.
