A Time Machine Would Be Awfully Handy Right Now

You ever do that thing where you are thinking something but, of course, you would never ever say what you are thinking aloud because it is incredibly rude, out of place, wrong, bad or otherwise inappropriate and then, quite by accident, the inappropriate thing you are thinking pops out of your mouth unexpectedly and you stand there horrified at the unsightly words hanging in the air like an ugly hummingbird? Yeah, me too.


I have been teaching my boss* how to do my job lately. Kind of a headache, but whatevs. This morning I was going over how to process the stack of forms to get numbers to plug into our monthly claim. Our conversation ran thusly:

Me: So then you take the sum of the totals in the yellow line and square-balance it against this line here and if it all checks out, you put that amount here in this box. Then you do the same thing for the pink line, but you put the total in this box here. Okay?

Boss: I like how you color-coded all these forms.

Me: Yeah? Well . . . uh . . . does this make sense?

Boss: Could I do the pink line first and then the yellow line?

Me: Well, you could but it’s best if you do the yellow first because it’s easier that way.”**

Boss: Well, it looks like it wouldn’t matter either way.

This is the point that those words I had been biting back all day, those hideous, hideous words, flapping around in my head all day that I only ever meant to think, never ever to say, burst forth with inconvenient force.

Me: Don’t question me, woman.




Dang. That’s not good. Not only did I reprimand my direct superior for “questioning me,” I called her “woman.” (Though, in my defense, Jesus totally called his mom that so it’s not like it’s the worst thing to say.)

Happy ending, though. Boss burst out laughing and, after a tenuous smile I laughed along, relieved and thinking, “Oh, good. She thinks I was kidding. This is good news.”

And that thought stayed right where it should have.


*I actually really like my boss.

**Don't tell my boss but I don’t know why I do the yellow first. I do know that I always do the yellow first that that’s just the way I do it and don’t even suggest to me to do the pink one first because that would just throw off my groove, man. Yellow comes first on the sheet anyway.