News-Record.com

While hiking with a girl-friend several years ago, she turned her ankle, fell, knocked her knee on a rock and scraped her leg.

Fortunately, the ankle wasn't too much of a deal. She was wearing some good supportive boots. But the knee and scrape were a big deal, in a big way, to her.

I've played a few contact sports over the years. She played soccer - which can be every bit as rough as many other games. After we took a break and found that her ankle was OK and she could walk, we moved on.

After a while, she complained about the pain in her knee and the scrape. More and more.

I'm no super macho-guy. A bad hangnail can ruin a day for me. But the knock and the scrape didn't seem to be all that much to me.

Then again, I'm no girl. And here's why I say that. Apparently, women feel more pain, which I can understand.

Armed with that knowledge a few years ago, I might have attended to my friend's injuries a bit better. For the record, they wound up being not that serious - a bruise and a scrape that didn't really even need a bandage.

That doesn't validate my reaction to her ailment, "Walk it off," which I'll blame on a history in contact sports. She took it in good humor, and we still cut the day short.

Reading that article on pain got me to thinking about dumb things that people say when they're misinformed. For example, when you meet someone out at night, start jiving, and then you joke about how you think elementary teachers must be dumb because they only have to deal with children.
Then you find out that the girl you're talking to is a teacher. (This actually happened to me. After the drink in the face, I now respect all teachers.)
Or how you think lawyers are money-grubbing scum, only to find out that her pops is a corporate attorney. (Never happened to me. Most lawyers are much more valuable than many people give them credit for.)

It's too late to go back in time and not tell my friend to "Walk it off." But how do you remove your foot from your mouth in those situations when you've swallowed it, shoe and all?

Do you have any gems of your own to share? How'd you recover? We can all learn from each-other here.

Bonus! Check out Ruby on iminlikewithyou.com!