Open Mouth, Insert Foot

So you know how it is considered courteous to express condolences to someone who loses a loved one? You know, call them up or go to the memorial service or something to show your support at a difficult time.

I'm not doing that anymore.

Why?

Not because of the extreme discomfort and uncertainty it invokes, not because it is depressing, and not because my Mummy didn't raise me right, but because of a little but mortifying incident I inflicted upon myself last week.

I have a friend who currently attends an East Coast university. Our parents have been good friends since before we were born, so it is natural that we know each others news pretty quickly. His grandmother passed away one morning last week, so as we are practically family I offer my condolences as soon as he pops up on my MSN.

The conversation went something like this:

Eureka: Teeth, my condolences.
Teeth: Your condolences? What? What happened? What are you talking about?
After a pause during which Eureka has simultaneously pissed her pants, banged her head repeatedly on the keyboard, and inflicted irreparable damage to her cranium, all she could come up with was:
Eureka: Oh, fuck.

Smooth, right?

So I told him what had happened. Turns out he'd just woken up and hadn't returned his parents' phone calls.

Eureka, you stupid brainless git, of course he didn't know! It was something like 7 a.m. on the East Coast; he was in deep sleep when it happened.

Idiot.

Now that was the easy part. I obviously had to add insult to injury (literally) by calling his mother to inform her that I had fucked up. I braced myself for the insults as I dialed.

…

Ha! Got you there! You expected some Eureka bashing, didn't you, you sadist. His mother was so busy with the funeral and people paying their respects and all that jazz that she really didn't have time to deal with me.

Phew! Thank the Lord Almighty! Hallelujah God doesn't spend all His time plotting against my every waking moment.

Sigh…

Murphy's Law should be renamed after Eureka.