Feet Taste Gross

A kid can put his foot in his mouth every now and then and get away with it. When I was like five or six, I remember being at a doctor’s office and seeing a very obese man and saying, “You’re fat.” My mom promptly scolded me and I felt awful about it. So have I ever told someone they were fat again? No way. At least not to their face.

Sure, even as adults we’re gonna blurt out some things that we should have kept to ourselves—blame impulsive behavior or my favorite, alcohol. But just to keep it to a minimum, why don’t we make a list of topics we should ALWAYS avoid?

PREGNANCY

This is #1. Never talk to someone you don’t know about their pregnancy. Why? Because they might not be pregnant! They could either be plump around the middle, wearing an empire waist shirt (which is very popular right now) or just had the baby. Or worse—they had the baby six months ago and can’t get the weight off in record Hollywood time.

I don’t care how obvious it is that they’re pregnant, you don’t say anything. Let them bring it up. I’m telling you, even if they have a shirt on that says “Baby” with an arrow pointing towards the belly, still refrain. Maybe that’s the only shirt that still fits!

GENDER

Here’s another chance for you to learn from my mistakes. On the first day of 7th grade I walked into the girls’ restroom and saw a boy. I knew junior high was more progressive than elementary but this was crazy. I immediately squealed, “They let boys in the girls’ bathroom in junior high!?” The “boy” who was apparently named Lisa said, “I’m a girl.”

Now to be fair, this person looked NOTHING like a girl. But anyhow, now I just don’t address gender. Even with babies. If I don’t know what somebody is, I simply avoid them. Yes, avoidance is better than embarrassment.


WEIGHT

Now if you know someone has been dieting, it’s okay to say “You look like you’ve lost weight.” But if you take it too far, they’ll start to say “What? Was I really fat before?” and you just don’t want to go there. So restrict your weight comments to the aforementioned and “You look skinny.” No girl minds hearing that. Oh, and I should say I’m speaking just about girls here. And I was also only referring to girls in the pregnancy section, but you knew that, right?

Also, girls who were skinny but have since put on weight more than likely didn’t do it on purpose. I had a relative come up to me at a wedding and say, “You look so much healthier than you did at your wedding. How did you put on the weight?” As if I was on an intense diet of Death by Chocolate and Krispy Kremes. “Oh, funny you should ask. I’m thinking of writing a book on the topic! I want to help millions of women put on weight and look more ‘healthy.’” Good rule of thumb: We don’t want to look healthy. Hello? Why do you think we have this meth craze going on?

Let’s see, did I cover it all? You’ll notice all these taboo topics have to do with a person’s appearance. So basically, if you just stay away from looks, you should be safe. Then you can avoid the mother of all awkward situations. A reenactment:

(You, to stranger in Arby’s): “Oh, when’s your baby due?”
(Stranger in Arby’s): “What? No, I just carry my weight in the middle.”
(You): “Sorry. I just thought since you had that shirt on that says ‘I have the golden ticket’ with an arrow pointing towards your belly…
(Stranger): “Hey, I bought this on Ebay. It belonged to Britney Spears and I thought it was cool.”
(You): “Oh, It is very cool. Sorry, Ma’am.”
(Stranger): “Ma’am? I’m a man! I just grow my hair out for religious purposes!”

See? You managed to pack in all three forbidden areas in one conversation. Not good. If you have trouble with this, you should probably just avoid places like Arby’s.

Oh, and also junior high restrooms.