Me and My Big Mouth

Last night I messed up big time.  After a fun family trip to the Wild Animal Park, we were driving home.  We were almost home when Dennis' mom called on his cell phone.  I picked up the phone because Dennis was driving.  "Hey, this is Mom.  Tell Dennis the Chargers won in overtime."  So I relayed the message.  "Hey Dennis, your Mom says the Chargers won in overtime."  Before I could even get the words out, my always gentle and mild-mannered husband pounded the steering wheel.  He was furious.  My first thought was one of surprise.  I thought he liked the Chargers, and was baffled at why that would be bad news.

"I was taping that game!  You just ruined it for me.  Thanks a lot!" 

Suddenly the whole thing started coming together.  The fact that I had heard him mention the Chargers several times that day with the boys.  After all, we had been in San Diego.   And the term "big game tonight" had also come up a few times.  And then there was the fact that he had listened to some boring talk radio (not his usual sports talk) on the drive home, and later even switched to kids' music when he was getting tired.

Somehow my feeble brain had not been able to put 2 and 2 together.  Of course!  He was taping the "big Charger game" and that was why he didn't listen to the game on the way home.  He was looking forward to watching his game all day, and I ruined it for him with my big mouth.  Oh, I felt so bad!  So, so bad.

The really horrible part - as of that isn't bad enough already - is that as bad as I felt, and as sorry and I felt, I couldn't bring myself to apologize.  Instead I tried to defend myself.  "It's not my fault.  I didn't know you were taping it.  I was just relaying a message.  You shouldn't have gotten so mad.  Its just a game."  Even as I was saying those words I knew I was dead wrong.  It was just stubborn pride.

I also knew all too keenly, that if it had happened to me, if something that I had really been looking forward to had been ruined by someone's stupid mistake, I would have had a fit, and I probably wouldn't have dropped it until I had let off all my steam.  Yet I was upset by his short outburst of frustration.

When we arrived home he gave me a big hug, and he apologized to me for his outburst.

I suddenly realized that I was doing the exact same thing as one of my boys - something that drives us all crazy.  His knee-jerk reaction to any situation is always an automatic "It's not my fault!"  Gee, I wonder where my kid gets it from?  Not his father, to be sure.

The truth is that Dennis is almost ALWAYS the first to apologize - Not because is he WRONG, but because he is GOOD.

I need to learn from his example.

I do believe, to be fair, that if I were to have had a do-over, I probably would have told him about the Charger's win - only because really, truly, my brain is functioning at a minimum capacity lately, and to figure out that he was taping the game in the splitsecond between hearing the message and relaying it, was just way too complicated for me to have figured out.  There really was not any malice involved - pure stupidity, and I can't really fix stupidity, apparently.  But if I had it to do over, I would have used my big mouth to apologize - immediately and profusely, even if he was angry, instead of throwing up my usual defenses.

That is something I defiantely need to work on in 2009.  Apologizing - early and often.

And honey, I really am sorry!