DO YOU WANT ME TO GIVE IT TO YOU?

Have you ever said something to someone that came out as sexual even though you had no intention for it to be that way? This happens to me all the time, daily in fact. I think it's because of my overuse of ambiguous pronouns, in particular the word “it”.

Case and point, not long ago in my glorifying job as a technical support analyst (i answer phones), I received a call from a young woman who needed some information regarding her company's internet outage. Although she interrupted a rousing game of Super Bounce Out I nonetheless put on my internal happy face and pulled up her information on my screen. I then made a critical error by responding with the following reply:

“I got what you need right here. Do you want me to give it to you?”

What followed was a long period of awkward silence that seemed to last for hours. I knew instantly that what I had just said did not sound real good. In fact it sounded like a line out of a bad porn flick. I could almost hear her jaw drop on the other end.

What I meant to say was “I have the information you requested in front of me. Let me know when you are ready and I will be more than happy to update you.”

But it ended up sounding more like “Yeah baby. I got what you need dangling right here in my hand. Why don't you grab the back of your heels and let me show you why they call me the sausage king of Chicago”. Or something like that.



So what is the best thing to do after making such an oral blunder? (see there's another one). Well in my years of making unintentional sexual innuendos I can say with great authority that the best thing to do after sticking your foot in your dirty mouth is absolutely NOTHING. In the preceding situation, had I tried to explain myself to the young woman with a “O, I'm so sorry I meant give the information to you, haha, that sounded like i wanted to give my umm, well you know hahahaha, my penis...o dear god kill me now.” See, it would have sounded even more awkward, or even worse, like i was admitting that I was really thinking about giving it to her. I had crossed that line, there was no turning back. I repeat boldly and in all caps for emphasis:

DO NOT OFFER AN APOLOGY and DO NOT TRY TO EXPLAIN YOURSELF, you will only make matters worse.

Wait out the silence, it will end eventually. If the silence is too much to bear munch on some corn nuts (not again!!) or slurp on a popsicle (i can't stop!) like some of my rude customers do, or hum one of those annoying gibberish like verses on the phone that people do when they are stalling for time, like a “doopie doopdie doo”. That will send a clear message to the recipient of your over-the-top rude sexual remark that you are just carrying on with business as usual, and any sexual meaning they get is from their own filthy little perverted mind. You see how easy it is to flip the script on them? Its a brilliant tactic, really it is.

OK, I hope this helps any of you out there who like myself continually sound like you want to get in someone's pants when all you really want is a stick of gum or directions to church, or some other innocent non-sexual request. Oh and the next time some PR goober tries to tell you it's not what you say it's how you say it, you tell them to shove it where the sun don't shine.