My paternal grandmother was legendary for saying anything that came to mind without a thought to her listener's feelings. She wasn't being intentionally cruel, she just never learned there are things you say and things you don't say. When Golden Girls was a big TV show we could've sworn Estelle Geddy's character was based on her. They say she thought nothing about greeting someone with, "Myyyy goodness, you sure have put on the weight!" Or she would buy clothing for a Christmas gift that was a size or two too big and say, "Well, you needed to put on some weight anyhow, didn't you?"

Unfortunately it appears I may have inherited this trait. I can't always tell if what I'm saying is appropriate or inappropriate, and I have slip-ups sometimes. Sticking out largest in my mind is when a 18-year-old high school student who was helping at our cable TV station was saying she thought she was fat, and I said no, she wasn't fat, she was just "big boned." I thought I was being helpful because, indeed, she had a perfectly flat belly and eye-pleasing figure, but her frame wasn't the brittle Terri Hatcher type. She looked totally shocked, like she was on the edge of tears, and another guy said, "You NEVER tell a woman she's 'big boned'!" You don't? But I'm trying to say she's not fat! I thought maybe I should go the other direction and tell her I desired sexual intercourse with her, which was true, but that might have been making the same mistake twice. Somehow we made up, though.

This brings us to yesterday. I was on the phone with a fellow phone drone from a call center in a rural area. As I listened to her, I couldn't help thinking she sounded almost exactly like the pothole in the GEICO TV commercials (above). As a native Georgian, usually when I hear Southern accents in the media they're horribly done, obviously someone from Maine imitating someone from New Hampshire doing a Southern accent, but the one on the GEICO ad really nails a Southern girl.

So when we wrapped up with our customer I hung on to ask the rep if she had seen the TV ad with the pothole. She laughed and acknowledged she had. So I said, "Could you do a few lines from that commercial for me?"

It sounded like she was laughing, but possibly bordering on crying. I had to assure her I meant it in the nicest possible way and that I was from Georgia, too, so I wasn't some "Yankee" making fun of her accent, I thought it was a great thing. I only heard more noises that were somewhere between laughing and crying on her end, so I said, "Um, okay, I'm going to duck out now," and hung up.

Should I not have said that?