Save Some Cringe for the Rest of Us
A female friend of mine–to whom I was admittedly attracted–had been expressing her reservations about an upcoming vacation with her family.
Though it wasn’t being overtly presented as such, the trip was meant as a way of re-solidifying her parents’ marriage, which had been more than a touch rocky at the time.
They would all be driving from San Francisco to a small town in Northern California, where they’d stay at a bed-and-breakfast inn for a weekend before continuing northward for some unknown destination.
In keeping with the alleged purpose of this so-called vacation, two rooms had been booked at the inn in question.
To her dismay, though, my friend discovered that her mother would be occupying one room, her father would have the other, and that she and her sister would each have to bunk with one of their parents.
This was worthy of lament on its own, but it was made unforgivably worse by the verbal diarrhea that I offered in an attempt at providing comfort: “Aw, it won’t be so bad!” I told my friend. “Your father will probably enjoy sleeping with you.” A moment passed before I realized what I had said.
Then, with a feeling of growing horror, I tried to explain myself. Suddenly, I made it 10 times more awkward. “Wait, I didn’t mean it like that!” I hurriedly said. “I mean, like, he’s probably sick of sleeping with your mom.”
“No, wait, I mean… I just mean that he wants to spend some quality time with his daughter.” If I had stopped there, I might have been able to salvage the situation, but as it happened, I decided that the best course of action would be to keep talking.
“I can’t say that I blame him, really. I’d love to sleep with you.” She and I don’t talk much these days. Story credit: Reddit / RamsesThePidgeon