There... I Said It

I have always had Foot in Mouth Disease. No matter what crowd I am in, I find a way to make an ass out of myself over what I say. It's either that I say the wrong thing at the wrong time or I say something I really shouldn't say. Part of it, I am sure is that I always had this inferiority complex that my opinion was not valid. So if I would say something controversial, I would not have enough self-esteem to step up and argue my point or defend myself in any way.

This has changed.

Somehow over the past few years, my skin has toughened and I have better learned how to express myself. I have found myself in many situations where I have (amazingly) been right! So a gradual change occured where I began to find more confidence and I began to say things that I would have said in the past but then been overly embarrassed about. I am no longer embarrassed. I am willing to put out there who I am and I am confident enough in myself that if others don't agree with me, I don't feel like an ass.

So I have increasingly had moments where I ended the conversation with, "There... I said it." And I have been satisfied that the opinion is out there... for all to see.

Case in point:

There is a white mini van parked at my son's preschool every day. And every day, I pass it when I am leaving. And every day, I get pissed off. It has a bumper sticker on the back that says, "Marriage Yes! One Man, One Woman."

Yucky.

I let it go for about a year. And finally I decided... I know my son's teachers well enough to know that it is probably not their van. And if it is, they would not treat my son any different if my opinion differs from theirs.

So I said it. Sat down by one of the teachers one day and said, "Who is it who drives the highly offensive white van." She laughed loudly. One other teacher within earshot grinned ear to ear. The other teacher in the room slammed her fist on the desk and exclaimed, "Thank you! Aren't you disgusted by that? Don't you wish your life was perfect?" And went on and on.

Turns out that this van is driven by the lunch lady. I already got the gist that she was not someone I would enjoy spending time with anyway. She reminds me of a girl we went to college with who was never happy. We nicknamed her "Pissface." Still not sure of her real name. But the lunch lady could quite possibly be Pissface's Grandma.

And now, every Monday, Wednesday and Friday when I drop my son off and drive around the building to the exit, instead of being pissed off, I laugh. I said it. And I found comrades.

Pretty nice feeling.