Excuse the Political Incorrectness, but I’ve Been Tongue Fried

If you think you rate a 6 or higher on the political-correctness meter, maybe you'd better stop reading right now …

For the last 30-some years, my wife, Goggy, has been pointing out every insensitive, impolite, loutish or obnoxious comment I’ve made in her presence … and the list is Library-of-Congress formidable. (Sometimes she jots stuff down I mumble in my sleep and scolds me in the morning.)

And if all the people the American Idle has offended over the years got together and voted for Scotty over Lauren just to spite me, he’d be a shoo-in to win American Idol. (Yeah, he’s got a great voice, but he looks way too much like George W. Bush to get my vote.)

I’m an equal opportunity insulter—this has nothing to do with race, religion or creed (whatever "creed" is)—it’s simply a matter of stating a thought before engaging any reasoning functions. And it’s an approach to human interaction that sometimes has me thinking, “Did I just say that out loud?”

A former boss used to explain it this way: “You know that little voice in the back of your head that tells you when it would be a good idea to leave a certain observation unspoken? Weyler’s has laryngitis.”

Over the years, it’s come to my attention that those little voices seem to be mute in the craniums of many around the world, especially those who don’t come from the ever-uptight Anglo-Saxon upbringing that’s so prevalent in the good old U.S. of A.

A couple of examples:

Goggy and I have an acquaintance we met at a high school fundraiser a few years back, a woman who moved into the area from China and is doing remarkably well at learning a new language and conforming to a different culture. But she sometimes can be, well, a little direct.

She was admiring a picture of Goggy in a bikini, ankle deep in the Sea of Cortez, on the side of our fridge. (You can’t get a magnet to stick to the front of those damned stainless-steel things.)

“You use be sooooo skinny,” she says. “What happened?”

Now, Goggy is a fine-figured woman, but it is true that she no longer possesses the Betty Boop waistline and hips of her college days. Goggy forces a smile, but her eyes make me want to go find a welding mask. (I’ve often felt the burn of that white-hot glare.) And I don’t think she’s contemplating how nice this lady is for implying that she had aged so well that no one would know the picture had been taken more than 30 years—and a couple of kids—ago.

We haven’t seen that woman in a while.

I was in the grocery store recently when the checker, who’s from somewhere in the Middle East, I think, made this comment regarding the cookie purchase of the somewhat chubby lady in front of me: “These are very good, I think, but they are very bad for you. Look at all the fat in them!”

The lady turned beet red. I was about to point out that it is little wonder Americans are the fattest people in the world. Why can’t an acquaintance point out the caloric content in a cookie without being deemed rude? (Fortunately, even with laryngitis, the little voice in my head was able to scream, “Shut up!” just loud enough for even me to hear.)

Almost every Sunday, I play tennis with a guy from Bosnia, a regular in our doubles group whom I call “Schmego” because no one this side of the Atlantic has the linguolabial dexterity to pronounce his real first name.  (The Mailman calls him “the Rifleman” due to his propensity for hitting his second serve before the sound of your “out” call on the first serve reaches his ears.)

Schmego is a regular ice cream cone of a guy, the kind who brings you a street-vendor T-shirt after a two-day trip to Glendale. But he too can be brutally straightforward.

After spending almost four months on the sidelines with a stress fracture in my foot, I finally returned to the courts. The first words out of his mouth were: “Johnny Boy, you look fatter!”

As welcome-back greetings go, not the best I’ve heard.

“Hey, for almost 15 weeks I had to wear that stupid boot thing and couldn’t do anything but hobble around or sit on the couch,” I protested. “I was happy I only gained 8 pounds.”

“Oh,” he said, thoughtfully nodding his head. Then, patting my belly: “Looks like it all went right here.”

Sometimes, it’s more a case of lost in translation than honesty not being the best policy. (Or sometimes both … didn’t that famous former Austrian bodybuilder refer to his child’s birth out of wedlock as an “event” in his mea culpa to his wife? She wasn’t sure if he’d been unfaithful or just attended a car show.)

The Mailman recently canceled a singles match with Schmego due to … let’s call it gastronomic distress. It was the second time in a month that he had begged off. (He claims it has nothing to do with the three bottles of wine he consumed the evening before.) Anyway, Schmego wasn’t happy … and neither was the Mailman, who called me the next day.

“He said I was insane!” the Mailman said.

Me: “Really? What exactly did he say?”

“He said I was unstable!” the Mailman said.

Me: “I think he meant you’re unreliable, not a candidate for the state mental institution. You know, he doesn’t always pick the right word.”

My buddy Skruff, who was a hockey writer for years, recalls “a compliment” on his new raincoat delivered by a player from Belarus: “Nice coat. You look exactly like the guy from that movie I Know What You Did Last Summer.”

“Was he referring to the debonair Ryan Phillippe? Pretty-boy Freddie Prinze Jr.? No, the guy with the hook!” Skruff says indignantly.

I’ve known Skruff a long time, and I can’t figure out why he’s offended. He always seems to be making a mass-murderer fashion statement … my guess is he just doesn’t understand what “dressed to kill” means.
(Wait … did I say that out loud?)

About this column: John Weyler has lived in Orange County for almost 50 years. His weekly regional columns offer his unique, and often irreverent, take on life in the O.C.