Panicked Stupidity

I have a deep-seated phobia of talking on speaker phone. I'm not crazy about talking on the telephone in the first place, and the "speaker" setting just sends me right over the edge. First of all, it's voice-activated. That means that it takes a second to kick in when someone starts talking, so I'm forever missing the first word of every sentance the other person says. This leaves me feeling...confused. On top of that, I have a habit of saying stupid things in the course of a conversation, and I have no desire to have that stupidity broadcast to whomever might be within hearing range of the telephone. Seriously, who wants to spend a phone conversation feeling confused and stupid?! Not me.

I say all of that in a lame attempt to defend my actions earlier today.

I'm walking through Wal-Mart today, and I decide to call my husband at work to ask him a quick question. It's a no-big-deal, grocery-shopping kind of question. My husband answers the phone in his usual way, and I chirp, "Hi!" At which point my husband says, "Hi Mandy. I've got so-and-so in my office here with me." (???) Then I hear so-and so (on speaker phone!) say, "Hi Mandy."

I've always been amazed at the amount of information the human brain is capable of flashing into the conscious mind within the space of a single heartbeat. My brain-flash went something like this...It's on speaker phone...there's someone else in his office...my husband just called me "Mandy"...It's on speaker phone!...he frequently has phone meetings with really important people...he also frequently holds meetings in his office...exactly how many people are in there?...the question I was going to ask him was really unimportant anyway...who the heck is Mandy??...IT'S ON SPEAKER PHONE!!!"

It was at exactly that moment that I did what any normal person would do.

I hung up.

I panicked at the thought of trying to explain who I was and why I was calling, on speaker phone!!, in front of who knows how many people. My husband was obviously in the middle of something important, expecting a phone call from someone else, and I had no desire to make myself or him look like an idiot.

Because abruptly hanging up the phone doesn't make you look like an idiot at all.

Nope, huh-uh.

(Ahem)

As soon as my thumb hit the button I had another brain-flash: Oh no...I just hung up on my husband! I'm pretty sure that every Wal-Mart customer for aisles around could see my Rudoph-the-Reindeer blush. I felt so embarrassed! I sheepishly texted my husband back to admit my flustered mistake. (I like texting...and e-mail...and blogging...anything with a built-in time delay that covers for my impulsive stupidity.) He got a good laugh out of the whole thing and felt pretty bad himself that he didn't recognize his own wife's voice.

So, just know that if we're ever talking on the phone together and I suddenly hang up on you, I'm not angry. Just really, really flustered about something. And please, please, please - for the love of everything holy - don't ever put me on speaker phone!!!