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Show High Time Never Admit A Mistake By FLORENCE BITTNER People are probably the most ridiculous when they're trying to prove they are not. I'm always willing to admit people make mistakes. Note the third person pronoun. People, Peo-ple, not me. But then, of course, everyone knows I'm perfect. I'VE BECOME very adroit at covering up anything which might be seen as a mistake or even an awkwardness. The other evening at a social gathering, my hostess introduced intro-duced me to Marjorie Brown. "I'm sure you've heard of Marge. You must have worked on committees together. Marge is into absolutely everything every-thing and knows everyone." The hostess sailed off, leaving me and Marge smiling at each other, doing mental gymnastics gymnas-tics to cover. Neither of us had the slightest recollection of the other. We did some fancy verbal ver-bal probing, then I saw the light dawn in her eyes. She remembered re-membered me, but I still hadn't the foggiest who she was. "YOU REMEMBER. We sat at the same table at the luncheon lun-cheon given in honor of the ambassador from Penang. We talked for just hours about the plight of Chilean rice farmers." far-mers." How could I forget Chilean rice farmers? Easy. But you won't catch me in that kind of lapse. "OF COURSE." I tried to look patronizing, which isn't easy when you don't know what you're talking about. "I recognized you immediately, but didn't want to remind you as we disagreed on what could be done to help the farmers." I was saved by an interruption interrup-tion from an old friend whom I really did recognize. WOULDN'T it be easier to say sorry, old thing. I haven't the slightest notion who you are? Maybe, but that would never do. There are a zillion ways to cover up. The maneuver described de-scribed above involves shifting shift-ing the blame. You just cover up your goof by making it appear you never made a mistake mis-take and it was actually an example ex-ample of your overwhelming graciousness. You make it appear that you were in total control and trying to save the other person from being embarrassed. Even if you're wrong, no one is going to question ques-tion you when you are so kind. ANOTHER common method of covering a gaffe is to pretend it is none, but was intended in-tended to be that way. "I know you don't like soggy dressing, so this time I put it all outside the turkey. Don't you agree it is marvelously cninchy? Well, it's a little chewy and well browned, but I thought you'd like it this way better. So, okay. I won't fix it that way again if you're going to be that way about it." Another cover-up method is to admit to a small error in order to avoid being accused of a larger one, of which you are also guilty. This is irrevelant but unless you are dealing with a lawyer or judge, you can usually get away with it. "BUT DEAR. I only dented the front fender a little. You should see what the other guy did to his car." "I know I'm a little late, but I got here didn't I?" "I GUESS I was a little rude to your friends, but what a bunch of klutzes. You should consider yourself fortunate I didn't throw them out bodily." "Yea, I've got a black eye, but you should see the other guy-" "I KNOW I'm a little loud sometimes, but I'm not as bad as Herb. Talk about a loudmouth. loud-mouth. Compared to him, I'm a regular charmer." "But Mom. 1 only bit Warren. War-ren. He hit me 15 times." "SO I WROTE a check without recording it in the register. reg-ister. It was such a marvelous sale and I bought you two ties and a shirt. Do you expect me to remember everything?" Perhaps the most popular and simplest of all the maneuvers maneuv-ers to cover a gaff is the turntable. turn-table. This is to dredge up past errors on the part of your accuser to cover your own. "YOU THINK I'm absent minded? What about the time last summer when you forgot Aunt Martha's birthday? Or what about the time you went to work with mismatched shoes? You're the absent minded one." With all this verbal dodging, don't you think it might be easier if we took the direct approach? "HEY, LOOK. I'm sorry, but I made a mistake. About the only thing I can say is I am sure, given time and opportunity, opportun-ity, it will happen again." That ought to be an attention getter. |