Tactless remarks.

MIL, master of put downs. Her classic on visiting her one day old granddaughter in hospital "What a beautiful baby" and turning to me, "You have surprised me" !!

Our son married abroad so on his and his lovely wife came back to this country to live I cooked up a big buffet meal to introduce DiL to the rest of the family. SiL walked in, took one look at the food and said “It looks wonderful. DiL must have been so busy!”
Gobsmacked wasn’t the word!

I was telling a relative only last week, that my recent blood test results had not been good, I’ve had a second bout of cancer and they’re monitoring any reoccurrence through blood tests, because of this they’ve brought my appointment with my consultant forward from next February to next week, her reply was “oh that’s good then, at least they’re keeping any eye on you!” Then turned her back on me to talk to someone else…. I had thought up until then that we had quite a good friendly relationship!

My dad asked my 10 year old son to show him "your finger that your mummy cut off".... (They were meeting for the first time in several years.) I had nipped out the front door to put some washing out on the line and my son, then aged 3, had thought I'd gone shopping without him and went out the front door which promptly shut on his hand, neatly removing the tip of his 3rd finger.... I was not impressed by my father's idea of a joke about one of the most traumatic times in our lives....!!!

After my MIL's funeral lunch, my brother was taking mother back to her care home. She said " This has been nice. We will have to do it again sometime. No comment was needed.

We were considering selling our house and moving to be nearer to our DD and family when she told us that "f we moved near to them, we were not to live in their pockets!" This made the decision for us and we stayed put. Ironically , she has since said on many occasions that we were nearer so that we could help out with the DG.

Whilst working as a concierge travel agent I booked a very wealthy client an overnight trip to Zurich so she could visit her Swiss bank. On her return she moaned and moaned about the poor interest she had earned on her account and then added it's but OK for you as you haven't got any money,

This same client on learning I had just been diagnosed with osteoarthritis said I should get a second opinion followed by "no I suppose not - you're just NHS" Couldn't say anything in either case

A friend of my father who I worked with always asked after my older sister by saying “ how’s the good looking one” always really annoyed me.

On our wedding day a relation said in front of DH and his younger brother well DH was in front of the queue for looks and to his brother you were in the front for noses and got the persons behinds as well.

The one that really hurt was after the birth of the second DD my mother in law said she wanted a rugby team and I was giving her a ballet troupe and she wasn't buying anything as they could wear their sisters old clothes. One of the Dr's said don't have another one I have three girls and even the dogs a bitch.

Yammy
When I had our second child, a boy, DH brought DD in to visit and after they'd gone, one of the nurses remarked that it was a pity that I'd had one of each because he wouldn't be able to wear DD's hand-me-downs.
She felt quite sorry for me!

Wheniwasyourage- first xmas after i married my younger husband (now ex) his relatives gave me a gift pack of oil of Ulay! (As it was then called) Cheeky moos!??

Jaylucy not a lot unlike my late but sadly missed husband, when after the wedding and on honeymoon we were discussing the day of the wedding.I asked if he liked my dress.Not what I expected H then replied 'the bridesmaids looked nice'
{hmm} I declined to comment and to learn tact was not to be one of my new husbands best points.

MissAdventure

Oh, so many!
An elderly man in a care home buzzed for help, and when I went in his room said "Oh, thank god it's you! I was worried it was going to be a dollybird".

MissAdventure much the same happened to my daughter who is a very young looking 46 year old practice nurse. She called an older lady in for an examination. She came into the room with a look of relief on her face. ‘Thank goodness’ she said ‘when I saw your name on the door I thought you were going to be young’!

My father was from the north and my mother from the Midlands. We always used to joke that there was a northern dictionary with the words tact and diplomacy omitted but sharp, blunt and to the point all included. If the phone rang my dad was not above telling the caller that the person they wanted was on the toilet. One time it was one of my male teachers. Thanks, Dad! Another remark that went down in family history was when my husband caught chickenpox from our oldest son. Luckily, he was not ill in the way many adults are with this disease but he was under the weather and had a lot of spots, particularly on his face. My parents came to visit and my husband mentioned his spotty face to my mother and myself. We tried to reassure him, saying that they were not too bad. My dad walked into my house and immediately said “good grief, Musicman, your face is a mess. I think you’re getting more spots all the time!” My poor husband went over to the hall mirror and had an instant relapse.

On the subject of babies, beautiful or otherwise, when my oldest son was a baby their was a lady with a baby of a similar age. She was an extremely plain woman with lank, mousy, shoulder length hair, receding chin, a very large nose and protruding teeth. The baby looked exactly like her except for the teeth as he didn’t have any at that point. All we could say was “he looks just like you.” She smiled and said “everyone says that.” There are ways of being honest and tactful.

There. Auto spell grr.

When DD2 was getting married, she offered to come shopping with me for my "mother of the bride" outfit.

She was kindly critical of some of the outfits I tried, but I valued her opinion. After much trudging about, we finally came across a lovely outfit that perfectly fitted the bill.

It was then she told my that my mother had rung her and instructed her to accompany me on this trip and make sure that what I bought "didn't make me look like a frump like I did at DD1's wedding"!

MILs are the best at this.
My husband’s younger brother married about 10 years after we did.
It was a lovely wedding but no bridesmaids.
At the reception we were chatting about it with my husband’s cousin, who had been one of my bridesmaids 10 years earlier as a young teenager.
My MIL trills, looking at my former bridesmaid, “well at least nobody had to wear a ghastly bridesmaid’s dress, like you did once, C. What wedding was that? Oh, yes, it was yours, Sarahcyn!”

A friend? of mine and I were about the same dress size (14) - not necessarily a 'fat' size I think, though she is several inches shorter than I am. She became obsessive about her weight and to her credit managed to lose quite a lot. She handed me a bag of her clothes saying "now that I'm not fat, I thought you'd like these. Needless to say, no I didn't!

I asked my husband if he thought I had put on weight. He replied 'never mind darling, I like fat girls'!

A friend, known to be opinionated, visited our new home a few weeks after we moved in.
“It will be nice when you’ve redecorated and got rid of those awful light fittings”. We had already redecorated and the light fittings had just been bought!

My mum has always had a habit of making snide remarks to me and has carried this on into her 80’s. I often call to see her on my way home from the hairdressers, she knows that’s where I’ve been and will give me one of her looks and say something like, ‘Have you been to the hairdressers then, they haven’t taken much off have they’. Last week I spent a fortune having a few darker highlights and was feeling quite pleased with the result, only to be told by mother that she thought my hair looked much better lighter. Occasionally I get a rare complement and I nearly fall of the chair in shock. Luckily I have developed a thick skin.
What’s the saying…if you can’t say something nice don’t say anything!!

When we announced our engagement my MIL looked me up and down and said "Well, I suppose you'll have to do". My FIL told my fiance not to spend a lot on the wedding because I wouldn't last 5 minutes, he'd give us 2 years at best! We've been happily married for 43 years.

When my in-laws visited our first home my FIL remarked "It's alright for a shoebox I suppose"

When our first son was born my DM said "He's not the sort of baby I expected you to have, he's really lovely!"

Having started in a new job my DH came to pick me up from work one afternoon and waited in the reception area. A female colleague, who had a very high opinion of herself, asked who the dishy guy in reception was. When told he was my husband she said "Oh my goodness, he's gorgeous! Whatever does he see in her?" The next day the office was full when she loudly demanded to be introduced the next time he picked me up. I said sweetly "Yes of course, but it won't get you anywhere, he likes a woman with a bigger brain than her mouth". Boy was she red-faced!

My Mother she once said to my friend who had just had her hair cut and we bumped into ,'what do think to my hair? "Oh, never mind it will soon grow back" l wished the ground would have swallowed me up!

My MIL after meeting my Mum, "she's very nice, not a bit like you. She also delighted telling how wonderful a previous girlfriend had been.

I had a beautiful daughter and four years later proudly (after some illness) produced another.

My husband and elder daughter came to collect myself and baby and we all stepped into the lift which stopped at another floor.

A couple entered the lift, looked at me proudly beaming at our new baby. 'What is it?', they enquired. I almost said that I was holding a pot plant but politely said 'a girl!'.

'Never mind', they said, 'better luck next time' as the lift doors opened and they walked away!

This week:
I have been ill recently and was asked to have a consultation with our doctor. As I walked into the room he said 'my goodness, you look terrible', which didn't really help but I know he meant well as he is a lovely man.