Last weekend, feeling a bit out of sorts, I visited Rotorua's lakefront for a coffee and a wander along the boardwalk.
I popped into a nearby shop for the coffee, ordering a 'regular trim flat white please'.
The assistant said 'sure - regular or large?'
She immediately realised her mistake and we had a little laugh about it, with me saying I knew the muscle memory phrases of a barista too, as I used to be one.
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As I went for my walk with the fantastically made flat white in hand, I started thinking about all those little times we misspeak and how delightful it is.
Like the time I hadn't seen my ex in a very long time, after a bit of a tumultuous break-up.
A bit startled to see her, but trying to play it cool, I said 'Hi! How are you?'
What's so hard about ordering a coffee? Photo / Paul Taylor
She said good, how are you?
Me: "Good! How are you?"
Devastating. Hopes for coolness dashed. Funny though, and I love telling the story of how disastrously I messed up.
I once checked into a hotel and the receptionist said "enjoy your room." I said, "you too". Much flustered backtracking was proffered.
I know of someone who once tried to say "fast" and "quick" at the same time and it came out as "quack!".
My dear late friend Ness had me in stitches when she told me about how as a theatre receptionist she once tried to say "cheers" and "thanks" but it came out as "chanks".
A few years ago I was walking some dogs on Auckland's Mission Bay with my sister and we witnessed a little car accident. It wasn't major, but the dogs were set off barking and the crash initially sounded horrible. It was chaos.
Panicked, and having probably watched too many American crime shows in my life, I found myself yelling "call 911!"
When I was younger, I thought adults had stuff all figured out. I thought you reach a level of poise and knowledge where everything is in hand and under control.
The older I get — and granted I've still got a way to go, so I'll keep you posted — the more I realise that poise never comes.
It makes me think of a passage from Kurt Vonnegut's God Bless You, Mr Rosewater - "Hello babies. Welcome to Earth. It's hot in the summer and cold in the winter. It's round and wet and crowded. On the outside, babies, you've got a hundred years here. There's only one rule that I know of, babies - God damn it, you've got to be kind."
We're all just babies like Vonnegut says.
Muddling our way through, trying to be cool, but really just fully grown children faking it and trying not to be found out. And those little interactions with one another where we muck up crack open the myth and show we're all fallible. It's so lovely when we can laugh about it with one another.
Because like Vonnegut says, babies, there's really just one rule, and that's to be kind.
