This article originally appeared in the Amarillo Pioneer on April 14, 2017
by Trent Rosser
Did you ever have that one friend whose sense of humor was a little, um….off? Or that one person who always innocently said the wrong things at the wrong time not realizing it? Maybe you are one of these people that do this quite often? I know I am.
I am always getting into trouble just by opening my mouth, it still happens today. I say something to my wife on a weekly basis that I regret as soon as I say it. Stupid little things. I am glad she understands what I am really trying to say; otherwise I could be in a lot of trouble.
I believe that there is a filter between the brain and the mouth, and my filter does not always work. My sense of humor and lack of filter for my mouth can be quite entertaining. For example, when I was younger my choice of music was heavy metal, the hard, loud, heavy metal. My sister was very young and had all her dolls playing in one room and my room would be shaking with music blaring. She would of course yell and get me in trouble one way or another, so what do I do? I put a different cassette in her Teddy Ruxpin find treasure… no, what happened is the eyes came open with a glassy stare and she heard the heavy metal group, Iron Maiden, sing “The Number of the Beast”. For being only 6 years old, she took it pretty well. Yes, I was grounded for that one. When I was 16, I received in-school suspension for smarting off to my principal. I somehow made my way to the school cafeteria during class when they called everyone that was in drivers ed. I was not in this driver ed, I had already passed my class and was waiting to take my test. I was really trying to get out of class and the principal seen me, called me out and said “Trent, what are you doing here? I did not call your name?” So trying to get away with skipping class and getting busted I wanted to compliment her on her driving skill and try to butter her up, instead it came out like this….. “I’ve seen you drive and I want to make sure that I know how to avoid an accident.” Yea, not good at all. I did not mean that she causes accidents; I just meant I wanted to be able to drive like her, but it did not come out like that.
Things like that just pop out of my mouth without me thinking at all. When I was about 17, my mother took me to some place, but I do not remember what it was for. I do remember them asking all kinds of questions while my mom sat back in the chair next to me. The lady asked, “Do you have any kids?” My smart mouth said, “Not that I know of right off hand!” My mother’s mouth flew open and she just about fell out of her chair. When I hear some of the stories about me as a child, I realize that I started to be a smarty pants at a very early age. My family continues to tell the story of when I was learning to talk. I was dropped off at my grandmother’s house while my parents went out. My grandmother stove was an old one that had the storage underneath it. She also did not have toys for me to play with so she gave me a little ceramic dog. I knew the stove was hot so I put the dog in the storage of the stove. I then pointed at the stove and said, “Hot Dog! Hot Dog!” My grandmother did what she knew to do. She fixed me a hot dog to eat. Did I mention I was a fat kid? They tell me that I ate 5 hot dogs before they found the little ceramic dog in the bottom of the stove.
My sense of humor can be a little…off. A few years ago I was promoted to an assistant manager position. One of the other assistant managers did not know his way around a computer so I showed him a few things and helped him with evaluations. To say thanks, he took me out to eat. It became a tradition, one week he would take me out for lunch and the next week I would take him out for lunch. After a while I would start flirting with all the waitresses in front of him. I would take the check and tell him that I am going to leave my phone number on the back of the ticket for the waitress. The next day he would ask if they called and I would tell him no. What he didn’t know was that I was putting a fake name and his phone number down on the ticket. He would tell me that maybe next time they would call and then tell me that he thinks his wife has a boyfriend because someone always calls with the wrong number.
I think my entire family has this sick sense of humor. My father put a dead rattlesnake in the front seat of a co-worker once. But that is a different story for a different time. Even in death, we can pull a fast one. I mentioned my cousin that passed away recently. As we were in the funeral home, with him in a casket less than 30 feet away, his first song comes on. A song by a group called Alice in Chains, the song……? “Man in the Box”
