It was not funny in the moment, let me be completely clear,
In the moment it was a genuine social catastrophe, I fear,
I called the wrong person by a wrong and specific other’s label,
In front of a table full of people at the table.
The correction came with a precision that I felt in my chest,
A calm and pleasant correction that was somehow the worst,
The kind that says: I will not make this worse but I noticed,
And everyone at the table very quietly noticed.
The misunderstanding that became a story I now tell,
The thing that was a disaster became something that fell
Into the category of things that hurt until they don’t,
The misunderstanding that became a story I won’t
Stop telling at the appropriate venue with appropriate time,
Because the worst moments eventually become the best rhyme.
I apologized directly and with what I hope was grace,
The other person was forgiving and gave adequate space,
And later at the same event they came back to my table,
And we talked for forty minutes in a way that proved us able.
Six months later I was telling it at dinner with some friends,
And it landed as a comedy, which is how the worst thing bends
When you have processed it enough and built the proper distance,
The disaster becomes material with enough persistence.
There is a ratio between the distance and the comedy potential,
The more embarrassing the original, the more exponential
The eventual punchline when the context finally shifts,
From the wound that it creates to the story it then gifts.
I keep a mental inventory of the worst ones in reserve,
For the dinner conversation where they finally deserve
To be delivered to an audience who can appreciate the turn,
From the moment it was terrible to the lesson that I earned.