Simpleton Fails Yet Again To Think Before He Acts

My law firm sometimes serves free breakfast on Fridays, from 8 to 10:00 am. These meals generate more enthusiasm than you might expect. It's usually just orange juice and doughy bagels and single servings of Kellogg's cereal, but free shit is free shit, and by 10:00 the cafeteria is pretty well cleaned out.

One Friday I got to work late and got in the elevator around 9:55. On the way to my floor, the elevator stopped at the cafeteria and picked up a woman carrying a plate of food.

We smiled and said hello to each other. Then, gesturing towards her plate, I said: "Is there anything left down there?"

What I'd meant to ask was whether it was worth it to go downstairs and get some breakfast or if everything was already gone. But for SOME reason this poor woman thought I was calling her out for taking too much food. A quick glance at her face confirmed that she totally mortified.

She got off at the next floor, and I awkwardly stepped into the doorway of the elevator to hold it open. "I'm sorry," I stammered. She turned and looked at me impatiently. "I just meant...is there, you know, am I too late to go down and get some breakfast?" I tried laughing a little. "I didn't mean to suggest, you know, that you were umm. I mean..."

This wasn't helping. I stepped backwards into the elevator. "I really didn't mean it like that!" I yelped, desperately, as the doors drew shut.