Advice for the 'filter challenged'

Happy weekend, bloggers. Hope all is well. Just a short little story to make you laugh, or at least maybe stifle a tiny giggle. It may fall into that 'you had to be there' category, but hopefully it will translate well here.

My boyfriend -- you all know I love him dearly -- but he suffers from a certain condition: He has no filter. What does this mean? Well, it means that he blurts out things that most normal people would keep to themselves. And the fact that we tease each other relentlessly doesn't help this condition at all, because there are times when it's funny, and other times when it certainly is not amusing at all. For example...one night when I was really tired, I told him I didn't feel like cooking. He said to me, "I'll just pick something up. It's not like you were gonna cook anyway, you were just gonna open a jar." Or another comment when I was folding laundry. He asked me to take a break and go outside with him. I said I couldn't because I needed to finish folding the clothes. His response? "Well, they won't be any less wrinkled five minutes from now, will they?"

You see? No filter. No filter at all. There are ways to say what you're thinking without really saying what you think, if that makes any sense. You get the idea.

Last nite, however, his lack of filter was actually funny.

We were grocery shopping, with children in tow. Emily and I were actually doing the shopping while the boys ran off to do 'boy things'. I'm not sure I want to know what that means, but whatever. I was really excited to find that they had a pot roast 'kit' - the roast and all the veggies in one nice, neat little package! Oh, I do love convenience. But also, it was a couple of dollars cheaper than buying all the ingredients separately, so I happily placed one in my cart.

When we were done selecting our items, we went off to find the boys. We found them sword fighting in the toy aisle. Big surprise there. Evan walked up to the cart, spotted my happy little roast kit, picked it up, looked it over for a moment then yelled: "How lazy are you?" I knew he was kidding, but I played along..."This is how lazy I am!", I yelled back, while pushing the cart forward and walking away from it in a faux huff.

There was a woman on the aisle next to us who heard this exchange. As we were walking away, she ran up to us, tapped him on the shoulder and said, "You're supposed to think it, not say it!"

Good advice for the filter-challenged. I think she thought she was doing me a favor. We all had a good laugh.

And just for the record, I am NOT lazy, and my filter works just fine. Oh, how very well my filter works. If I didn't have one, I might be inclined to tell you how much he snores or how hard he is to get out of bed in the mornings, or how pouty he gets when I'm not paying attention to him. Lucky for him I have a filter!

Oops.