In the Brain, On the Tongue, Out the Mouth

Early in the semester of the college English class in which we met, my husband and I were assigned to the same discussion team.

One assignment involved a stream of consciousness narrative in which a European explorer seduced and raped an African-village chief’s daughter. At the end of the story, readers discovered that the explorer was reviewing the story as he sat imprisoned in a hut. As punishment, the chief had ordered his tongue cut off for having sex with the princess.

The stranger, who would one day become my husband, turned to me and said. “It seems to me that the chief had them cut off the wrong body part.”

Yes, of course I laughed because it was so spontaneous and funny.

My husband often calls those types of spontaneous comments as “in the brain, on the tongue, out the mouth.”

When we first met, my husband was not a church-goer, and had seldom attended formal worship. He didn’t know the social mores associated with being in the “House of God”, nor did he have a clue there were acceptable or inacceptable behaviors inside the church building.

During one service, he was really captivated by the new things he was hearing in the powerful presentation of a guest speaker. The expression on his face conveyed he was completely mesmerized by it, so as he slipped his arm around my shoulders, he said in a highly audible voice, “Shit! I never thought of that!” Of course, I bent over and laughed in my lap. Not only me, but I am willing to swear that shoulders as far as three rows in front of us shook with giggles.

He looked at me in shock and said, “What?”

A few weeks later, one of our friends from college and a fellow church member saw my husband arranging the hair on his moustache after a church meeting. Her comment was, “Oh, don’t pick your nose!” to which he immediately retorted, “It’s better than picking my ass, isn’t it?” 

He has a way of saying things like that, which are a total a surprise. Of course, after all these years, I am more surprised when he doesn’t blurt out an inappropriate response.

My mother loved to tell of the time the three of us made a special trip to a restaurant, which was famous for homemade pies, about 50 miles from home. Mother and my husband loved pies, especially egg custard pie, so they were settled and waiting for the waitress to take orders for pie and coffee. We waited and waited. We waited some more, drinking several glasses of water. I was in favor of leaving, but my husband was set to have a slice of pie. The poor elderly woman who served our table seemed tired, and her feet likely hurt, but those details likely escaped my husband. When I saw that look cross his face, I knew he was about to speak. He raised his hand, snapped his finger, and in a loud voice addressed the waitress, “Oh, Flash, Flash.”

Mother laid her head on the table and laughed until the tears flowed.

Like the child who gets enthused, the adult with ADHD must sometimes speak without thought of the moment or the appropriateness of the comment.