I'd like to thank the Academy for this honor...

It seems that in addition to the many surgical procedures at which I’ve become skilled during my residency, there is another procedure with which I am also apparently very familiar: Open mouth, insert foot. This, I learned at a recent out-ing…one in which I played a starring role. If there were an Oscar for Best Leading Idiot, I think I’d have a good chance of winning…

Allow me to set the stage with a brief prologue: Vinja decided a few months back to randomly subscribe to a few magazines to help out some neighborhood kid trying to raise money through subscription sales. One of the 12 magazines that seems to pile up on our kitchen counter almost daily (only slightly exaggerated) is Out Magazine. This, for those of you who don’t know, is a magazine that touts itself as “A gay and lesbian perspective on style, entertainment, fashion, the arts, politics, culture and the world at large.” Which I am ALL for as the men and women offering their aforementioned informed perpective in said magazine are greased up and gooooood lookin’. (And I’ve always been of the opinion that a little body grease helps get a point across that much more effectively.) A gay friend, Huerequeque, came over, perused the latest Out magazine, and found (amongst the smorgasbord of delicious manmeat) a great one-page article on how to select a good sake wine. He tore it out and considered giving it to one of his coworkers who’d recently asked for his advice on a good Japanese brand of sake. Considered it, that is, until he turned the page over and saw that there were a few small details that might ‘out’ him to his coworker. One of those details being that it actually said, in small print, “Out” at the bottom of the page. The other of those details being the full-page underwear ad featuring the lubed-up torsos of two fine male specimens (both with cullions of curiously large proportions) who were tenderly holding hands. We agreed that this might give him away. So he kept the ad to himself. Umm…I mean the sake article. *cough* He kept the article to himself. *cough*

Fast forward to a dinner a couple months later at which I am in attendance along with Huerequeque and some of his coworkers, some of whom are mutual friends, others of whom are perfect strangers. One of those strangers, Mr. Straight-Laced Protestant White Male Married With Children, was sitting across from me at the dinner table. The sake, selected by the knowledgable Huerequeque, was flowing. As was the conversation. And somehow, somehow Mr. SLPWMMWC turned the conversation toward the topic of Huerequeque’s proclivities. Don’t ask me how. All I know is that I had little to do with how the converstion started and everything to do with how it ended…

As if scripted, I said to Mr. SLPWMMWC, “Oh, me and Huerequeque go waaaaaaayyyyy back! So I know ALL ABOUT his proclivities!!!!” [Obnoxiously loud laugh.]

“Oh yeah??” Mr. SLPWMMWC joked back at me. “So you know about all the catholic school girls he brings back home with him?? HA HA HA…”

“Catholic school girls?? HA!!” I chortled. “More like CATHOLIC SCHOOL BOYS!!!!!” [Even bigger obnoxious laugh.]

Oh God. What a twit.

Now, in my defense, there was sake involved. Lots. (So, clearly I am the victim here. It’s all Huerequeque’s fault. For ordering such good sake.) And this conversation, including my blunder, occurred almost too quickly for me to even appreciate the momentary look of shock on Mr. Straight-Laced Protestant While Male Married With Children’s face. He scrambled, just as quickly as I’d gaffed, to change the subject. But by then I realized just how much of my foot I’d stuck into my mouth. The only reason my entire leg didn’t go in is because I have pretty sizable thighs. And though my mouth is big, my thighs are bigger.

After a moderate amount of gagging to get my foot dislodged from my pharynx, I leaned over to Huerequeque who was sitting next to me and whispered (out of earshot of Mr. SLPWMMWC who was busily talking someone else’s ear off about his two beautiful, straight, God-fearing children who loved sports and church), “Sooooo….I probably wasn’t supposed to have said that, huh?”

“Yeah, NO,” he smirked. “But I suppose it’s not anything that wouldn’t have come out eventually anyway.”

I nodded, thankful that he was so gracious as to roll with the punches. “Well, let’s look on the bright side,” I said, “I guess now you can give him that article on sake!”