I was browsing through the mountain of mail that I get from my troubled readers when I came across this little plea from the heart. 

Do you ever worry that you might offend people? I mean I really love your blog and your writing style is honest and frank and you take no prisoners. Which is great, but this happened to me last week.

I met an old school friend of mine and were talking about different things.
He said the following

“You know missus you tend to shoot from the hip quite a lot and for one so young that’s not always a good thing.”

Now what really annoys me is that he pointed and wagged his finger when he did this. I became really cross when he said this. So what I was wondering was do you mind you Ps and Qs when it comes to certain subjects or would you rather tell it like it is.

Dear Big Mouth,

Thank you for your kind comments about the site [Note to other readers: If you want a response, flattery will get you everywhere].

Yes, I do tend to tell it like it is, but then if you want someone to tell you like it isn’t, you’ll have to ask a politician.

First of all, you describe this person as an ‘old friend’.  Is he your old teacher?  Is he your father?  If he isn’t one of those, then he doesn’t have a licence to wag a finger, which means your would be perfectly justified in biting it off if he wags it at you again.  There again, he may have just been picking his nose and was offering to share some of the proceeds?

My simple answer to this problem is that if he does this again, I would suggest you reply something along the lines of –

“I think you are wrong.  I am very sensitive to people’s feelings and I would never dream of calling you an arrogant condescending little fucker, and I wouldn’t dream of telling you that that finger probably spends most of its time up your hole.”

If I were you, I would then kick him in the nuts.  Hard.

I speak from personal experience here, because a bloke once said something similar to me.  He hasn’t said anything like it since.  In fact he hasn’t said anything since.  There aren’t many people to talk to at the bottom of The Old Black Quarry.

I hope that helps a little?

Grandad