Mine don't always turn out so well, but some do. Here's a good recent one: My husband and I were having dinner with another couple, intelligent professionals who let their adult children use the hell out of them. (All 3 kids live at home and don't pay rent, make messes that mom cleans up, quit jobs every two weeks, etc. Our friends bitch to us about their kids but don't kick their lazy asses out of the house. We've chimed in with our two cents' worth a couple of times and then decided to swallow our words.)

That night, the wife told us about a weird dream she'd had the night before: she was in the middle of a shopping mall and suddenly she gave birth--on tables with gynecological stirrups, in the middle of the mall. Two minutes after the first birth, there was a second. People kept shopping all around her, not noticing. She said to us, "They were beautiful babies until you looked at their faces: they had adult faces, which was really grotesque on baby bodies. What could it possibly mean?"

I exhibited extraordinary self-control for about five seconds but IT WAS JUST SCREAMING TO BE SAID, SO I SAID IT: "Maybe your dream is telling you to stop treating your adults like babies because it makes them grotesque." I held my breath; had I just lost a friend? After two beats, she and her husband and MY husband howled with laughter. Phew! But it absolutely BEGGED to be said, especially since she ASKED....

Okay, Jane, that's perfect. God speaking through you. Had you not said anything, that couple would have thought: Her contempt for us must be unspeakable. Now that you spoke it, it's diffused.

Who else?

Yeah, I had one of those moments. I was in a meeting with about 25 communications staffers who were planning the launch of an international event. As we were carving up responsibilities for the inaugural (now annual) event, the question of who would write the initial news release came up. Well, we had our own "Nancy," and she volunteered. But our Nancy's problem wasn't so much verbal -- she simply wrote too much. She had a reputation for it. Everybody knew that whatever she wrote for publication had to be cut in half.

So there I was, not able to hold myself back: "Aw Jesus Christ, it's gonna be 47 pages long."

"Nancy's" response was to reach into the donut box, grab one and fling it at me at about 50 mph. I ducked, and it hit our secretary right in the chest. The secretary was really pissed! The boss of the meeting looked at me and said, "Good move, Will."

It was the funniest thing anybody ever saw in a staff meeting. That incident was about 12 years ago, and they still talk about it there.

Will

I was a witness to Will's donut attack! In my 17 years of staff meetings, I've never seen anything so funny. I'm surprised there wasn't some sort of repercussion. Instead, dead silence of disbelief! Even 550 miles from the office that happened in, we still refer to people who write long stories, as The Full "Nancy."

Once again: A completely nutso bit of communication from a normally careful, strategic professional communicator--and it turns into gold.

I've come back to this blog at least five days today and truly can't narrow down my verbal outbursts. There's a reason my newspaper column is titled "Did I say that out loud?"

My problem is I never self-edit when it comes to speaking.

Mine wasn't so much a verbal outburst versus physical outburst. During one of our company's leader meetings (which at the time were just one boring PPT after another), our head of Sales gets up and says, "I apologize, but I don't have a PPT to show you today..." I then started clapping uncontrollably--I couldn't stop. It was as if Jesus himself was flapping my hands together. Within a few seconds, the whole room was clapping--a sort of kidding, yet thank god-type clap. We still talk about that today.

Mine wasn't so much a verbal outburst versus physical outburst. During one of our company's leader meetings (which at the time were just one boring PPT after another), our head of Sales gets up and says, "I apologize, but I don't have a PPT to show you today..." I then started clapping uncontrollably--I couldn't stop. It was as if Jesus himself was flapping my hands together. Within a few seconds, the whole room was clapping--a sort of kidding, yet thank god-type clap. We still talk about that today.

In your case, Eileen, perhaps you have moments when you freak everyone out by with spontaneous silence.

Yes. It's rare. Like seeing a spotted zebra. But it happens.

Like Eileen (and, in fact, TO Eileen) I have plenty of "Wow, was that my outside voice?" moments, but I had to think on it to come up with one that turned out well.

A few jobs ago, I did internal comms for a large, very diverse call centre. When I arrived, the "employee publication" was a one page courier font sheet of paper, covered with one big column of words that was written by whoever had time, or lost the raffle that month (I'm not exactly sure which). I'm sure I don't need to tell you how much interest that generated.

When I arrived, I lobbied for over a year to get a budget ($1,000 lousy dollars a quarter) to produce a four page, colour publ that actually looked like something someone would want to read, and include articles of interest for, and about our call centre and business. The IT Director I reported to couldn't understand why we would spend the money on something so frivolous.

Then our senior management decided to participate in one of those "Best companies to work for" surveys done by third party consultants. We sucked eggs on our results, especially in the service centre, and especially in our communication to the employees. All the managers sat around at the de-brief meeting going: "But why, how could they be so negative??"

I decided I had gritted my teeth long enough, so I pulled the so-called "newsletter" out of my folder, slid it down the table and said: "Gee, I can't imagine why the employees aren't positive about our FABULOUS communication efforts! I mean this REALLY demonstrates how much value we see in keeping them advised about our business, doesn't it?!"

Nobody said much at the time, but I got my newsletter budget, and we got much better results on the survey the next year.

I think the point we seem to be accidentally proving here--or I seem to be suggesting--is that perhaps all the time we spent making sure we don't say anything intemperate ... builds up to make our rare intemperate remarks super powerful.

I thought I was doing really well keeping my 2 cents (or million-dollars worth of commentary) to myself. But apparently not. One of my favorite bosses (I'll call her "Pam," because that's her name), recommended that I take some training in minimizing facial expressions. It seems that I have some sort of involuntary eye-rolling response that comes out in long meetings when people say stupid stuff. The good news was, "Pam" volunteered to sign up for the course, too. (She kept making the "gag"/finger-down-the-throat sign when people were talking.)