I'm not sure why this came to my mind. Oh yes, I remember why. I said something to someone in an email that was thoughtless and tactless. I didn't mean to, and she was gracious about it. But I feel bad.
I am not a fan of perfumes. I don't mind lightly scented soaps, in fact, I enjoy those myself, and if the fragrance lingers, you about have to bite me to sense the smell. I use febreze sometimes. I'm not a fanatic about going scent free at all. But I don't wear perfumes and just hate it in church when someone sits behind me loaded to the gills with perfume. It can give me a headache.
Well, in the mail today came some old cloth dolls I bought on ebay. I don't mean vintage, and I don't mean art dolls. Just old dolls. The sort that I'd buy at a garage sale whose next step really should have been the city dump. I give them "new life", turn them into fresher dolls, art dolls. At the Grassroots art center they call my dolls I do like that "recycled dolls."
Anyway, they smelled very strong. I didn't know what the smell was. Was it air freshner? Bug spray? I've gotten things I had to leave outside for a few days due to the ebay seller having sprayed them with something to mask that tired smell or smoke smell of some object.
Anyway, I wanted to know what was on these dolls, because if it was bug spray, I would handle them with vinyl gloves and paint the first coat on outside. If it was air freshner, I'd just air them out for a couple of days.
So, I wrote, thanked her for the great, speedy, smooth transaction. Then I asked her if she'd sprayed the dolls with bug spray or air freshner, or what? I explained I needed to know due to an allergy.
She wrote back and graciously told me that the dolls had been on her vanity for quite a while and it was probably her perfume. Then she kindly told me what perfume it was, in case I needed to know.
How awful! I felt terrible for suggesting that her perfume smelled like bug spray! I'm a jerk, go ahead, call me a jerk. sigh...........
And that's why I'm saying that words hurt. I had no such intention, but asked too blunt a question without thinking it out.
That is one way words hurt. There are much more serious ways people hurt each other with words. I guess we've all experienced that, huh?
I'm okay, no one has hurt me with words too recently. I imagine most of us can think back to ways we've been hurt with words, sometimes badly.
"Sticks and stones can break my bones, but words can never hurt me."
Did you learn that as a kid? Did it make you feel bad, wrong somehow, for feeling so hurt when someone verbally smacked you around? That saying is a lie, and it shouldn't be taught to children. They need to know that their feelings can be hurt with words, and just as important, they need to know that their words can hurt someone else.
Janet
