My spouse and I are heading over to the hardware store in a moment. In mentally preparing for this, I thought back to another time we were at such a place in a city we used to live in.

We were in the plumbing section picking up a couple of basic drain connectors for a sink that the previous owners hadn't put much thought into.

On our way out of the aisle, a heavyset man with a big gray and orange beard asked if I could help him. I said, "I don't know, what are you working on?" He explained his project and talked about this very specific piece he thought he needed and wondered if I knew where it might be. The piece sounded like the sort of thing that ought to exist, but I wasn't familiar with it. I told him that, turned to my spouse, and said, "Do you know what he might need?"

And before waiting for an anwer, the man looked at my spouse, crumpled his brow, grunted, and said, "Yeah, right." Then he turned and walked away.

When he was gone, I said, "Do you know what he needed?" And, of course, she pulled the piece off teh pegboard not five feet from where we were standing.

Moral of the story: I wonder how many times my very own, well-rehearsed, nearly flawless meanface has made me look like an enormous, fucking idiot in retrospect. My first guess would be: many many times.