Say what?

There is a lady who comes into the grocery store pretty often--I'll call her Trisha. She is always so sweet and so polite and she has actually become one of my favorite customers. The other night she came though my line. The machine that prints out the in-store coupons had printed out a coupon for Weight Watchers fat free ice cream for the lady before Trish but the lady before her had just left and had also left the coupon behind on the ledge by the register. Trisha came up, unloaded her few groceries from the basket and picked up the coupon to read it. She said, "Oh, a coupon for fat free ice cream--that sounds good!" I said, "If you need it, you should take it." Meaning, of course, that the lady ahead of her had left the coupon there and if it was for something Trisha could use she should take it. But for some reason, the word 'if' got stuck in my throat (I think I inhaled at the same time I started talking or something) and instead it came out as, "You need it, you should take it." Well I was so embarassed because I certaintly didn't want this sweet lady to think that I was in any way implying she needed to buy fat free, diet ice cream. I also didn't want to make the situation worse by trying to explain myself so I just smiled, told her to have a good night and hoped she understood what I meant by what I had said.

This just got me thinking that many of the misunderstandings we may have in our day-to-day interactions with other people are often the result of a very simple miscommunication.