slip of the tongue...

So...I had a meeting with my new boss tonight. I just took a job in Madrid and will be teaching rather respectable executives, officials and otherwise rich, famous and powerful people. As such, I have been careful to keep my neck covered (I have a rather large tattoo on my neck which I got while delirious with typhoid fever in Peru 3 years ago) Tonight I was wearing a lovely silk kerchief the color of my eyes tied round my neck in a way that I imagine to be fetching.

I was looking over the books that I would be using in my lessons next week and my boss said, "Is something wrong with your neck?" I froze, eyes went wide, voice quiet and said, "I have a tattoo." This received a blank stare. I continued while playing with the ends of the kerchief, "I usually wear something to cover it while I'm at work." I took a deep breath, she was still staring blankly then suddenly snapped back to attention with a confused look, "No, I mean you're..." and she demonstrated a rather pained looking stretch of the neck, "I noticed it when you were on the computer. You looked like you were in pain." I answered with a momentary blank stare then, "Oh! Um, yes, I have a bad back and neck. I was in a lot of car wrecks as a teenager. It's worse because I haven't been doing my yoga."
"You haven't been doing it lately? Why?!"
"I uh, well, it's a routine thing and it gets interrupted and I forget when I travel."

We went back to what we were doing and with her back turned, I bit my lips and closed my eyes against the laugh at my slip. No, mystery has never been my forte´.