Like when someone asks you to kiss them hello at a dinner party, so you do, and then they say “No, on the lips,” so you do it again, and then they tell you they have bad breath. You know who you are.

Or when a police officer pulls over a car that is weaving in and out of its lane only to discover, inside, half a bottle of whiskey and a woman who has peed herself.

Or when someone says loudly at a party, “I can’t believe we had sex that time!” and laughs, and someone else says “Um, it was twice” and then the first person says “Haha, what? No it was only once!” and then the second person gives a detailed account to a room steadily growing more and more attentive that indicates clearly it was, in fact, twice.

If variety is the spice of life, some of us are quite spicy indeed.

But we must forge onward in the awkward party conversation that is life, even if we suddenly remember what our friends genitals look like.

It is at these times that I believe a bugle would serve me well. I would carry it on a strap around my body, and when presented either with a person whom I find distasteful or a situation I do not want to be in, I would hold it aloft and let fly with a mighty note.

This would be a signal to all assembled that the last five minutes of life are to be rewound, and this time through I will shut my mouth or go elsewhere — possisbly both, and that everyone who hears it should forget about my many faults.

I am scouring ebay for such a bugle as we speak. Believe it!