I was blessed with the lovely gift of extremely small teeth and an extremely large gap between those teeth. At the ripe ol' age of 11, my orthodontist decided to put the largest braces possible on my itty bitty teeth. 18 months later, I lost the braces but was left with a beautiful speech impediment called a lisp. Now, 10 years later, my lisp managed to stick around. Going through middle and high school with this speech impediment was unfortunate. What's even more unfortunate is trying to find an employer that will take you seriously. The mockery and ambiguity is something that myself and several others deal with every day. Here are 10 things every person with a lisp are tired of hearing.

1. "Couldn't you take a speech class to get rid of that?"

2. "Do you spit when you talk?"

3. "Say fish sticks!"

4. "Why can't you just talk with your tongue in your mouth?"

5. "You sound so cute when you talk!"

6. "Is that hereditary?"

7. "I'm sorry. I can't understand you?"

8. "Wait. How old are you?"

9. "Why is it called a lisp if you can't even say the "s"?

10. "Don't worry, you'll grow out of it... eventually."