TIFU by asking my manager for permission to attend an international conference and accidentally calling him "pookie dookie"

This happened literally an hour ago and I am currently weighing weather its easier to apologize or just hand in my resignation.

I had a brutally long day. The kind where every "quick call" somehow becomes 45 minutes, every task is urgent until a more urgent task shows up, and by 6pm you're not really a person anymore. You're just a Slack notification with a heartbeat.

On top of all that, I had to send a pretty important email to my manager asking for approval to attend a conference abroad. Not a casual "hey can i go?" either. This one had budget justifications, flight estimates, hotel costs, why it benefits the team, what learnings I'd bring back, all the corporate vocabulary you need to convince someone to let you leave the continent on the company's dime.

So naturally, I decided this was the perfect time to multitask.

My girlfriend called while I was still drafitng it. We're pretty new, still in that sickly sweet honeymoon phase where you have inside jokes that are genuinely embarrassing to even think about.

One of those jokes is that I call her "pookie dookie."

There is, unfortunatley (or fortunatley depending on person to person), lore.

A few weeks ago she was staying over and forgot to flush. I went into the bathroom later and waht I saw... I don't even know how to describe it. It looked like somehting had gone very wrong in there. For like two full seconds I genuinely thought the local homeless man had broken in again, used my bathroom, and bounced. I say "again" because this guy has a history with our building. Previous visit he left a little surprise in the bike shed that the whole building got to experience together. Real community bonding moment.

Here's the thing, my girlfriend is tiny. Petite. Looks like she'd get knocked over by a strong opinion. So when I saw this my first thought wasn't "oh she porbbaly forgot to flush." My first thought was "a grown ass man has violated my toilet."

When she admitted it was her, I handled it with the maturity you'd expect from someone who is apparently 12 years old on the inside. And thats how "pookie dookie" was born. It's my deeply stupid/loving way of teasing her about The Incident.

Anyway. Back to today.

I'm on the phone with her while trying to finish this very serious, very professional email. I'm wrapping up my argument for why this conference is valuable for networking and strategic development and whatever else sounds good, while half-listening to her talk about her day.

I finish the email. It's polished. Respectful. Honestly one of the better arguments I've ever made for expensing a hotel in another country.

Right as she's wrapping up the call, out of pure habit, I say out loud:

"Love you, pookie dookie."

And hit send.

I lean back. That rare moment where you actually feel good about something you did at work. Like wow, maybe I AM good at my job.

Ten mintues later I reread the email.

The final paragraph read:

"Thank you for considering my request. I'm happy to provide any additional details about the conference, travel costs, or expected outcomes.

Love you, pookie dookie.

Best,
[My Name]"

I have never felt my skeleton try to leave my body before today.

This wasn't sent to a work friend or a chill coworker. This was sent to my manager. My very normal, very serious, married-with-kids manager. The man who now has a written record of me signing off a budget request with "pookie dookie."

I'm just staring at the sent email like it's a crime scene.

No reply yet. Which is actually worse than a reply. Silence means he's either busy, confused, laughing, forwarding it to HR, or very carefully deciding whether my conference attendence is "strategically beneficial" enough to justify the fact that I apparently write budget requests like a concussed Teletubby.

I tried to unsend it. It's been an hour. That ship has sailed, sunk, and been renamed the SS Pookie Dookie.

TL;DR: Was drafting a fromal email to my manager asking to attend an international conference, got on the phone with my girlfriend at the same time, and accidentally typed our disgusting inside joke nickname "love you, pookie dookie" at the end and sent it. It has been an hour. I am now considering apology strategies, unsend options, and a new identity.

Ps: If anyone knows how to unsend an email from outlook, I’d really appreciate the help!