Thursday, June 4, 2009

Aaaaaaaaaaaaaaawkward Moments

Don't you just love awkward situations? I mean, they are HORRIBLE when you're in the moment but they sure do make for funny stories later. And isn't that what life is - just a series of stories strung together? I don't know about you, but I prefer to have lots of funny ones! So I thought I'd share with you some of the best awkward moments I've had. Enjoy!!


Not so cute . . .
I was talking to a friend of mine once who was eating a piece of cake. He was telling me how good it was and then asked me if I wanted a bite. I said no thanks but he insisted and started to feed me a piece, quite against my will. Now, when someone of the opposite sex feeds you something, it is of utmost importance to look cute while taking the bite. This is very hard to do and, in my case, it was made doubly hard by two factors. First, the spoon he used was abnormally large. Seriously, it must have been some type of serving spoon because it was HUGE. So now I have to look cute WHILE trying to daintily wrap my mouth around this spoon. The second factor was my sister Erin. No, she wasn't there, but her voice was in my head. Anytime I've taken a bite of something off her fork or spoon, she complains that I don't "get it all." She hates it if there is ANYthing left on fork after it's been in my mouth. And her voice was in my head saying "Gross! Don't leave anything on the spoon!" So there I was, trying to look cute, trying to look dainty with a huge spoon in my mouth, and trying to seal my lips around the spoon so that I cleaned every last bit of the cake off of it. He pulled the spoon out of my mouth but the awkwardness didn't end there. Now I had my mouth full of cake and had chocolate cake bits and frosting on my lips . . . you know from the dragging of my lips across the spoon to clean it off as it came out. Then to add insult to injury, chunks of the cake on my lips started to fall off and land on my chest. Awesome. I determined at that point that I would never try to look cute again while eating something. Instead, I'm just grabbing the spoon myself and shoving it in. I mean, it might not look cute but at least I'll enjoy the cake.


What the . . .
When Erin and I were in junior high, we were looking for some way to make money during the summer. One of our friends told us about a lady who was looking for someone to watch her kids during the day and Erin and I said that we would do it. We rode our bikes over to her house to meet her and her kids and get the details we'd need to know about the kids' schedules. I'll never forget sitting on her couch and listening to her describe the schedule we'd have to keep, which included quite a bit of housework that she wanted done everyday, as well. Erin and I sat there with our good "we've never met you so we're not going to slump" posture (Mom would have been so proud) and we kept shooting side glances at each other. I mean, I don't have a great Crazy Radar and even I had picked up a crazy vibe off the lady as soon as she had started talking. From her wide eyes and pale face, I could tell Erin had, too. Then the lady told us how she wanted us to run the vacuum cleaner at a certain point each day and I think we both checked out of the conversation and began to wonder what we'd gotten ourselves into. This "easy" babysitting job was turning out to be the worst summer money-making idea EVER. Then came the moment that has been burned into our brains . . .

One of the kids climbed up onto the lady's lap and she was talking to him sweetly. Then she took her lips and grabbed his top lip between them and just held it there for a second. Mine and Erin's chins both went back involuntarily as if we were saying "WHAT THE . . .??" and we turned and looked at each other. Maybe this was her version of a butterfly kiss? Maybe like a pedophilic butterfly? We didn't know and we didn't WANT to know. We just wanted to get away from this lady and her vacuum and butterfly kisses. We finished up our meeting, hopped on our bikes, and rode like the wind. Needless to say, we canceled on the lady and said we couldn't watch her kids because something important had come up. And it would take all summer.


Let me give you a hand . . .
One night when I was in law school, my friends and I were eating at Taco Bell. There were two men at the table next to us who seemed to be suffering from the same condition: they were both confined to wheelchairs and had very small arms and legs and it appeared that they had no use of their legs and VERY little use of their arms and hands. They finished their meals, took their trays to the trashcan, and began to head for the door. Well, I THOUGHT it looked like they were heading for the door - maybe I was wrong. I grabbed the keys and called after them: "Excuse me . . . sir!" He turned around and looked at me. I said "I think you left your keys" and walked over to the man and handed him his keys. He did not say thank you or thanks or even "oh I wouldn't have gotten very far without those." Instead, he looked hard at me as if I had offended him deeply. I was quite taken aback by this and suddenly became self-conscious about my action. I mean, I would have done the same thing for someone who was able to walk so it was not as if I had done it just because he was in a wheelchair. Even though I knew my heart was in the right place, I got nervous about what he thought about me. To compensate for his cold stare, I smiled nervously and began to stutter and stammer about. To my horror, the sentence I was able to get out was "I just didn't want you run off without them." RUN OFF WITHOUT THEM?? As soon as the sentence was out of my mouth, I felt the blood drain from my face and I gulped loudly. The man continued to look at me without even the slightest hint of kindness. He turned to throw his cup away and I, again in an attempt to overcompensate for the awkward situation, lurched forward to open the trashcan for him and said, "Here - let me give you a hand with that." WHAT . . . THE . . . HELL??? It was the first time in my life I had ever wished that I had been rendered mute as a child by Scarlet Fever or some other childhood disease. I pursed my lips together to avoid saying another word and concentrated on keeping my mouth shut. I acted "natural" by smiling nervously and backing away slowly. He turned around and left the restaurant and I was left standing there . . . well . . . with my foot in my mouth.

4 comments:

Alana said...

Gotta love those moments.... We all know I have had plenty!!

Emma said...

Cracking up! Don't know that I recall the last one...funny & classic. There could really be an entire blog site dedicated to nothing but awkward moments....do some more, do some more!

Tracy said...

When that guy was coming at you with the cake, you need to put your hands in stop signs and....

christi said...

And then there was this one time... at band camp...