Tuesday, July 13, 2010

Talking with my hands

Have you ever been in a situation where you find yourself saying something or doing something completely inappropriate without realizing it? And then when you DO realize it, you're completely beside yourself with embarrassment, hoping that no one else noticed? Well, I found myself in that situation on Saturday.

With Gustavo.

You remember Gustavo, right? He's my yard guy I have an inappropriate crush on him. And you would, too, if he were your yard guy. So I will NOT be giving you his number, thankyouverymuch.

ANYWAY, I completely embarrassed myself with him this weekend and I'd give anything to forget about it. So, naturally, I thought I should write about it here for all of you to enjoy. Here's the story, complete with background:

When I bought my house, there was a gas grill outside that was connected to my gas line. The grill was on a post in the ground right next to my deck. It was very convenient but eventually it died out and it was time for me to get a new one. So I did. My new gas grill is also connected to my gas line but it is NOT on a post in the ground - it's on wheels on my deck. The problem is that, apparently the old grill post concealed the gas connection that comes out of the ground. But now that post is gone so the result is that there is now a white cylindrical gas connection thingy (it's a technical term - stay with me) sticking up out of the ground, unconcealed. And I don't like it.

Gustavo recently landscaped my yard and I told him that I was going to try to get an extension built onto my deck so that I could cover up the white connection thingy and be able to wheel my grill off of my deck and over the connection thingy. He told me that he could actually accomplish the same thing using bricks and crushed granite if I wanted him to. As that was more time that he'd have to spend in my backyard, I said that was great. So that's what he did - he built up a little area next to my deck with crushed granite and bricks and now I can roll my grill from my deck onto the extension that he made. And it covers up the white thing. So it's perfect.

BUT then I realized that I need to be able to access the gas thingy in case of any problems with the connection so I was planning to talk to him about how much he'd charge me to re-do it so that it would be accessible. So when I heard him mowing the yard on Saturday morning, I hopped out of bed (but not like in a desperate way or anything so quit judging me) so that I could ask him about that. I went into my bathroom, brushed my teeth, and changed from pajamas to actual clothes. I checked to make sure that my bed head wasn't too bad, grabbed a 20 to pay him for mowing the yard, and went downstairs. But by the time I got down there, he was already gone. So I went to the front yard to try to catch him as he loaded up his equipment.

I caught him just in time and yelled "Gustavo" as sweetly and non-desperately as I could. He had already closed his door but when he heard me, he got out and he ran over to me. (Yes, I said "ran" - don't interrupt my fantasy, people.) As he ran toward me, I walked calmly to the end of my driveway, resisting the temptation to run toward him, yelling "Mi amor! Mi amor!" When he got to my driveway, I smiled too big and handed him his money for mowing the yard. Then we had this conversation:

Me: Sorry! I was actually asleep. [But then your big, manly lawnmower woke me up.]
Gustavo: [smiling] Oh, that's okay.
Me: [Oh, he has the cutest smile . . . focus, Catherine. Focus.] I wanted to ask you something real quick. You know how you built up that thing for my grill?
Gustavo: Mmmm hmmmm . . .
Me: [Mmmmmmmm hmmmmmmm - focus, Catherine. Focus.] Well, it's hard to describe, but there's a white thing under there -

This is when things got off track. In my effort to describe/break the language barrier, I tried to also charade what I was talking about. So I formed a "C" with my right hand and then put my left hand around that C so that I had made a hole with my two hands - like as if I were forming the letter "O". But since the gas connection is a cylinder and not an "O", I needed to charade it's shape by doing something that would demonstrate it's 3-dimensional nature. So I took the "O" shape that I was forming aaaaaaaaaaaaaand then I started moving my hands up and down.

This is NOT the universal sign for "cylinder" . . .

When I realized what I was doing, a voice inside my head started screaming "whatareyoudoingwhatareyoudoingWHATAREYOUDOOOOOOOOOIIIIIIIIIIIIIINGGGGG???" My eyes bulged out and I quickly stopped. I tried to put my hands down calmly, hoping to play it off as if nothing out of the ordinary had happened. But, in reality, I yanked my hands down and slapped them against my thighs. I paused for a second, let my thighs stop stinging, stuttered through the rest of my sentence, and blushed violently. I silently vowed right then and there to never talk with my hands again. And to learn how to say "white gas connection thingy" in Spanish . . .

Gustavo was quite the gentleman and never reacted to my inadvertent obscene gesture. And he never once asked me why I kept looking at my hands, yelling "Traitors!" He simply told me that he had actually anticipated that need and that he had left the gas connection accessible by building around it with bricks and covering it with a flagstone. So it turns out that all I had to do was lift the flagstone up and I would have seen that he had already taken care of it. And I could have avoided the whole obscenity thing.

Awesome.

After I said goodbye to Gustavo, I walked back into my house with my hands still placed firmly on my thighs. I was so embarrassed. And then, to my horror, I thought about the rest of his crew in his truck. They wouldn't have heard anything - they would have only seen me giving Gustavo 20 dollars and then making an obscene gesture.

I'll never be able to look any of them in the eye again.

But maybe I'll get a discount out of it . . .

8 comments:

Anonymous said...

OMG! I should not have read this at work. I was LOL so bad! Awesome story Catherine!

Christi said...

Oh Em Gee... There are words, but not sure which ones to use. HOLY CRAP!!!!!!!!!! Can I just say... AWESOME... pure awesomeness.

Anonymous said...

Thank you for giving me the hysterical morning laugh I just had. Now, can I meet Gustavo??!!

Unknown said...

When are you going to write that book? Seriously. You could have a bestseller. Just sayin....

Anonymous said...

Oh, I wish I could have watched this all happen! ROFLOL

Phyllis Eddings said...

Oh Catherine. My co-workers thought I was going to fall out of my chair and choke to death! You are the most precious thing ever!

Btw, what makes the crush inappropriate? Is he married? Too young?

Jackie Castle said...

This was too cute! Oh my, thanks for the laugh. Awesome!

Kara said...

Hahahahaha that was hilarious!!!