Glutton

I am sitting in a meeting.  Actually, I am running the meeting.  One of the women there is talking about how stressful her project is and how much she has on her plate.  (I am not trying to be mean, but I have to inform you of this so the story makes sense.  This woman is pretty large).  I am looking at her as she is talking; feeling bad about how much responsibility she has taken on and say, “You are such a glutton” and continue on with my meeting.  While I am talking, I can’t shake the feeling that an awkward silence has fallen over the room.  I have become way too familiar with this feeling.  It hits me what I said.  I meant to say, “Glutton for punishment.” Oh dear!  I can’t go back and fix this one without calling attention to her weight.  I finish the meeting and thank her for her hard work.  Yet, another victim that will never be the same because of my impulsive mouth!

Boogers Make Me Feel Embarrassed

I’m at work and in charge of implementing a new software program (this makes me sound smart.  Don’t worry, I’m not.) for the company and teaching everyone to use it properly.  I set up a lunch meeting with one of the senior people I work with – we’ll call him Boogie - along with 2 IT guys. 

I arrive first.  Let me paint the picture of this meeting place.  We are in Boogies office, which he keeps VERY tidy.  There isn’t one thing on his desk except his computer off to the side.  I sit directly across the desk from him – me on one side, he on the other, and a clean, clear desk between us.  So, we make awkward, at-work, small talk while we wait for the IT guys arrive. 

It isn’t long after I begin small-talking that I notice he has a booger in his nose.  I know that this happens – and everyone gets them, blah blah blah.  But, this was no ordinary booger.  This thing takes up his entire right nostril.  And as he breaths, it vibrates in and out of his nose.  So, I talk, and words are coming out of my mouth, but all I can think about is the monster coming out of his nose.  And, I know he knows that something isn’t right because he keeps batting at his nose and sniffing and stuff.  I make my side of this conversation stop because I am so scared to keep talking for fear the word “Booger” will come flying out of my mouth like that gas commercial.

He starts talking, while still continuing to touch his nose.  Well, one touch too many sends this booger shooting straight out of his nose and onto the pretty, clean, clear desk.  It is laying there between us as if it is interested in joining our conversation as well.  We stop talking, look at it, look at each other and then look down at it again.  My face starts to feel very hot.  Boogie then starts talking again, tries to act smooth (too late), picks it up and flicks it into the trash can as if this was not at all embarrassing and he was totally comfortable with the whole thing.  So, he attempts to keep talking while looking at my face, which was a bright shade of fuchsia.  He finally just stops, swallows his pride, looks down in shame and says,

“Lolo…Why didn’t you tell me I had a booger?”

I burst into the loudest laugh you’ve ever heard since I need the emotional release in a major way. I laugh until tears are rolling down my face.  I laugh too hard and for too long.  I’m not sure what he is doing because I am too busy swimming in my own relief.  With that, the other 2 IT guys walk into our meeting and I force myself to gain composure.

We all start eating our food, mine being a peanut butter and jelly sandwich which I am shoving into my mouth to stuff down my embarrassment and laughter.  It’s time for me to start teaching software implementation to them – which feels so unsuitable at this point, but anything to change the subject is good.  So I put down my half-eaten sandwich and begin to teach.  But I feel like I have peanut butter all over my face.  I start talking, but feel paranoid about the food on my face.  Conversation:

Me (while wiping my face with my hand):  Whoa, sorry guys - I feel like I have peanut butter all over my face?!  Do I?

Boogie: No Lolo, you don’t.  And don’t worry, if you had something on your face…I would tell you (he says with a knowing grin and a wink).

April (I'm a) Fool's Day

It is April Fool’s Day and our office is playing a joke on the guy in charge. We turn off all the lights and hide in a conference room when he arrives to confuse the hell out of him; make him think it is a Saturday or something. It is my job to keep watch for him in the front lobby.  I am supposed to hide under my desk and IM someone in the back when he gets to the office to warn them it is time to hide. When he walks through the lobby, I straight-panic and can’t move fast enough (like in a nightmare or something).  Here is what my IM says:

"gwe
her here
1\
!!!!!!\"

Clearly, I work really well under pressure. Luckily, the girl I send it to knows me well enough to know that I am the only real fool on April 1^st.  She reads between the lines in time to warn everyone to hide. Glad one of us could pull it off.

No Good Deed Goes Unpunished

My guy friend started dating a new girl, we shall name her Jewels (you’ll understand later).  I was excited for him, but had yet to meet her.  They went on a double date in Fort Worth.  Instead of driving back to Dallas, they decided to crash at her friends’ house. 

Are you wondering how I come into play here?  Well, it seems Jewels left her jewelry (hence, the nick name) at said friend’s house.  They had already driven back to Dallas when she realized this.  My guy friend calls, knowing I will be in Fort Worth and then driving to Dallas the next day, and asks if I could swing by and get Jewels’ jewelry out of the mailbox.  “Sure” I say, “no problem!”  I’m always up for doing something that makes me look nice.

So, I go to dinner with a friend and decide I can swing by this mailbox and grab the goods.  It’s about 9pm making it dark outside, which frightens me.  I drive over there using the address I was given, and the house sneaks up on me so I have to stop my car, somewhat abruptly, so I don’t pass the house.  This leaves me sort of awkwardly parked in the middle of the street, unusually far away from the street-side mailbox.  But oh well, I won’t be here for long.

I throw my car in park, hop out of the car, scurry (um, I’m not walking since I am afraid of nighttime) around the front of my car and then sprint 15 feet to the mailbox, open it, and grab the surprisingly big plastic baggie out of it, can’t remember closing the mailbox, sprint back the 15 feet, around the car, and hop back in.  Whew.  Made it without anything scary happening to me! 

Put the car in drive and I’m on my way and feeling great about myself for doing such a nice thing for a person I’ve never met.  Wait, are those lights in my review mirror?  Are they flashing red and blue and is someone asking me to pullover on a loud speaker?  Long story long, yes it is.  I quickly review the previous five minutes in my head and realize it may have looked slightly suspect to have run as fast as I can back and forth to a mail box and stolen whatever was in it.  This can’t be good.

Cop walks around to my drivers’ side window, as they do, I roll down the window and here is our conversation:

Cop: License and registration, please

Me: Yes sir!  (I’ve already pulled it out before he could even get to my car.  I like to prepared)

Cop: Ma’am, what were you doing in that mailbox?

Me: I was picking up something up for a friend.

Cop: What were you picking up?

Me: Jewelry

Cop: Jewelry?!  What kind of jewelry, exactly?

Me (realizing this doesn’t sound good and that I also haven’t even looked inside the baggie and I could be a drug mule, for all I knew.  So, cheerfully and with fake-confidence, trying to be as darling as possible): “Well, hmmmm, let’s just take a look-see, shall we officer!” 

He doesn’t think I am darling.  He takes the bag from me and sees that, thank GOD, it is, in fact, jewelry.

Cop: Whose jewelry is this?

Me: A friends’ girlfriend (so sketchy)

Cop: What is her name?

Me: um….I don’t know (the sketchy continues)

Cop: Whose house is this?

Me: I…uh…I don’t know. (and the sketchy is complete)

I continue: “Look, I know this sounds peculiar, but I am honestly just trying to do something nice right now and help out a friend who has a new girlfriend that –“

Cop Interrupts: “I’m just gonna go check out this story with the people who live here.”

I hop out of the car to go with him.  As he goes to grab his gun, he forcefully says “Get back in your car, ma’am.  We’ve had some problems with mail theft around here and I need to speak with these people without you there”

So he leaves me there, alone in the nighttime (and remember how I feel about the nighttime.  I hate this guy).  I hear him talking to her, but cannot make out what they are saying.  He comes back over and:

Cop: “She has no idea what you are talking about.”

Me (this is where I lose it and start yelling): “I’m being framed, sir!  I swear, I’m an honest person who – “

Cop interrupts again (chuckling): “Oh. I’m just kidding with you, ma’am!  Your story checked out.  She said it’s true.  Lighten up, why don’t cha!”

Well look who found a himself a sense of humor.  I’m not laughing, officer.  I hate you.

No good deed goes unpunished.

The Girl in the Yellow Dress

Rewind to last night…I was at a bar in Austin that had a really cool back porch area.  They had a section to the side that was for hula-hooping.  How fun is that!  You know where I was hanging out!  I saw a guy a sort of know (let’s call him Hoop) hula hooping with a girl in a yellow dress.  She had been slightly over served and her dress was a tad bit short.  This is not a good combo in the hula hopping section.  Let’s just say I saw her underwear a few more times than I needed to.  She and Hoop were laughing and talking.  I thought they had just met and were really hitting it off!  Good for Hoop!

Back to present day.  I am at a tailgate party talking with my sister.  Hoop walks up with a friend, we will call him Jo.  We tell of our shenanigans the night before.  I proceed to give Hoop a nudge and say, “Well, well, you and the girl in the yellow dress last night.”

Hoop says, “What?”

I say, “You totally could have gotten laid last night!”  (I need to stop right there and tell you that I don’t think the phrase “get laid” has ever come out of my mouth before.  It’s not really my style and more of a thing best left for dudes to say.  I still don’t know why I hurled it out)

Hoop says, “Um.”

Feeling so confident and funny, I continue my hilarious banter and go on to say, “Ya, you know, the one in the yellow dress, the drunk girl who you were hula hooping with that kept flashing her underwear for the world to see?!”

(Pause)

(Pause)

(Pause)

I don’t understand how on earth he doesn’t remember who I am talking about.

Oh, he remembers.  

He says while pointing at Jo, “Well…this is pretty awkward because the girl you are talking about….um….that is his sister.”

I know my face turned a bright shade of red.  There is really no saving this.

Jo says curiously, “I kept thinking… I think my sister was the only one at the bar last night wearing a yellow dress?”

I bury my head in his chest and find myself completely speechless for….the first time EVER. 

I mean what do you say?  “I am sorry I called your sister is ho-bag”?  Ya, probably not.

Dingle What?

I walk into the kitchen at work.  A colleague is already there making coffee.  We have one of those Keurig single serve coffee makers.

He says, “You won’t believe what I just did!”

I say, “What?”

“I made a cup of coffee and forgot to put the cup underneath it.  Coffee spilled everywhere.”

I laugh.

He follows it up with, “I am such a dingle berry.”

“Excuse me.”

He repeats, “A dingle berry.”

Yep!  Thought I heard him right the first time, but asked again to clarify.  Not only did he use the term dingle berry, but he used it referring to himself!  I am almost 100% positive that he meant to say, “dingbat.”  The look on his face when he said it the second time made me realize he knew something was not quite right with what he had said, but he couldn’t put his finger on it.  It was too uncomfortable to correct him, so we both finished making our coffee without another word.  I hope he didn't go google it from his work computer! 

Tom Cruise

Here we go again…blind date numero dos. 

My mom tells me she wants to set me up with a Tom Cruise look-alike she met over the weekend.  I say, “Ok.  Sounds promising (this is before Tom’s Katie Holmes, jump on Oprah’s couch debacle)!” 

I am 19, still in college, and he is 25.  The maturity difference is definitely a concern of mine, but willing to give-it-a-go. 

He picks me up.  My first thought, “I think my mom must have Tom Cruise mistaken with someone else.  There is absolutely ZERO resemblance. (For the sake of this story, we will still refer to him as Tom).”  Ok, so he does not look like Tom Cruise, but he is pretty good looking.  Things are looking up. 

He takes me to a local Mexican food spot.  Once we sit down, I quickly realize Tom is WAY smarter than me.  Every other word out of his mouth is beyond my vocabulary.  He obviously studied his SAT words and I did not.  As he talks about things that are flying over my head, I smile and nod, practicing my active listening skills I learned in my Communication Skills 101 class earlier that day.  I decide to put on my positive thinking hat, “This date is not a total disaster.  There is still hope.”  Famous last words.

After dinner, he suggests we go to this “club.”  This particular club happens to be the cheesiest one in town.  Again, I put on my positive thinking hat, “Well, since I am still in college, he probably thinks this is where I want to go.  Nice of him to consider my age.”  This club has themed rooms:  80s room, techno cage room, hip hop room, and last, but not least, karaoke room…can you guess where this is heading?  Don’t get me wrong, I love karaoke.  Let me rephrase, I love watching karaoke.  Always a good time watching people (not necessarily my date) make fools of themselves! 

He grabs us a couple of drinks and we settle into a table in the “karaoke room.”  All the sudden over the speaker, “Tom, you are next on stage, Tom.”  OMG!  OMG!  No, no, this is not happening.  Please let there be another Tom… 

My (I use this term loosely) Tom stands up and makes his way to the stage.  The intro to Frank Sinatra’s “Luck Be a Lady” tonight starts playing.  Every bone in my body aches with embarrassment for him and for me.  As he is pointing at me every time he sings the word “Lady” (which is a LOT), the two older women next to me lean over and say, “Oh!  How cute! Is that your boyfriend?”  I quickly reply, “Um…No!  First date….Blind date!” Put yourself in this situation, what are you supposed to say when he gets back to the table?  I manage to muster up, “Good job.” 

You think the story ends there, don’t you?  If only!  We jump in the car to leave and I think I am headed home.  Wrong!  I realize this marathon of a date is not over.  He wants to go to What-a-Burger.  We had finished a very large Mexican meal not two hours earlier, but I oblige.  After we roll out of the parking lot with our cheeseburgers, I think I am headed home.  Wrong again!  We pull over to a golf course.  He sets up a picnic for us in the dark on the fairway of the 1^st hole.

I’m sorry!  What exactly does he think is going to happen here?  I am VERY anti-PDA and we are a stone’s throw (or I guess a burger’s throw in this situation) from my parents house.  I force my burger down quickly thinking it will make this picnic end sooner.  After my final bite, he leans over for a kiss.  My reaction…turn my head and offer my cheek!  The ultimate rejection.  He took the hint and quickly packed up our romantic, fast food picnic and took me home.  Thankfully, I did not have to deal with the afterbirth of this date.  I think he read my signal LOUD AND CLEAR. No follow up calls, texts, or email to ignore.