Mid March Madness

I was organizing and sorting  my life memories recently. You know how you come across an old photo or scrap of paper and it takes you back to an exact time and place. To an exact aroma or noise.

I’m glad we have memories. Because some of our memories, buried in the years of brain software, are just too funny not to pull up occasionally and laugh over. 

I just found one of those memories again and it was such a typical experience of my life.  I was sick with a head cold and larengitist one day, so I stayed home from school to rest and heal. I knew we had a test coming up the next day, and I really wanted to study for that test, so I called my teacher to ask him to send my text book home with my sibling.

My whole phone call turned into a disaster. With my croaky voice, there was no way he could know who I was. When he answered the phone, I said, ” Hello, this is Anita.”

“No, this is Bill. ” he replied. 

“This is Anita.” I repeated more firmly.

“No. This is Bill.” He repeated just as firmly.

I tried one more time. “THIS is Anita.”

“NO, this is Bill.” Came the steady reply.

Let’s just say I was too embarrassed by then to try to explain anymore of my predicament. I simply said “Bye.” And hung up the phone. No worries, his name wasn’t actually Bill 😉 

{I learned a lesson in phone etiquette and how to introduce yourself properly on the first sentence of speaking with someone.} 

I’m still laughing over it.

I suppose phones and me have had our battles, however, because several years later, I totally misunderstood a conversation. 

My Dad had advertised a ‘pickup head’ for the front of a combine (or was it a chopper). One of these heads that hungerly gobbles the field’s harvest of crops and feeds it back into the equipment. When a guy called to ask about the pickup head, I immediately envisioned a pickup truck in my mind. I promised to pass the message along to my Dad. That evening, I casually mentioned to him that a guy called about the ‘ truck front’ he had advertised. He looked at me like I was just a touch crazy. “I didn’t advertise a truck front! ” he said. “But I did advertise a pickup head.” 

It was my turn to feel truly a bit crazy. I don’t think I will ever totally live that one down. Hehehe.

I was a bit of a dreamer with my head in the clouds or my nose in a book. That brought me more then my fair share of embarrassing moments. When I was 8 years old, I forgot my new glasses in the morning and had to go a whole day at school without them. I thought I would die of embarrassment 🙂 

At about the same time in life, we were at a large family reunion with lots of grownup cousins that I barely knew. I stepped on my cousins flip flop and made her fall in front if a whole circle of guys. She fell not  once. But twice. And of course there was a comfortable chuckle. To us, it was the most embarrassing experience EVER! Our little girl minds thought we were marked forever. For months, and likely years 🙂 we would include ‘Remember?” In the notes we wrote each other. It was like we had this life altering experience that would forever scar our reputation.  I still smile over our little girl minds:) eventually we resorted to a “!” as a reminder of our survival story. And when we got old enough to face the ‘ big drastic things’ we totally dropped even “!”

When I was a teenager I went to church one Sunday morning with two different shoes on and didn’t realize it until I was walking down the isle. Yep. Embarrassing. 

I was one of those wordy people and would explain myself into an embarrassing  tangle of synonyms. Like the cat is a male or a he or a tom. When I could have simply said, “This is Sylvan.”

I loved horses, as many young girls do, and was rather bug eyed over anything western. When I eventually grew up enough to move west and teach school, I was thrilled to borrow a horse to ride. Turns out that READING about horses and actually RIDING them is a very different story. I sat in the Lane one day, on this stubborn horse that REFUSED to take a step. It was cold and windy and yep, embarrassing. Because my then, future husband,  drove by and there I sat. A sitting duck. On a horse. I don’t think he realized my predicament and before I could decide if I actually wanted to wave him down ( I didn’t know him well yet 🙂 he was gone with a wave. To this day, I’m not sure how I got that horse to move on home. It was a not so glamorous moment of my life. 

Please tell me you have all had those awkward moments on a stair case or isle of moving out of someone else’s way in the same direction they move, and you immediately both move the other way and it becomes an embarrassing dance. Or hugged someone and your glasses caught on theirs. Or reached out to shake hands and gotten your grasp all twisted up or your finger somehow bent at an odd uncomfortable angle. Or gotten your talk all mixed up. Or happened to be pointing the pressure washer hose at someone when it suddenly begins shooting water out with it’s fiercest blast and you hit them dead center and the total look of SHOCK that crosses their face and the total HORROR on your own. 
By now, you should know you aren’t the only one who does amazingly awkward things and finds themself in less then ideal situations. It’s not fun to be the one who is caught in so many awkward moments. And no, I didn’t mention my MOST embarrassing moment of all time. That one is truly too embarrassing.

Especially when you blush easily. 

But then again, we folks have more to laugh about and more stories to tell our  grandchildren when we are old and grey and wrinkled. 

If we can remember them, that is  🙂 

I would love to hear your funny stories! 

It’s mid March. Couldn’t we all use a good laugh or a bit of happy madness?