What's Your Most Embarrassing Moment?

I cringe when I hear this question. I can never remember enough embarrassing things to really amuse those who ask. I do have very embarrassing moments, quite frequently in fact, but I work so hard at just shrugging them off that I end up forgetting. I tell everyone and try to make it as funny as I can, and then it all turns into a big joke that we all laugh at. Then I move on.

I do have a couple of work stories from Healthways that my coworkers reminded me about so often I can't help but remember. Healthways was a call center, and I would make outbound calls and introduce myself. So one day I got a call and I said, "Hello, my name is Cydni, I'm calling to speak with Stephen." Only I didn't say "speak with." No, that would have been, you know, correct. For no good reason, the words that came out of my mouth were these: "Hello, my name is Cydni. I'm calling to sleep with Stephen." Aaagh! I was talking to the man's wife! I was terribly embarrassed and I apologized all over myself. The lady was polite and told me her husband wasn't home. After that call ended, I reminded myself over and over to say my script correctly, but I ended up doing it a couple more times and I decided to change my scripting to different verbage, like saying I'm calling for Stephen.

Another time, after transferring a customer to my supervisor, my sup came back and let me know that the customer had guessed from my voice and demeanor that I'm a redhead. We found this amusing, and I was thinking about it when my next call came in. "Hello, my name is Cydni. I'm a representative from Wellmark Blue Cross Blue Shield calling for Susan." Only I didn't say representative. I said, "I'm a redhead from Wellmark Bue Cross Blue Shield." Oh, dear. My customer cracked up laughing, as did the coworkers sitting around me.

Indeed. The story of my life is explained most clearly by a Far Side comic where a man stands at the back of an orchestra thinking, "This time I won't screw up, I won't screw up, I won't screw up..." But he's holding only one cymbal in his hands. The caption reads, "Rodger screws up." That's me. I concentrate so hard on not screwing up that I just screw it up worse. Le sigh.

But I'm not the only one who does embarrassing things! I know this because I read Laurie Notaro and I know that I am, in fact, what Laurie terms an "Idiot Girl." I'm OK with this. Or at least, I'm learning to be OK with it.

All right, I really want to hear other people's embarrassing moments. Would you tell me a story?

Aah, What Delicious Lentils!

In his book entitled The Lion, The Witch And The Wardrobe, C.S. Lewis asserts (And I quote from memory cause I don't care at all about accuracy in my blog) "Nothing ruins good, ordinary food like bad magic food." This is at the part where Edmund doesn't want to eat fish dinner with the beavers because he wants more Turkish Delight from the Queen.

But lately I've been paraphrasing the quote to match my own situation, as our food stores get down to the bottom of the barrel and we find ourselves with nothing but the very plainest, simplest food possible. I find myself watching TV and seeing footage of a juicy hamburger, and just craving it with all my might. I may be iron deficient, come to think of it. But my point is that nothing ruins good, honest food that is the ultimate in health and nutrition like bad, overprocessed, oversalted, superfatted junk food. I see the hamburger and I want to eat it instead of my lentil and barley vegetable soup.

Luckily, I come from a long line of verified vegetarians, so I know how to cook healthy vegetarian food at this time when we can't actually afford meat. I know how to combine the grains and legumes to form a complete protein. I know that what I'm feeding my body is wonderfully healthy. And yet I would prefer to gorge myself on something that tastes better. Right now, there is no possibility of doing so, therefore, I eat wholesome food. Le sigh.

Why do the really yummy things have to be so very bad for you? It's not fair.

Another Chapter From The Life Of The Queen Of Freak Magnets

So, last night I went over to my nineteen-year-old sister-in-laws's dorm room to fetch some papers my husband needed her to print. It was a routine visit, but when I got there the door was open. I didn't quite know the protocol, but I remembered my own dorm days, so i just called out, "Knock Knock!" and walked in.

There was a dark-skinned fellow in there, talking to my little sister-in-law. I decided to assume there was nothing amiss and said hello. He stepped up and introduced himself in a speech so mumbled and unintelligible that I couldn't understand his name at all. This, combined with his feeble handshake, led me to believe the man was mentally disabled. He stood there, saying nothing, staring at me unabashedly with mouth agape in what can only be described as a gawk. His tongue ran across the corner of his mouth several times with an audible slurping sound.

"So, where are you from?" I asked, desperate to relieve the intense awkwardness.

"Bahamas." He replied, licking the corner of his mouth again. He never blinked.

"Oh, the Bahamas!" I gushed. "I would like to go to the Bahamas! What a wonderful place to be from! A beautiful place...in the pictures I've seen."

By this time my sister-in-law was edging toward the doorway where I stood.

"I was just leaving." She murmured, head down, obviously uncomfortable.

Suddenly, the whole situation took on a more sinister cast.

"Oh! All right." I hadn't been aware that she was coming with me, but I understood that she needed rescuing. No prob. Big Sis is here. On our way out, the fellow opened doors for us repeatedly. We thanked him politely, but all the time I was mentally instructing him to back away from my sister-in-law. No likey.

"So, I assume he is mentally disabled." We might not have been quite out of earshot when I made this observation.

"What? No, I don't think so." She replied.

"Really? My mom's a special ed teacher. I really think there's something going on there." I think this is the same concept as people using their father's priesthood for spiritual purposes. But really, I have had a little more contact with my mom's students that the average kid. I had been positive that I'd identified a classic case of mental retardation.

"No. Well. maybe."

She told me she'd had her bedroom door open because she was trying to prepare a carload of her things for me to help her take to Shayne's and my apartment, where she will store her "college" belongings until she returns in the fall. As we talked it turned out that this Bahamian fellow was twenty-four years old, and was going out in Civil Engineering. Civil Engineering. I pondered this and experienced a profound shift in my perception of what had just transpired. Not only was this man NOT RETARDED, he was of above average intelligence.

Ah ha.

"Yeah, I saw the way he was looking at me, but I thought he was retarded." I told her a little about the sort of men I tend to attract -- men from cultures where most of the women are thin and a young, fat woman can be difficult to find, like Kenya, Mexico, Tonga, California... the list goes on. These fellows tend to be "ethnic" like the Bahamian. They are used to dark-skinned women, and my fair skin, red hair and green eyes appear incredibly exotic to them.

I felt a little protective of my sister-in-law, as she was dealing with these guys at the tender age of nineteen, but a moment later I remembered that I had to fend off Gingivitis John at age fifteen, The Crazy Kenyan at age seventeen, and then The Homeless Mexican and The Tattooed Tongan both arrived when I was exactly her age. I understood that this is all just part of growing up, but at the same time I felt compassion for my little sis. It's freaky when The Freaks like you and try to hook up.

Really, I think my sister-in-law is probably better off that I was at her age. She's very assertive. The key to dealing with these guys is to be polite but firm. Don't step on their manhood, but let them know there's no chance. This is a lesson that I learned early on, which is how I earned my title as The Queen of Freak Magnets. If anyone out there would challenge my rule, let's get together and trade Freak stories. I'd be happy to hand over my crown!

For the time being, I'm including The Bleak Bahamian in my list of Freaks, and I will share him with my Sister-in-law as we were both confronted by him.