The Days Of The Idiot Girl

I used to get really upset about the silly things I do -- like, I would hunker down and weep with embarrassment cause I would do something stupid. Like, one time I needed to call a dentist's office, and I nervously made the call, left my name on the answering machine and asked for a callback. After I hung up, my roomie pointed out that even though I had asked them to call me back, I hadn't left my number.

"It's OK, just call back and tell them you called a minute ago and leave your number." She told me.

So I brought out the business card with my dentist's phone number on it and called again. I told them I had called a minute before , gave them my name , and, for no good reason, I read the dentist's office's phone number off their business card. Yeah, that was a painful one. I tearfully called back a third time, to give both my name and actual phone number. I felt only relief when the office never called back. But when I went in a few weeks later and gave them my name, I think I noticed a flicker of recognition and a struggle to keep a straight face. I bet they laughed long and hard over my answering machine messages.

Well, the days of agonizing over my Idiot Girl moments are behind me. With the help of my guru, Laurie Notaro, I am learning to laugh at my absent-minded, scatterbrained schemes. Sometimes I even look at it as part of my service to humanity. I mean, the people around me probably feel a lot smarter and cooler by contrast with my pathetic flailing. So if you are someone who likes to think of yourself as being collected and competent, please enjoy this list of my Idiot Girl moments from the past two days.

• Yesterday I woke at 5:30 AM and by some miracle I managed to shower, dress, and do my hair without incident. I got my makeup on, but I forgot the mascara. Who in heck forgets to put on mascara? Isn't that, like, the most important part?
• I bribed myself to go to work by promising myself breakfast at McDonald's. Sometimes this is the only way I can stop myself from just crawling back into bed.
• At work, I brought out my car keys to open the combination padlock on my locker.
• At one point I noticed that my Telzon (scanning gun) had a dead battery, so I asked someone to get me a new battery, as I am not allowed to walk away from my door while working. They walked away with the dead battery, and about thirty seconds later a customer walked up with a return. Yeah, I tried to scan their item with the Telzon that had no battery in it.
• Today, I decided to unwrap a vitamin C lozenge and attempt to eat it, which proved more difficult than one might think. the lozenge dropped on the floor and shattered. I repeatedly tried to pick up the pieces, but they kept slipping out of my grasp and falling again. Butterfingers (not the good kind.)
• The store was dead slow on this snowy Sunday night, and I was bored. I wandered into the customer service area where two other bored employees were working, caught their attention and danced an impromptu jig. Now, I have worked with people in the past who get my dancing and understand that it is supposed to be funny, but these guys were not among them. My silly dance sank like a stone. I belatedly remembered my resolution to try to pretend to be normalsauce at Walmart, but since nobody has ever been able to clearly define to me what "normal" is, I'm left with trial and error.
• When the night finally ended, I went back to clock out and get my purse out of my locker, but my purse was not at all in my locker. Not even slightly. The last place I had it was in the break room, so I went in to check, and there it was 0n the table I had sat at during my lunch break. The break room at this time was full of overnighters who had gathered for their start-of-shift meeting, and they were not impressed with my absent-mindedness.
• I checked to see that money was still in my wallet, which it was -- whew. I thought I would fetch something for dinner tonight, like a butternut squash or...something. I didn't like the produce I found up front, so I made as if to leave the store. I got up to the checkstand and nearly pulled up before realizing that I hadn't actually put anything in my cart. I guess this is like the antithesis of shoplifting, where I try to pay even though I don't have any merchandise.

In the end, I made it home in one piece, miraculously. Now I get two days off to try to recharge my brain, but don't worry -- I will never really have it together. There will always be Idiot Girl days.