An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations: Episode XVI

It’s been almost a year and a half since I last posted a list of awkward situations. One might think my life has become a little less awkward, but that’s not the case. I just tend to relive the same awkwardness over and over and have less “new” awkwardness to report. Here are some of my awkward situations from the past year of my life…

When you’re in your garage recliner eating McDonald’s, and the neighborhood runner comes by, and you wave to her with your cheeseburger.

When you stand at the sink of a public bathroom waiting for the motion sensor to turn the water on, and after moving your hands around for a while, realize it’s not a motion sensor at all. Then you look over at the show off next to you as they competently turn their sink on and off.

When you’re on the treadmill at the gym and the guy on the treadmill in front of you is walking on his machine backward, so you have to spend your entire workout trying not to make eye contact with him.

When all your neighbors are outside shoveling, and you come out with a snow blower like, “Sorry!”

When you text someone, and they suddenly silence their notifications and don’t text you back.

When other people’s kids are at your house, and your kids turn on a TV show, and they say, “We’re not allowed to watch this at our house.”

When there’s a lady at Sam’s Club who looks like your mom, and you know it’s not your mom, but you also aren’t sure it’s not your mom, so you stare at her too long because you’re waiting to see if she says hi to you.

When you are trying to get into the wrong van, and you suddenly notice the Polynesian man asleep in the passenger seat.

When you accidentally bump bums with someone you don’t know very well, and you automatically holler, “Moon landing!” and then you have to wait to see if they laugh or not.

When your fellow bum bumper doesn’t laugh about your moon landing.

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations: Episode XV

I’m currently at the tire store having my tires checked. We’ve had a very interesting tire season. In June we had nails/screws in tires twice in the van and once in the truck - one of which occurred while we were on vacation. The van’s tires were repairable, but we had to buy four new tires for the truck (they were due anyway, we were just trying to hold off until fall). 

Then on Monday of this week, Nicky left in the Jeep, and his tire fell apart. 

Luckily he was very close to home. But we had to buy four more tires. This, too, was anticipated, but we were hoping to wait until fall. 

Why fall? I don’t know! That’s just when Scotty finally gets around to doing tire stuff. In the division of his & her responsibilities, I’m happy to let him do the car stuff, but usually it takes a deadly snow storm to get him going on the tire situation. You know how every family has their own weird culture? One of our things is that we “wait until fall” to buy new tires (which actually means the middle of winter) unless we are forced. This summer, we have been forced.

It may sound like I’m complaining, but I’m not. Mostly I’m just laughing inside and thinking, “What the heck?” I promise, I’ll take flat tires over many of the other possible problems life could throw my way. It’s just starting to feel too contrived at this point. Am I part of an elaborate practical joke? 

Anyway, I've been here long enough that I've found myself in the following awkward situation:

I need to go to the bathroom. But I'm worried that if I do, they'll call my name. I'm also worried that someone will steal my seat. I have the best one! All the other seats are in the sun. As I'm sitting here worrying about going to the bathroom, I'm also calculating how many times I could have gone potty, and they haven't called my name. What am I at now? Eight? Ten? So I should have just gone when I got the initial urge. But every moment I delay is a moment closer to them calling my name. 

Fast-forward ten minutes...

I went to the bathroom, and I was so fast! Like, so fast. And when I came out, another customer said, "Are you Scotty?" I was confused because A) I am not Scotty and B) Why is a customer asking me if I'm Scotty? Turns out, they had the van under Scotty's name in the computer, the employee came in and called out Scotty's name while I was in the bathroom (as I feared), and then he just went back in the bay. So I had to go wandering around trying to find whoever had my keys. Luckily the other customer gave me a head's up because it didn't seem like anyone was going to come back in to find me!

Awkward!

Here are some other awkward situations that have been brought to my attention as of late:

When you you walk past three people and say 'Good morning' before you figure out what’s wrong with your vision on your daily walk.

When garbage from your food order blows away, and you can't catch it, and it has your name on it, so now you're a litterer, and everyone will know who the responsibly party is!

When you are right-handed, and you try to use your left hand to insert your debit card at the McDonald's window.

When the McDonald's employee watches you struggle and then says, "You know, you could just use Tap!"

When you try to use Tap, but you're never sure if you're placing your card in the right spot.

Anytime you have to use the word "cervical." How is this even a thing that the neck and the cervix share this word? If I were to tell you that I lay on a cervical pillow for 30 minutes everyday, what would you think I was doing?

When you leave a butt print in the grass, and it shows every little detail. And it's huge. 

When you attend a party hosted by your non-alcohol-drinking Church, and the person in charge of music is blasting, “Two Pina Coladas” by Garth Brooks. 

When you see a missionary with a mullet and you think, “I didn’t know missionaries could have mullets!” but then you realize he doesn’t really have a mullet, he just went out in public after sleeping on his head funny and very clearly didn’t groom himself. 

When audiobook narrators pronounce words incorrectly.

When horses lay down.

When you hear the non-radio-edit version of a song for the first time and discover that it says b*tch, and you’re shocked and upset about it because you wouldn’t have expected it from this group, and you listen to it twice to make sure, and then you go ask your husband if he knew they said b*tch, and he says no, and then you Google the lyrics, and they actually don’t say b*tch. You just hear scandalous language where there is none!

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations: Episode XIV

When you think you’re sliding your phone into your pocket, but you actually slide it into your waist band, and it goes down your pants and out your pant leg.

Likewise, when you swear you put your car keys in your pocket at girls camp, but they’re not there, and after frantically searching everywhere you can think of, you discover there’s a hole in your pocket, and your keys are in your pants, which are, thankfully, very tight and, therefore, holding your keys against your thigh, preventing them from falling out and getting lost in the woods.

When the person at the ordering box sounds like a cartoon, and you’re disappointed in how normal he looks when you meet him at the window. 

When you think someone is coming in for a hug, and you realize mid-embrace that that wasn’t what was happening.

When you put on self tanner and take great care to not get any orange spots in your creases but forget to wash your hands. 

When your self tanner sweats off in your garments.

When you see a guy in a truck slumped over his steering wheel on the side of the road and you don’t know if he’s dead or sleeping, but if he’s sleeping you don’t want to wake him up so you decide to give him 20 minutes before you check him, and you spend that 20 minutes driving back and forth watching for movement.*

When you’re behind your friend in the McDonald’s drive thru, and you holler to her to say hello, and the guy in the ordering box thinks you’re yelling at him.

When your kids go visit their primary teacher, and she’s not home, but they tell you how the front door was unlocked so they went in her house and looked for her but didn’t find her. 

When you already have ear buds in your ears, and you try to put in another pair of ear buds.

When the Chick-fil-A employee asks you if you have any “big plans” for the day, and you’re on your way to the mountains to bury your dead brother under a pine tree.

When your Apple Watch says, “Sorry, I didn’t quite get that,” during the moment of silence at your brother’s memorial service… twice.

A pine tree for James - my sisters used to like to dress James up like a girl, so they made sure to tie one last bow for him. A portion of his ashes are buried here on some mountain property of my parents’.

*He was sleeping. Phew.

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (part XIII)

Welcome to Day Five of Draft Week. 

I always have a running draft of awkward situations in the works. I save up until it’s long enough to post, and what better time is there to click publish than during the made-up event of Draft Week? Let the awkwardness begin…

(Does the fact that this is my thirteenth edition of “awkward” posts give anyone an idea of just how awkward my life is? I keep thinking that these lists will dwindle down over time, but no! I have ever-flowing content).

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When you're using a one-person restroom at a food establishment, and you need a minute, but there's an entire family outside the door waiting to storm the premises. 

When everyone is getting ready for the dance concert and talking about how cute the Wednesday and Pugsley costumes are, but you thought they were pilgrims and pirates. 

When you have a moment where you're the center of attention, and you kind of love it, and you're like OHMYGOSHAMIANEXTROVERT??? 

(You're not).

When someone doesn't yield for you as a pedestrian in a parking lot, but then she drives by and enthusiastically waves... because she's you're sister-in-law.

When your friend has a twin, and you see the twin at the grocery store, and the twin doesn't know you, and you have to remind yourself this each time you turn down an aisle and walk past her, and she doesn't say hello.

When you're at a restaurant and the lady in the booth behind you is talking in depth about her dog's vomit (it was yellow. He ate a pencil).

When you sell your car to your neighbor, and it breaks down the first time they drive it.

When you're fishing your locker key out of your bra at the gym, and someone walks around the corner and makes eye contact with you. 

When someone says, "If you know, you know." And you really don't know. In fact, you don't even know enough to google it later so you can know.

And last but not least...

When you see a condom package sitting on the ping pong table at the gym, and you really want to remove it, but you don't want anyone to see you take it, but twenty minutes later it's still there, and you feel responsible for keeping the facility family-friendly, so you subtly swipe it into your hand and straight into the garbage, but as you walk away, you realize a child could be born because of you, and you don't know if that child will be a blessing or a curse to the world. 

 

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (part XII)

When your face mole gets a zit, and you’re not sure if it’s a sign of skin cancer or an award-winning dermatological wonder.

When you start the rowing machine at the gym and punch yourself in the face with the handlebar.

When you’re stuck behind someone at a drive-thru who is clearly not a regular at fast food establishments, and you just wanna get out of your car and help them.

When someone doesn’t answer your text and then you have to see them in person, and to you, the text is the elephant in the room, and you’re not sure if you should dance around it or be like, “Hellooooo! Can you answer my text, please?”

When someone serves a special food item at a dinner because they think it’s something you love, but you’re not sure why they think that, and now you have to spend the rest of your life pretending to love that thing so you don’t hurt their feelings. 

When you do a middle part, and you look like Snape.

Or take a selfie, and you look like Gollum.

When you’re backing out of a parking spot, and you notice a van just like yours two spaces down from you, and you have the sudden fear that you’re driving the wrong car.

When you have an itchy spot on your calf, but you’re wearing skinny jeans, and you have huge calves, so you can’t scrunch your pants up to get to the itch, and you have to pull them down and go in from the top.

When the exercise machine at the gym smells like butt.

And everyone around you smells like butt.

And YOU smell like butt.

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (Special Treadmill Edition)

I've been to the gym a few times recently. Just to dabble. I hate exercising. And I especially hate exercising in public. But apparently it's good for me. So whatever. 

I dare say that the gym has more potential than most other places on earth for awkward situations, save for public restrooms and doctors' offices. I think I could could write a dozen blog posts about awkward situations at the gym and a dozen more about all the weird people at the gym. 

(Seriously with the Gym People! Where do these personalities come from?)

(Now we're all wondering if we're "Gym People," aren't we?)

Behold the awkwardness:

When you're going a snail's pace on the treadmill next to someone who's going really fast, but you have your incline set at 10, and you wanna yell, "Yeah, I see you going all fast and stuff on your flat ground. Look at my incline! LOOK AT IT! I'm hiking, Fella! HIKING!"

When you're a dancer at heart, and you want your pace to match the beat of the music you're listening to, but you can't make it work, and you feel like crazy person.

But then...

When the beat matches your pace exactly, and something amazing is happening physically and musically, and you look around to see if anyone notices, but they have no clue… because ear buds…, and you're just left experiencing the magic alone while everyone carries on ignorantly.

When you have the overwhelming urge to treadmill dance, and it takes everything you've got to hold back, but you wonder what would happen if you tried one spin. Just. One. Spin...

When you start walking on a treadmill that has a lumpy belt, and you think, "Crap! This belt is lumpy!" but you don't want to do the walk of shame where you picked a bad machine and have to leave it for another one, so you just pretend you knew it was lumpy all along, and that you're okay with it. 

When the overstimulating TV's across the wall show the earthquake in Syria, the shooting in Michigan, the toxic train derailment in Ohio, and a lady in skunk costume playing "Let's Make a Deal."

When the beat drops on your playlist, and you MUST RUN, so you increase the speed only to discover a few minutes later that the "decrease speed" button on that machine doesn't work, so you're left running way past your physical limitations while you decide whether it would be safer to jump off the machine or push the stop button. 

When you weren't planning on running, but the music makes you do it, and you realize you don't have "the girls" properly secured, and you've put on a lot of extra weight since you last ran, so "the girls" are quite large.

When the Black-Eyed Peas sing, "Runnin' runnin' and runnin' runnin," and you're like, "Fergie! I can't! The "decrease speed" button doesn't work!" 

Me playing it safe after button incident

When you keep feeling a loose hair brush against your arm, so you swipe at it every thirty seconds and can never find it, but you don't give up for your entire workout!

When you're trying to wipe off your machine for the next person, and the motion sensor on the towel dispenser can't see you, but it can see everyone else so you have to ask another human to help you get a towel. 

When you go to the store after the gym, and you want everyone to notice your post-gym glow (because surely you lost thirty pounds), but you catch a glimpse of your reflection, and you look like you just crawled out of the dumpster behind Krispy Kreme. 

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (Part XI)

When you see men out in public who look like Santa Claus, and they want to be treated like they are Santa Claus (creepy) or maybe they don’t want to be treated like Santa Claus (in which case, shave the beard and stop wearing red, Fella!), and you’re never really sure, so you act like you can’t see them.

When your neighbor texts you that your garage is open, and there’s a strange truck in your driveway, but it’s your truck and you’re sitting in it. 

When you wave to a teenage boy at the gym because you think he’s your Aunt Lori.

When someone asks you to write them a check, and you didn’t know people still wrote checks.

When your van smells like iceberg lettuce, and you can’t find the source, so you just have to drive everyone around for a week listening to them talk about how it smells like rotten salad. 

When you make your kids some microwaveable mini pancakes, and they look like this:

An Incomplete list of Awkward Situations (Part X)

When an Amazon man knocks on your car window and keeps motioning for you to move your car, and you just smile at him like, “What is your problem, dude?” and then you realize his blue vest says “Parking Enforcement” and not Amazon.

When your mother-in-law constantly tells you how tired you look on days you’re not even tired.

When you use a public restroom and find out too late that there’s no toilet paper, and you have to get creative with items in your purse.

When you go to restaurant, and the sign says, "Seat yourself," so you do, but no one ever comes to serve you.

When you see a delivery person on your Ring doorbell throwing your package onto your porch from the lawn.

When your sister-in-law sends out a group text with a picture of a hairbrush and asks, “Did one of you leave this at my house?” and you have to respond, “I gave that to you for Christmas.”

When you’re eating at Wendy’s and an old lady walks in wearing a shirt with “boo-bees” on it, and you’re not sure if she understands or if her grandkids pulled a fast one on her.

When you’re at the beach, and there’s a lady asleep in the sand next to you for two hours wearing nothing on bottom. 

When you go to a fancy restaurant with your husband’s team from work, and you’re starving, and there’s a plate of calamari appetizers, but you’ve already had some, and there are six people who haven’t arrived yet, so you have to leave it alone so they can have some, too, but when they finally get there, none of them take any, and you just sit there staring at it longingly while it gets cold and soggy.

When you’re in the middle of a sentence, and the person you’re talking to turns and starts talking to someone else, and you have to decide whether to finish your statement without an audience or just let it fizzle.

When a fast food employee tells you to “Have the world’s greatest day!” and you drive away feeling confused about why they have such high demands for you.

When you get out to the parking lot and find that the person in the car next to you is loading their car on your side, and you just have to decide whether to stand there while they finish or take the long way.

And for Scotty...

When you're at the beach, and you go to use the restroom, and there are no doors on the stalls, but it’s desperate times, so you just keep your head down and do what you gotta do.

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (part IX)

When you’re halfway through your daughter’s orthodontist appointment, and you realize you only put make-up on one eye.

When you’re listening to an Old Testament podcast, and the hosts keep talking about someone named Easy Kill, and you’ve never heard of someone in the Old Testament called Easy Kill, so you just go with it until half-way through the show, you finally figure out that they’re saying Ezekiel.

When you misplace your phone for an hour, and you’re absolutely positive that it will be full of texts when you find it, and then no one has actually contacted you at all.

When an elderly lady at Walmart asks you for help, and you try to assist her, and eventually you realize she thinks you work there, but you’ve let it go on to the point where you’re worried about embarrassing her, so you just do your best to help her find what she needs and hope Walmart acknowledges your spontaneous employment with a check in the mail.

When you’re at a pool, and you see someone reading a book, and you want to know what it is, so you stare a bit too long, and then she looks up at you, and you make eye contact, and it seems a lot like you just got caught checking out her boobs in her swimming suit.

When you’re wearing heels, and you misjudge the distance lowering yourself to the toilet, and you plummet the last two inches, resulting in a sound that very much makes you worry you just broke the toilet.

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (Part VIII)

When you’re reading a physical copy of a book and you try to scroll…

Or zoom in on the text…

Or tap the book to see what time it is.

When you eat a big, satisfying lunch, and then look at the clock, and it’s only 9:46 a.m.

When you’re constantly getting after your kid for something they do that’s incredibly annoying, and then you catch yourself doing the same thing.

Likewise, when you and your child make the exact same noise at the exact same time in the exact same pitch as if you'd rehearsed it, and then you look at each other like, “Why am I like you?”

When you’re at instacare with your child, and the medical assistant refers to amoxicillin as an allergy medication, and you’re like, “I’m no doctor, but…should you be working here?”

When you’re sitting on the examination table at the dermatologist, and your cell phone vibrates in your back pocket and sounds like a fart while the doctor is examining your armpit mole. 

Pretty much everything that happens at the dermatologist.

When you walk through a door and can’t see the person about to walk through the opposite way, and you almost make full body contact as you scare the crap out of each other.

When you think a person is going to hold a door for you, and then they don’t, and you almost end up wedged in the door frame side by side. 

When you’re at a soda fountain, and someone is filling up their cup, and there’s probably enough space for you to slide in next to them and fill your cup at the same time, but you’re not sure what that person’s boundaries are, so you linger back a bit and twitch while trying to decide if your hesitancy is holding up a line. 

When you’re waiting to turn left, and you could have gone, but you didn’t know you could have gone until it was too late, and while you’re regretting not going, you miss another opportunity to go, and you know everyone behind you hates you. 

When you’re at the temple doing baptisms for the dead, and one of the temple workers keeps disrupting the baptisms to give insights about the science of moving water and the pronunciation of vowel sounds prior to the 1600’s.

When you get a Ring doorbell notification on your phone, and you can't figure out who it is or what they're doing, and then you realize it was YOU taking out the garbage nine minutes ago.

When Ryan Murphy is all the rage, and you're like, "Yeah, I really love his arrangement of I Know that the Savior Loves Me."

When the employee at the DI donation drop-off is trying to reenact Guardians of the Galaxy for you as you ease your way back into your car, and you don't want to hurt his feelings, so you drive away mid-performance and yell, "Have a good day, Starlord!" 

When you give permission for your daughter and the neighbor kid to watch tv in your room, and the neighbor kid says, “But first will you go close your closet door so I don’t have to see your bras?”

When you see a van just like yours, and you look at the driver to see if it's you.

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (Part VII)

September Writing Challenge - Prompt # 3:

Uncomfortable 

When you're sitting on the toilet, and your Apple Watch tells you it's time to stand up, and you’re like, “How long have I been here????”

When you’re driving the Young Women to the temple and the following conversation takes place in the back seat:

YW #1: What are you doing?

YW #2: Your mom!

When you’re driving with your kids and an ad comes on the radio for erectile dysfunction, and you think, "It's okay, they're not even paying attention!" but as you change the stations, one of them calls out, "Hey, Mom! What's ED?" 

When you’re outside holding a bunch of groceries and a neighbor stops by to talk to you, and he goes on and on telling you a story you’ve already heard at least six times, and you discover that your dish soap is leaking out of the bag, and when he finally leaves, you run into your garage and accidentally drop everything because you’re slippery from the dish soap, and you spend five minutes gathering everything up, but three hours later you run over an avocado.

When you're trying to walk safely in wet flip-flops.

When you're listening to someone talk about how they don't have time for X, Y, and Z, but you can see them arguing with strangers about movies on Facebook nearly everyday and wonder how they have time for THAT.

When you consistently see women who are 30-40 years older than you wearing the same clothes you do, and you realize that shopping at Costco isn't exactly keeping you young and hip. 

When you watch a movie from your childhood and realize how old and outdated it looks, and you have to explain to your kids that, "Back then, that was really innovative technology!" (The first Mission Impossible failed to impress my posterity).

When you have an annoying, squeaky shopping cart, but you’re too far into the store to go back and swap it, and you try lifting up the back wheels to see if it helps, and it does, so you push your cart around while lifting it slightly off the ground but pretend that you’re just pushing it normal resulting in an unplanned arm workout. 

When you walk upstairs and find your neighbor kid peeing in your bathroom with the door wide open and his pants around his ankles. And he’s 17. 

(Just kidding. He’s seven).

When you realize you're significantly older than the characters in Friends.

When you see your son walk upstairs to find the bathroom occupied and then downstairs to find the bathroom occupied, and then he goes outside for a few minutes.

When you lecture your kids constantly to stop saying "peepee," and then the code for your mobile order at McDonald's is PP47, and you have to yell it out at the order box in front of everyone. 

An Incomplete List of Awkward Situations (Part V)

When you text your friend to see if she wants to come over for a BBQ, but you send the it to the wrong person, and you're incredibly relieved when that person declines.

When the GPS tells you to turn right in 1,000 feet, and you spend the next 30 seconds going, "Is this a thousand feet? How about now?... maybe now?" 

When someone invites you for dinner, and you perceive immediately that there isn't enough food for your family, so you sneak your kids aside and tell them to take very little, and you'll go to McDonald's on the way home. And then as they clean up dinner, and scrape a few spoonfuls into the disposal, the wife turns to the husband and says, “See? I told you there was enough!” 

When you're half-way through your errands and realize your pants are on backwards. 

When you're deep in Target and you look down and realize that your basket has someone's used, sticky, adhesive bra petals in it, and you've been pushing them around the store for 12 minutes. 

(I have so many questions).

When you discover some used adhesive bra petals on the shelf at Target because a customer found them in her cart and didn't want to continue toting them around the store, and she couldn't find a garbage can. 

(My apologies, whoever you are!)

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Need more awkwardness?

Part I

Part II

Part III

Part IV