A long time ago, I wrote a blog post about being awkward and wanted to give “awkward me” a superhero name. I settled on Amazing Graceless.
In another post, I mentioned the time I launched a piece of cake between my boobs, but that story is kind of short.
Then, I told Randy about the time I humiliated myself on an elevator when I was in my twenties. Apparently, I had never told him the story before. I always like it, after 22 years, when Randy and I discover a story the other one doesn’t know.
So, I thought, why not just combine two completely unrelated stories about being awkward?
Amazing Graceless though the decades:
When I was in my twenties, I worked downtown Cincinnati. I loved working downtown. There were always interesting people to look at, shops to explore, and tons of restaurants. Naturally, I usually bought food from Wendy’s. Although, I did like the lunch counter in McAplin’s.
Anyway, I was poor as fuck and transportation was a difficult expense. I rode the bus for years, but I fucking hated the bus because I got car sick. I would get to work car sick and I would get home car sick. For years. That sucked.
Driving meant paying for parking and I didn’t have “pay for parking” kind of money. 
Sometimes, I would park on the street in Covington, KY and walk across the bridge. Sometimes, I would park at the public landing right along the edge of the river. Sometimes, though, parking downtown was necessary and I would shell out the 8 bucks it cost to park underneath fountain square. That didn’t happen often. 8 bucks represented a significant amount of lunch money for the week.
Anyway, I parked under the fountain one day, more than likely the reason was because I was horribly late and couldn’t afford to have another confrontation with my boss about my tardiness. The parking garage elevators opened in a bank lobby in the building adjacent to the one I worked in.
I was riding alone in the elevator and the whole inside of the elevator was nothing but mirrors. Like, I could get a good long unobstructed stare at my own ass. Opportunities didn’t come along like that every day. I got bored checking out my own ass and still and a few levels to travel, so I made that 30 seconds count by making the most ridiculous faces I could make. You know how you can pull you chin in and no matter how small you are, you can give the appearance of two, maybe three chins? Sticking your tongue out and squinching up your eyes also helps complete that look.
There was a security camera on the elevator.
A security camera that was being watched in real time by a security guard.
The security guard was seated at a large desk opposite of where the elevator doors opened. When the doors opened, the first thing I noticed was a large man in a blue uniform laughing so hard he was crying. Isn’t that nice? He really enjoys his job.
Then, he looked at me and pulled the same face I had been pulling just moments before.
I was caught. I stopped, unable to move for a moment. I took off running in my discount stilettos and tried to pretend it didn’t happen. That would have been around 1985. My face stopped being red in late 1998.
I also avoided parking under fountain square after that. There were other pay lots. It wasn’t so bad because they weren’t any cheaper, but they were further away.
So, there was that. Then there was the cake incident. The cake incident wasn’t that long ago.
At my old job, we celebrated birthdays in my department by standing in a circle, singing Happy Birthday like a funeral dirge and eating a piece of cake. It was straight out of Office Space. Except, we had no Milton.
Anyway, this one woman in my department used to do most of the baking for the birthdays. One time, she made this cake that had a hard cookie base and then layers of cream cheese, whipped creamy stuff.
I was wearing a shirt that wasn’t too low cut for work, it was only almost too low cut for work. But I love this shirt and tank top combo, it’s still one of my favorites.
We finished the painful singing part and I picked up a piece of cake. We had styrofoam bowls and plastic forks.
That cookie layer was really hard.
I tried to break through the last layer with my plastic fork and the fork ended up stabbing through the bowl and it somehow catapulted the entire piece of cake from the bowl to my chest. It splatted against my chest the way Wile E. Coyote splatted against cliff walls.
Then, the cake slid down my chest and rested between my boobs.
I was surrounded by a dozen men. A dozen IT dudes.
I reached down to retrieve the piece of cake which smeared chocolate and whipped cream all over my chest. Oh yes! Right! This is helping so much. What can you do to make this more embarrassing?
I am not sure which of my coworkers made the “bow chicka bow wow” noise, but that was like the starting pistol for the deluge of geek comments.
I calmly walked to the trash can and dumped the remains of my cake, squared my shoulders, and made the long walk down the hall to the bathroom. I would not scurry, I would walk with the grace and dignity of royalty.
HAHAHAFUCKINGHAHAHAA.
I’ve never walked with the grace and dignity of royalty and especially not with little blobs of whipped cream in my hair.
I cleaned up and went back to my department, where everyone was still standing in that awkward birthday circle. The girl who baked told me that everyone decided they only wanted that kind of cake from now on.
I got a new piece of cake because fuck letting that cake win.
It wasn’t even very good.
Randy has not slowed down taking pictures and making up stories about my stuffed dog. Well, maybe a little. Randy does spend a lot of time playing with Alfie the kitty. The cat he said would be my cat and that he would have no emotional attachment to. HAHAHAHA. Anyway, here is Dude playing peek-a-boo with a weeping angel.
“That would have been around 1985. My face stopped being red in late 1998.”
Yes. This. I just *tell* people that I’ve a ruddy complection. What this is, is that I’m still embarassed by the million and three spazoid things I did in kindergarten alone. At 58 my face is still red.
It’s like we’re sisters.
!!!I KNOW!!!
First off. You probably made that poor, bored security guard’s year. Maybe his decade. A true gift from a true giver 🙂
Just think off all the times he was able to pull up that ‘goofy chick in the elevator’ for his ‘happy’ smile. Maybe that was the most fun he’d had in a long time and maybe because of you he didn’t go home and be mean to his dog.
You’re all about making people feel happy and forget their troubles for awhile. Looks to me like you’re not above sacrificing a small amount of dignity to ensure someone else’s fun time.
And it takes the pressure off those who don’t see their small sacrifices of dignity as necessary for a kinder world.
Selfish, they are selfish. And they don’t have any great stories to tell to continue the happy cycle.
Lucky us 🙂
Hahaha, Thank you! xoxoxo
Well said, Lisa.
Thank You, MJ <3
Sometimes Rage-M's too close to the situation and forgets her true gifts to humanity: Acceptance and comfort in our selves as she leads by example 😀
I love the elevator story!
Haha..thank you. I don’t mind it now, but it made me cringe for YEARS
McAlpin’s?!? I haven’t thought about that store in years! Mom and I used to have lunch at their lunch counter all of the time! My daughter named my granddaughter Isabella Grace which is an oxymoron because she is just like my daughter and I and can trip over air!
Hahaha..I often trip over air as well.
Like you I am often the only female geek in a male geek world. One day I was in the break room reading the weather report to my fellow geeks from my phone. Have you heard of http://thefuckingweather.com/? Try it, I think you’ll enjoy it! Anyway, I was reading, “27 degrees! It’s fucking cold!” When my COO walked in with his lunch. He said, “I feel dirty. I think we need HR.” And we both turned beet red.
Turns out that was the beginning of a beautiful friendship. Nobody called HR.
Hahaha..that is awesome! And thank you for the link!
Sigh. When we got out pup she was to be mine too. Alas we only had the car ride home. She only has eyes for Hubs.
I’ve seen your boobs, well…clothed anyway…and am surprised that motor boats weren’t the subject of conversation when you returned. Certainly would have been the first thing I said. But…I’m awkward that way.
You are awkward in a way I understand so then it becomes not awkward. I mean, unless we motorboated each other. That would awkward.
Haha. Yeah. Awkward. (I’m totally down for it though…)
1977 (I was about 28) – working as a secretary in the dept. of Physiology at UF. I had my hair in braids (down to just above my knees) and talking to a post-doc when he (teasingly) went to grab my braids – but I thought he was going for my (bra-less) boobs. I jumped back and freaked (a little). Later on we were telling other equally lower level employees of the incident with much laughing, when I said out loud “well, I thought he was going for my boobs! How would you react if someone made a grab for your balls?” – and on that sentence, the DEPARTMENT HEAD walked in. Everyone cracked up, but I almost passed out from blushing so hard. He wanted to know what was so funny but I literally couldn’t talk, so someone else muttered something about baseball. For the 3 additional years I worked there, people would ‘feint’ lunges at me and predictably, I would jump. Maybe if I had slugged one of them it would have stopped.
You totally should have thrown at least one punch. 🙂
When I was still living in Humboldt County, just before we moved south so probably in 1983, we were making a play at taking over all the local broadcast media, and I believe we had at least one person working in every TV and radio station up there. It’s a little-ass place, so that wasn’t hard for a bunch of marginally employed musicians.
Anyway, Billy, a guitar player in my friend Jack’s band was a DJ at KNCR in Fortuna, CA.
He did OK with the technical stuff, but his on air speaking was a little, shall we say, uninhibited. One morning he was reading the news, and during the commercial he was reading ahead so his delivery would be smoother, and he came upon a story about a tribe in Africa with a Baboon problem. It seems that to reduce the over population of baboons the tribesmen were catching them and throwing them into a swamp that was infested with crocodiles. Billy was incensed about this and began ranting about how fucked up it was to throw primates to reptiles to be slaughtered and drowned and eaten. He was stopped mid-rant by the engineer rapping on the glass and pointing to the glowing red “on the air” light, which had come on while he wasn’t paying attention. Mortified, and afraid he would be fired, Billy didn’t even miss a beat, but said “And now for the weather…”
HAHAHAHAHAHA
You are giving me a Lucy Ricardo vibe, Michelle. That’s a major compliment!
That IS an amazing compliment. Thank you!!!
I can picture the cake sliding down now. Cracking up!
It was really funny, except for when it was actually happening. Then it was all panicky and sweaty.
I just laughed out loud in the middle of a Japanese steakhouse while waiting for my sushi order and reading this. Thank you for making my lonely travel night that much better!
Yay!!!!!
Awkward stories are some of the best stories. If I started diving into those, I’d write about nothing else. At any rate, I’d have to wait a couple years after they happened, because it takes a while for me to be able to push past how foolish I feel usually.
The elevator thing has happened to me a couple times, more or less.
Ugh.
It MIGHT have happened more than once..I still can’t talk about the last one. Hahaha
At my 20th high school reunion I sat on a bar stool and hooked the heels of my high heels into the rung on the stool. You guessed it…..my slippery dress started me slipping off the slippery stool and I couldn’t unhook my feet so I landed solidly on my knees at the feet of the cutest boy from high school (who was then a partier, but now an Anglican priest).
Of course everyone thought I was drunk, and I hadn’t even had my first drink yet.
Yes, I can make a lasting first impression.
It is SO GOOD to not be alone.