Switching over to Tumblr

Okay guys, it's official: Every Awkward Thing I've Ever Done is moving to Tumblr.

Thanks to every one who was reading this!!  All the old blog posts will still be up at Tumblr.

Follow me there at: http://everyawkwardthing.tumblr.com/

Thanks!!

Today's Moment of Awkward: Massage Rape

I'm in a spa, on a massage table, totally naked, and a somewhat unhappy Russian woman is about to give me a massage.  For some reason I feel the need to impress her.  Okay, I'll admit it, I'm at Burke Williams, and when I'm at Burke Williams they always make me feel guilty for not coming to Burke Williams more often.  "You're shoulders are so tight, you really should get a massage at least twice a month.  Also you should probably get this hunchback checked out, Quasimodo."  So, as in most of my encounters, I feel the need to lie.  The problem here is, I apparently have no idea what answer this gruff Russian woman wants.  It's like I'm being interrogated with soothing music and gentle caresses.

Angry Russian Woman: When was the last time you had a massage?

Me: Umm, probably like two months.  (This is a lie, it's been at least a year.  I'm not made of money, or Burke Williams gift certificates.)

ARW: Good.

Okay, this comes as a surprise.  Usually they tell me two months is much too long.

ARW: Do you exercise?

Me: Oh yes, I exercise everyday.  (Maybe twice a week).

ARW: Do you do yoga?

Me: Yes!  (Kind of...)

ARW:  Hmph.  That is bad.

I'm really struggling here to make this woman proud of me and I'm getting nothing in return.

ARW:  When was the last time you saw a chiropractor?

Me:  Yesterday.  Tomorrow.  (By now I'm totally flustered, so I go with the truth.)  I have never seen a chiropractor.

ARW:  Hmmm.  That is good.

WHAT??  For the rest of the massage I listen to every sigh, every grunt of dissatisfaction, every openly judgmental mumble.  What does this woman want from me?  There is something not at all relaxing about being judged by a ex-KGB officer.

To make this spa visit even more awkward, I'm in the dressing room and another woman touches me while I'm completely naked.  Not in like a "point out on this doll where she touched you" kind of way, she just grabbed by arm as I was getting dressed.  But regardless, you are not allowed to touch anyone is a communal dressing room, especially when they are completely naked.  I almost screamed RAPE at the top of my lungs.

It turns out the reason for the inappropriate touch was so that she could ask me about a tattoo on my ribcage.

Touchy Woman:  I'm getting a tattoo today and that's where I want to get it but they told me it's the most painful place to get a tattoo.  How was it?

Me:  How well do you handle pain?

TW:  I used to be a professional female fighter.

Me:  RAPE

I think I may be too awkward for the spa.

Today's Moment of Awkward: Savage Garden at the 8th Grade Dance

Let me set the scene.  It's 1998.  It's the last dance of the 8th grade.  I am dancing with my 8th grade boyfriend, who is pretty much my first real boyfriend since my Dad thought my 6th grade boyfriend was a kid I was babysitting.  Truly Madly Deeply by Savage Garden comes on which means we'll have to slow dance.  It's awkward.  It's like I have too many feet and my breath is probably bad and why are our faces so close and what do I look at GOD WHAT DO I LOOK AT?!  He's not saying anything and I'm not saying anything and it's so horrible.  So I say the first thing that comes to mind.  I quote a line from the song that I had always found odd.

Me:  I want to bathe with you in the sea?

He didn't hear the question mark.  Why didn't he hear the question mark??

8th Grade Boyfriend: You do?

Me:  No, no.  It's the song.

8th Grade Boyfriend: The song wants to bathe me?

Me: No!

8th Grade Boyfriend: I'm going to go get a drink. 

What I Want To Be When I Grow Up: Puppy Maker

Everybody has that weird thing they wanted to be when they grew up: Cowboy, Astronaut, Ballerina, Superhero, Taxi Driver, Stripper, or whatever.  Mine was dog breeder.  I mean who doesn't want a job that involves tons and tons of puppies?  Only the devil, that's who.

When I was two years old my dog had twelve puppies, and I thought I was one of them.  I napped with them, I drank my bottle while they drank from my dog's tits, I rode them around like little ponies (okay, some of this sounds a little f-ed up, but it was cute, I swear).  So at 13 I convinced my parents it was time for more puppies.

I bought a book on dog breeding, I bought a little notebook and made a checklist of everything I would need. 

Obviously the first step was to get my dog, Coco (named after Coca Cola, with which I had a weird obsession), to bang another dog.  This seems like the easiest part BUT IT IS NOT.  First we paid $50 for a male dog to be dropped off at our house so they could mate.  Basically they ran around our back yard for hours while the male dog tried to hump Coco and she tried to tell him "No means no".  Then they somehow got into the house while I had friends over and ran around the house humping each other.  This is how my friend Pete found out that he is allergic to dog sperm.  I shit you not.  (I have a feeling you would like me to go into more details about how he learned this, but I will leave it up to your imagination.  Hint: Pete did not have sex with a dog.)

But after all that, Coco still wasn't pregnant.  So we paid $250 to drop her off with a professional breeder.  The breeder's dog was named Pepsi, which is just clearly fate,  and voila... tummy full of puppies.  Like a good little girl, I waited patiently for the puppies to come out of her vagina.  And one day I received a call at school that one had.  My mother told me to come home right away and witness the miracle of birth.

But that didn't happen because by the time I got home she'd already given birth to two puppies and it looked like that might be all she wrote.  Finally, after an hour and a half, I went out to get something to eat.  When I came back there were still no more puppies, so that was that.  The smallest litter ever.  We kept one of the puppies, and sold the other one to our neighbors for $50, leaving me like $400 in the hole.  Our seemingly nice neighbors turned that poor puppy into a crazed nightmare of a dog and I've always felt guilty for that.

But that's not really all.  Years later I found out that when I went out to get something to eat my dog had given birth to a third puppy.  This is some soap opera shit, right?  What happened, you wonder, did the puppy come back as a full grown dog and challenge the other puppy's claim to the family ranch?  No.  That didn't happen.  Here's what happened:

I had a dream that my mom had octuplets and that Coco ate one of them.  I told my mom.  

Mom:  Oh, probably because Coco ate one of her puppies.

Me: Say WHAT?!

Mom: Did I never tell you that? 

That's right, Coco ATE that puppy.  She ATE HIM.  And probably by accident.  My mom said Coco was licking the amniotic sac off the puppy and then suddenly it was gone.  Coco looked at my mom with sad doggy eyes that seemed to say "Ooops. My bad."

That is when I learned I definitely could not be a professional dog breeder.  I set my sights on something a little more realistic: Vampire Hunter.

Today's Moment of Awkward: The Non-Existent Affair

During my Sophomore year of college I had a writing teacher who was new to teaching.  It was his first year at NYU and we spent most of our classes watching his student films and his single, unimpressive feature.  The rest of the time he spent flirting with several of the female (and possibly a few of the male) students, including myself.  It wasn't really creepy flirting, it was sort of fatherly flirting.  Wow, did I just say fatherly flirting like that's a real thing that isn't creepy?  Okay, scratch that.  Like your older brother's friend flirting with you.  I never had an older brother but I assume it's not too creepy.  It was like "Okay, we both know nothing is going to happen, I'm not really flirting with you, we're just sort of joking around".  That is until he pulled me over after class one day.

Teacher: (In a conspiratorial whisper) I saw you this weekend.  On Mulberry Street.

Me:  (Not getting why we're whispering)  Oh, yeah.  That's where I live.

Teacher:  You were carrying some plastic bags.

Me:  (Still not getting why we're whispering)  They were probably groceries.

Teacher: (Still in a creepy whisper) Yeah.  Groceries.

Imagine someone saying "Yeah.  Groceries." as if it's a code for something dirty.  I can tell you it's not pleasant.

Me:  So why didn't you just say hi?


By this point we were the only people left in the classroom, but he still scanned the room like we were in a spy movie and someone might be watching us.  


Teacher:  I was with my wife.


I suddenly started to get why we were whispering.  Did he think we were having an affair?  Did he think he was having an affair with all his female (and possibly a few male) students?  

Yet somehow I wasn't grossed out by him, I just felt bad for him.  I thought back through all of our classes and realized he'd peaked.  Probably in college.  Maybe showing us his student films and flirting with his students was his only way of reliving his glory days.  Then again, maybe he was just super creepy.  Either way I didn't stick around to find out.


Me:  Hehe, okay, cool, well see you next week.


And thus ended the affair that never started.  It's the closest I've ever come to a Pacey/Ms. Jacobs relationship and I'm okay with that.

Life Lesson Learned: Never Have Your Bachelorette Party The Day Before The Wedding

If only "The Hangover" had come out yet, perhaps my friend Kumquat (the same Kumquat from the Chlamydia story, she didn't really die, and she did get married, but not to Santiago) would have realized what a bad idea it is to have the bachelorette party the night before the wedding.  

A few years after high school Kumquat met her future husband and moved to Palm Springs, which is where they had their wedding.  Since I conveniently lived in LA I was invited to the Bachelorette part and I considered going... until I got a new job and couldn't take the time off.  If I believed in fate this is when I would have realized that fate fucking loves me.

Two of my high school friends flew in to LA and I met up with them to drive to Palm Springs.  We hadn't heard from Kumquat in a while so halfway there we started texting her, asking for the address of the hotel, etc.  No response.  But brides are busy, that's to be expected right?  We found the hotel, checked in, and were really starting to worry when we finally got a response.  From her sister.  "Kumquat has been in accident.  She's fine.  See you at the wedding."

It turns out Kumquat's sister's definition of fine was very different from mine.  Here's the real story:

Kumquat had rented a party bus for her bachelorette party.  The plan was for everyone to get on the bus at 6pm (seriously?  6pm?!  why not just start at 3 and be back in time for the early bird dinner?  these girls really know how to party.) drive around for a little while and party on the bus, then do a pub crawl.  That plan didn't really work out because at 6:30pm the party bus was rear-ended by a 16-wheeler truck.  One of the girls broke the stripper pole with her face.  Try explaining that injury to your parents, or your friends, or a stranger at the bank.  It's not easy, I've tried.  Another girl was hit in the head by a fallen TV monitor.    Kumquat, however, got it worst.  She was propelled face first into the seat in front of her.  She broke her jaw in 14 places.  The night before her wedding.

There's more to this story.  The poor girl's face was swollen for the wedding, she couldn't eat anything and she was on painkillers the whole time.  That weekend there was also a lot of drama between my high school friends and we ended up not talking for a long time after that.  But I think the lesson is learned: NEVER EVER EVER HAVE YOUR BACHELORETTE PARTY THE NIGHT BEFORE THE WEDDING.

Today's Moment of Awkward: Adventures at the DMV

Taking your driver's test is a scary and awkward time for everyone.  But a lot more so when you take it in the ghetto.  I'm not sure why I chose a DMV in a bad part of town to take the test, but I can only assume it was so that I would have this experience:

I get into my dad's Ford Explorer with an early-20s DMV employee and he instantly started hitting on me.  

DMV Guy:  So... you like to party?

Seriously?  Is this an episode of To Catch a Predator?  Who straight off asks a 16-year-old girl if she likes to party?  He could have at least come up with something more original like "So... do you like to sleep with DMV employees?"

Me:  I guess...

DMV Guy:  Yeah, me too.  I LOVE to party.  Take a left here.

He went on to tell me that he'd only been working at the DMV for a few months but it was "pretty cool."  He also informed me when he got off work, in case, I don't really know why actually, in case I wanted to meet him back here?  He was pretty vague.  If you're going to hit on underage girls you really need to get your act together and come up with a specific plan.  

This whole time I was trying to concentrate on my driving.  Check rearview mirror.  Check side mirrors.  Look both ways before pulling out of the driveway.  Don't speed!  He, however, did not appear to be paying attention to my driving at all.  That is, until I came to a screeching stop.

DMV Guy:  What'd you do that for?

I pointed to the one-legged man hobbling across the middle of the street.  When he got to the other side he started to climb a chain link fence.  You'd think it would be hard to climb a fence with one leg, but this guy had it down to a science.  My mouth dropped open.  I had no words.  This was one of the strangest things I had ever seen.

DMV Guy:  Oh, yeah, that.  Happens all the time.  Turn right at the next light.

IT HAPPENS ALL THE TIME?  IN WHAT WORLD DOES A ONE LEGGED MAN RUNNING ACROSS THE STREET AND CLIMBING A CHAIN LINK FENCE HAPPEN ALL THE TIME?!?!?

Still a little shaky I continued on and took a right at the next light.

Back at the DMV I received my score.  I got a 90.

Me:  What did you take ten points off for?

DMV Guy:  You didn't come to a complete stop at that one stop sign.

Me:  We were being chased by what I can only assume were zombies.

DMV Guy: That was just an army of hobos.  And you still didn't stop.

I ended up getting my license and never returning to that DMV ever again.  I believe they've since turned it into a halfway house for one-legged men and zombie hobos.