Confessions

Yesterday when I accidentally walked into the men's locker room at the gym, not once but two times, and saw a nude, elderly gentlemen, I began to think- that maybe I am a magnet for embarrassing calamity. And I feel I have a lot of these moments that are weighing on me and I need to get them off my chest. So, I guess it's confession time.


I confess that at my last job my boss was a little person. He wasn't often in the office because he was out doing important boss things. One day I rounded a corner, walked smack into him, and knocked him down with my legs. And then to make bad matters worse I said, "I'm sorry I didn't see you!" And then I stammered, "Oh I didn't mean you were difficult to see.... Uh I just wasn't looking down there.... I mean, not that I need to look down to see you..." And it continued, in that horrifying vain, stammering inadvertently offensive things in between apologies until I finally slinked away into embarrassment oblivion. And to top it off, that was the first time I had ever met my boss.


I confess that when I waited tables in college, I was the worst waitress ever. We were supposed to grate cheese over each salad we served. It always took quite a while for the customer to say enough cheese and I used to zone out while I was working the slow, dull cheese grater. One day some little old lady with short curly hair leaned over to get something while I was grating the cheese. After a while I looked down to see I had been grating cheese not into the salad, but into her hair the whole time. I was mortified. It was a ton of cheese! But she hadn't noticed so I just sort of walked away and didn't mention it. She still had a mountain of cheese in her hair when she left the restaurant.


I confess that sometimes Cooper is the perpetrator of my embarrassment. Cooper is at the age where church has become basically a three-hour long nightmare. A few Sundays ago I was almost home free and only had 15 minutes left! I was wedged in an area about two feet by two feet with a baby that refused to be held and only wanted to get down and crawl around. After wrestling with this eel for most of the meeting, I finally let him get down for the last few minutes. I gave him a block and let him get his wiggles out. After a while I thought the lady next to me in her wheelchair was maybe giving me dirty looks, finally after dirty look #3 I got down there to see what was going on. Cooper was banging his block, not on the floor like I thought, but on her artificial leg. Cooper usually has two wooden blocks that he likes to bang together, I only brought one to church but it seems he found something else wooden-like to bang his block on instead. To top it off, he was also trying to pull out the pin connecting her artificial leg to her artificial foot.


I confess that I think I committed the worst foot-in-the-mouth moment that has ever happened in the history of the world. A lady in one of my old wards threw her husband an 80th birthday party that I attended. It was in the chapel, there were speakers, there were musical numbers, there were flower arrangements... A few months later we were talking and she mentioned a song to me. I said, "Oh right, isn't that the one you played at your husband's funeral?" By funeral I meant birthday party...


I confess that during pregnancy I abandoned all social etiquette. At work we had a mini fridge for our department that was located behind my cubicle. Most people put their lunches in the fridge in the break room and just used the mini fridge for drinks. But some unlucky person put their lunch in the mini fridge one day. And it stank. And every time someone opened the fridge the smell wafted into my cubicle. It smelled sooooo bad (I'm convinced it would have smelled even if I hadn't been pregnant) that I got up and threw it away when no one was looking. And I never told a soul. And when my co-worker asked if I had seen his lunch I looked him right in the eye and said no. I'm clearly a sociopath. But I did give him some of my food since I pretty much brought my whole pantry to work with me every day so I try to tell myself that I negated at least some of my crime...


Phew.