Friday, January 28, 2011

Exercise in Humiliation Friday

I have decided to make this a new weekly blog feature because inevitably, I will have some humiliating episode to report and now, I will persevere to save these until Friday. But first, I will start with Awesome because I am a Nerdfighter now and our goal is the promotion of Awesome and the decrease of Suck. Therefore, Awesome must always come first.


AWESOME=

This care package from my friend Jeannie. She is Awesome. It is also Awesome that I now have 25 people who are following me, not that I am playing the numbers game because it can only lead to Suck if I start doing that but it is nice to know that there are others out there laughing at...er, I mean, with me.

PROM by Laurie Halse Anderson is also Awesome. She did this book for all the teens requesting a book about "normal people" and she did it beautifully. "Normal people" is a lot harder to do than you would imagine.

Awesome is also the number of e-mails that I received from my friend Bruce today regarding a school memo that referred to a "suction item" instead of an "auction item." I laughed out loud at least 6 times. (Unfortunately, these "suction" e-mails led to my later humiliation--see below). And finally, Awesome is the fact that Julio comes home tomorrow after being gone for 9 days (you see, I could have put this under Suck but as a Nerdfighter, I am focusing on the Awesome of his return and not the Suck of his being gone). This also plays a prominent role in the below mentioned humiliation.

SUCK=

The fact that I just found out today that all the pithy replies that I have been making to you all via e-mail about your comments on my blog posts are apparently not going to you. They are going to some fellow called "no reply-comment@blogger.com." This makes me very sad because my replies have been incredibly funny, sufficiently obsequious and humble that you have chosen not only to follow me but also to comment, and very well-written. Ask "no reply-comment@blogger.com," he has been rolling on the floor laughing at me all week long. I am waiting for my FB friend request from him soon.

Suck is also my daughter's teacher handing me an enormous basket of classroom laundry to do because it is "our family's turn" with the following note attached to it:

"Christa, sorry there is so much. I forgot to give the laundry to other families for the past two weeks. Can you also wash the teddy bear that is in the basket? I think it is infested with lice."

There are no words. I can't tell you the number of nights I have woken up in a panic that one of my children has lice. This is not unfounded, my daughter is 1 of 3 girls in her entire class who has not gotten lice this year. I thought it was because of her mixed race hair, my hair stylist friend Liz suggests it may be because we don't wash it that often (she's not the smelly kid, she showers frequently, she just has really dry hair and curly-haired people should not overwash).

It is Awesome that we have avoided lice so far. Not that it is that big of a deal, it's just that de-infestation appears to involve a lot of house cleaning and laundry and I always prefer to avoid that sort of thing if I can. Because, you know, cleaning is Suck-y.

And now on to the humiliating...(thanks for hanging in there with me)...

Butter (my 3 yr old) and I got out of music class this morning with 30 minutes to eat lunch and get him to afternoon preschool. I buckled him in, glanced down at my phone and saw that I had received 4 emails from Bruce about the "suction" type-o. I was laughing so hard that I barely registered that my car wasn't starting. Weird. I wiped the tears out of my eyes and tried again. No dice. I tried to take the key out of the ignition and start again but it wouldn't come out. It was stuck and the car wouldn't start.

I called Julio (as if he could help from out of town) but he didn't answer. I called Mark, my back-up husband and he did not answer either. I looked at the clock. 22 minutes to get Butter to preschool. I looked at my phone for two more minutes before heaving a sigh and calling Stan, my mechanic. He told me that he was closing the shop for the day (me: dude, at 11:30? what kind of hours are you all running over there?). I got that teary quiver in my voice. He said he would be there in 5 minutes.

He arrived and fixed the car in 16 seconds. Want to know why? Because I had it in Drive. Not in Park. The key doesn't come out in Drive. The car doesn't start in Drive. Naturally. I was so humiliated. I started doing the babble thing. That never ends well for me.

ME: I am so embarrassed, Stan. I can't believe this. I just am very frazzled because we are a bit late and my husband has been out of town for awhile and he isn't answering his phone.

STAN: You need a friend? I could be your friend.

ME: (feigning innocence at Stan's innuendo): Thanks. You're really great, Stan.

STAN: You need a friend?

ME: I have a husband.

STAN: I'm Italian. (what?)

ME: My husband is really great.

STAN: You need a friend?

ME: Stan, aren't you married?

STAN: Yes. You should shake my hand because it is my birthday.

I shook his hand and Stan pulled me into a strange hug. You all are probably thinking that this is weird and skeevy and it totally is except that Stan is about 100 years old and I have actually watched him doing this same thing to 90 year old women. He may have even asked my husband if he needed a friend when he was in there getting his car fixed a few months ago.

Needless to say, Butter was late for preschool and I will now have to find a new mechanic.

We are having breakfast for dinner in my house tonight. Does a bottle of wine go with sausage and pancakes?




10 comments:

Bruce said...

Bruce is no longer AWESOME. Bruce is SUCK. I was wondering why the teacher did not hand me the laundry last Friday, since it was my turn. Can I swing by and grab the lice bear from you?

Paige said...

OMG - #1 the Montessori story made me and my husband immediately say "There's openings at Peppermint." I said to myself, it's because you are too nice, that's why you got the huge laundry pile, since you would never say "No, not going to happen." I couldn't either, but our husbands would in a nanosecond. Lastly, I was so curious as to your emails to my comments ;-) Hang in there, love you!

Carrie said...

Take all of it to the laundromat (my exercise in humiliation...it took me like FIVE tries to spell laundromat). Seriously. It will be worth the five bucks in quarters to avoid the extra housekeeping and laundry that the very THOUGHT of lice in your house will inspire.

Damn that no reply-comment@blogger.com!

moljoe said...

Now it's my turn to laugh out loud. No, seriously, that was the comment attached to the laundry? Lice is going around our Montessori School too. Kai is going to get a buzz cut soon. And, I've done that before with the car. I've called Joe and told him it wouldn't start. I haven't called someone yet, but I'll remember this posting next time I feel the need to do so. I feel your pain and I don't know, maybe Stan would be a nice friend :)

Unknown said...
This comment has been removed by the author.
Unknown said...

I miss you and your kids. If you bring them to allegheny they could get bed bugs instead of lice if you left the teddy bear at home.

P.S. public school doesn't make parents do laundry...

ally said...

um, can you "forget" about the bear and throw it in the garbage? I am sure you could invent a wonderful tale for the dissapointed child about the adventure in world travel the stuffed toy is embarking on....

Christa Desir said...

Sadly, the bear is the very important "peace bear" that gets passed around the "peace circle" so that whoever holds the bear is allowed to talk. I will tell the story of Jojo's classmate Misha snatching the peace bear from a first grader to inform him that there is no such thing as Santa "just so you know" at another time.

Bing Grant said...

OMG, you are and I must be long lost sisters. The car thing is totally something I would do. I did not even notice the suction message until I received an email from the sender, it was equally funny. As for the lice, if my daughter gets it one more time, I am shaving her head.

lisa and laura said...

Oh this is so our kind of post. Ahh...classroom laundry and lice bears. It doesn't get much better than that.