Category Archives: AwkWORD (Humor)

February 1, 2011 · 3:39 PM

There’s Good News and Bad News…

Last night as I left a friend’s house, I got pulled over by a cop.  I have not been pulled over in years…come to think of it, neither has Mike.  We have a great track record, and as I pull to the side of the road, I’m totally annoyed that I’m the one who broke it.

“Hello, ma’am,” he says politely.  “Do you know how fast you were going?”

I hate when they ask this.  It’s a trick: answer honestly and you admit to breaking the law.  Lie and you look like a liar.

“Um, maybe 35 or 40, sir?” I reply.

“Well, in fact you were going 43, and this is a 35 zone.”

“Yikes,” I gulp, with the most pathetic look on my face.  “I’m so sorry, Officer.”  My father taught me to always address policemen as “officer.”  So far, it appears to be working.

“Where were you going in such a hurry?” he asks.

I don’t have time to think of something less embarrassing, so I tell him the truth.  “I was watching ‘The Bachelor’ at a friend’s house and now I’m just driving home….”

He fights a smile.  He has the kindest eyes I’ve seen on a police officer, and this gives me a ray of hope.  And I desperately need that ray of hope, because I know what’s coming next.

He walks back to his patrol car, and then two minutes later returns to my window. 

“Now, looking at just your speed, that’s about $150.  But did you know your tabs are also expired?” 

There it is.  I’m hosed.

“Actually,” I say to him, “just yesterday my husband noticed that and told me to change them.  I’m really sorry, Officer.”  This statement is one hundred percent true.  I bite my lip and look up at him.

He goes on, “And I can’t prove it, but there was a construction site about a quarter-mile before I pulled you over, so that would be another $150.  And the tabs would be $100.  Do you realize this is a $400 ticket?”

He says all of this, but has nothing in his hands.  Against all odds, I hear the tingling sound of victory bells three miles away.

“My goodness, I can’t believe that.  I’m so sorry, Officer.”  And I really am — I mean, who can claim to have their life together and be driving around on January 31 with tabs that expired in October?  Yes, October.

He smiles and hands me my license.  “Have a nice day.”

I am too shocked to speak.  I cannot even smile.  I look up at him and say “Thank you,” but it’s small and quiet because I am stunned into silence.

I didn’t get a ticket!  I thank God the entire way home for his divine mercy, because that’s the only explanation for that officer’s behavior.

I decide to tell Mike that I got one anyway, so that when I tell him I didn’t, he’ll be really excited.  This is a cruel game married people love to play.

I walk into our condo slouched over like Charlie Brown.  I don’t make eye contact.  I just say, “I got a ticket.”

“What?  No way!  How fast were you going?”

“43 in a 35.  But it’s the TABS!  The TABS make it $400!!” 

Now he remembers our little conversation yesterday, and he’s mad.  But right as I’m about to make his day by telling him it didn’t happen, he interrupts me.

“Do you want the good news or the bad news?”  he asks.

What is he talking about?  I’m supposed to be dropping all of the bad/good news…

“I got a ticket today, too!”

“????……#$@&…..@$#%…..$%&@……….$@&*……………..!!!!” 

I don’t actually cuss at him, but the dozens of explosives going off in my head at once won’t allow me to process a coherent response.

He apparently doesn’t notice that my jaw is on the floor and my eyes are three inches outside my head, and keeps talking.

“Man, am I relieved.  I’ve been dreading telling you all day, but now that we both did it, you can’t be mad!  This is awesome!”

His joyful glee needs to come to an end.  We are not in the same boat.  There is a crucial difference to our stories, and it’s time he knew what it was.

“AHA!  But I lied!  I did get pulled over, but I DIDN’T GET A TICKET.”

I thought of the most obnoxious dance possible and starting doing it with great enthusiasm.  In case you’re into details, it involved a lot of hip thrusts and pumping of arms.

I was dancing so violently I barely registered his expression of shock.  But being the ever-optimist that he is, it didn’t take long for his indignation to give way to his mental calculations. 

Suddenly he was ecstatic again.  “Do you realize what this means?!  It’s like our insurance will barely even go up at ALL!”

Mr. Sunshine has a point.  And I’m so grateful that I didn’t get nailed that I decide this is one of those moments in life that is most ironic, and we high-five.

15 Comments

Filed under AwkWORD (Humor)

Tagged as , , ,

January 10, 2011 · 3:44 PM

Avalanche

As I predicted, our Whistler Winter Wonderland turned out to be just that: full of wonder.  It was the single most beautiful weather I have ever seen in my dozen trips north, and I don’t think a day passed when I didn’t say, “No, SERIOUSLY look at this WEATHER,” to whomever was standing next to me.

It was crystal-blue skies every single day, and there were mounds and mounds of snow covering every inch of the mountains, trees and village.  Each night as we walked from the condo to the village, it was like walking into a Christmas card.  The stars were more brilliant than seemed possible, and the lights from the town were as luminous as a chorus of candles.

None of this entered my mind, however, at about 3PM on New Years Eve.  Laura, Mike and I had spent a glorious day skiing, and all of a sudden, I was done.  Not just “I’m a little cold, let’s head back,” but “If I don’t get off this mountain in the next five minutes HEADS WILL ROLL,” kind of done.

There is no logical explanation for this.  Despite not being a very good skier (blue routes always, never black diamonds), I almost always enjoy myself.  I love the views, the activity, the adrenaline.  What I do not love is realizing that I am exhausted and I still have 45 minutes of skiing to get me home.

That’s the thing about Whister/Blackcomb.  The mountains are so enormous that even if you decide you are done for the day, you still have to get from the top to the bottom, which is no small feat.  It’s not like at Crystal or Steven’s Pass, where one minute you’re at the peak and the next minute you’re drinking hot chocolate.

The real tragedy in my exhaustion is that Mike was just hitting his stride.  He was snowboarding faster and more skillfully than he had been all day, so my constant breaks and whining nearly caused him to shove me into the first gondola that passed, saying, “Please, take her with you.”

As I watched him move deftly down the slopes, it occurred to me that most of us ski on a bell curve.  The day starts out shoddily; you’re out of practice, a little fearful, and moving slowly.  Then you warm up and gain confidence, and the curve moves upward.  The peak of the curve happens when you are flying down the hill, completely ecstatic, vowing that you will do this every weekend for the entire winter.  A few hours later, the curve descends sharply as you realize you are extremely tired, freezing your hands off, and you vow never to participate in this masochistic sport again.

There is nothing wrong with the bell curve, as long as you accept it as fact.  As soon as you accept it, then all you have to do is be sure to finish your day just after the peak but before the curve dives into the depths.  This was my problem.

Laura could not have been more accommodating.

“Babe, this is totally normal.  When you’re done, you’re DONE.  I have been there.”

But she wasn’t there in that moment, which only made me feel worse.  And Mike was Pollyanna on vacation, so I officially felt like Demon Debbie Downer.

Did recognizing that I was the jerk of the group cause me to snap out of it?  No!  It only enraged me more.

Thus, legs trembling from the effort, I made each little turn down each little hill with the resentment of a woman scorned.  I mentally scrolled through all of the sources of my anger:  I hated my freezing fingers, I hated Whistler for existing, I hated myself for not being a better skier, I hated whoever invented the idea of putting sticks on their feet to get down a mountain, I hated my friends for daring to enjoy themselves, and I especially hated the fact that I was sweating from the effort.

And even though some tiny logical part of my brain was screaming, “Get a grip, lady!” the rest of my brain couldn’t hear it due to all the other voices hollering the hate.

The reason there is a tiny uplift in the bell curve after the base of the plunge is because the moment I was off the slopes, I was the happiest woman in the world.  Not only did I not die while skiing, but I no longer hate anything or anybody!

Luckily I had Mike around throughout the remainder of the day to remind me of my miserable attitude.  But did I care?  Not really — I was done skiing!  And hindsight is always a deceiver; it wasn’t long before I was saying aloud, “Maybe we should go again tomorrow.  I mean, that was great, right?”

Riiiiight.

8 Comments

Filed under AwkWORD (Humor)

November 4, 2010 · 9:33 AM

On Owning It

I’m 26 years old, and yet I had two costumes for Halloween weekend.

And I don’t even like Halloween very much.

On Friday at work I dressed as a Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtle.  I was Michelangelo, for obvious, husband-related reasons.  My entire team dressed up and we actually won a contest for Best Cube Decoration.  We made our cubicle aisle into a sewer.

Allow me to illustrate:

That is a pizza box on the right.  We were detailed.  And that is why we are the proud owners of a $100 gift card to Chili’s.  Yes, Chili’s.

We quickly did some research to discover the Chili’s gift card would also work at Macaroni Grill or Maggianos.  Needless to say, we were all relieved.

A few things to note:

1.  I have nunchucks.
2.  I have a cardboard shell.
3.  Splinter is in life-size poster form.

Clearly you can’t win contests by doing things half-way.

On Saturday evening Mike and I went to two parties, and I was dressed as a banana.  Mike was a sock monkey.  We both thought this was hilarious until we showed up at the first party and we were the only people in costume.

Later some other people showed up in costume, but I hardly consider a kitten-ears headband a costume when I am literally inside a polyester banana.

As we were driving to the second party, it occurred to me that this humiliation might happen again.  Not in the same way, since we knew everyone at the next event would be in costume, but in the sense that my costume was decidedly funny, and I knew every other woman’s costume would be decidedly whorish.

After we parked, I turned to Mike in the car and said, “I’m afraid.”

“Of what?”

“Of everyone being ‘the sexy something’ and me being the not-even-remotely attractive fruit.”

He didn’t hesitate, “You need to walk in there and OWN IT.  Your costume is hilarious and so much more fun than the cliché “hot nurse” or whatever the girls are wearing tonight.  OWN IT.”

So that’s what I did.  I walked in and struck a pose and people totally responded.  They laughed, and I realized that was much more fun than looking trampy on Halloween.

This isn’t a judgement on those who look sexy on Halloween — it’s totally cultural and virtually everyone does it.  I just discovered that men don’t corner the market on silly rather than slutty.

In fact, you could argue that my costume was a little sexy-banana-ish, considering I was wearing black leggings and knee-high boots.  However, when one realizes my costume came from Pottery Barn Kids, it loses its sex appeal significantly.

Now that I know I am no longer afraid to be a food paired with an animal, the possibilities are endless.  Horse and carrot?  Cow and grass?  Elephant and peanut?

Bring it on.

7 Comments

Filed under AwkWORD (Humor)

Tagged as , , ,