Awkard... and Weird.

Last night an online pal told me that one time, he walked in on his roommate watching porn.  He called it an "awkward" moment.  It got me thinking... I have awkward moments all the time.  I mean, none of them involve porn, but they are awkward nonetheless.

It's like I have a magnet on my forehead for getting involved in other people's weird.  Last year, on the way to the chiropractor, I got in the elevator just as a woman yelled at her boyfriend/significant other/dude "Normal people don't pee in the shower!!!"


I was at work talking to a director in the hallway at my last job.  We were discussing some budgety type thing or another with a finance coworker.  The director became completely distracted by the material on my shoes, he knelt down - as people walked by - and said "These look fuzzy, what is that?  Velvet?" as he pet... my shoe.  I have to say, it took every ounce of self control I own not to knee the man in the head.  It was so awkward and weird that my finance coworker looked at me briefly with saucer eyes before ducking into the bathroom to get away.

I got caught on the side of my house (I say caught because I try to avoid them whenever possible - and you'll see why in a moment) by my neighbor who informs me she's upset that someone else in our neighborhood has died.  It would seem that a bunch of people moved in at the same time in the 60's and now there are very few left.  "I guess we're next." she says matter of factly... oddly enough that wasn't the awkward bit.  The awkward bit is when her husband walked by and grumbled "Maybe you are.  I'm not."  She had, in another awkward conversation, told me that her doctor called her husband an "asshole" and said he might be contributing to her ill health.  This makes total sense to me now.


People tell me weird stuff all the time.  Not life long soul-matey type friends but acquaintances and people who barely know me. I said "Hey!" to a coworker I hadn't seen for months and she told me her husband was a lazy, good for nothing horse's ass and she wanted to draw up papers.  Um....


A contractor at one of my first jobs told me he'd been in rehab for drug issues 10 minutes after I started working on my first day.  A college professor told me she hated students and a barista at a coffee cart once asked me if I could spit in a guy's coffee because she had dry mouth.

I looked outside my window last week and caught the guy working on the junction box in my backyard, throwing things and talking to himself.  Speaking of talking to himself, while waiting for an elevator twice in the last three years, I've stood next to people talking to themselves.  One of them was repeating a mantra about rats.

At TJ Maxx a man in line behind me told a woman "You just keep your vagina away from his."  While it sounded like he was implying the other man had a vagina and I kinda wanted to ask "His what?" - I didn't.  Why?  Because it's weird.

It's all weird.  You'd think by now, I'd learn to handle these things gracefully.  I have not.  I stand there, awkwardly nodding or ignoring people, counting the seconds until I can flee.  You may find this hard to believe, but I'm actually pretty shy and when this stuff comes up?  I just shut down.  Despite this, Weird keeps me in his crosshairs... I think he just likes to see me squirm.  I was once told that the universe finds people who are open minded and thoughtful and embraces them with different experiences to keep them from getting bored.  Well, Universe, I'm not bored.  I live at the intersection of Clumsy Avenue and Awkward Circle and it is a crazy place to be.