brush your shoulders off

As Kat! mentioned yesterday, I had a really hard time narrowing down what I wanted to write about this week. Like Kat, I am clumsy and fall down a lot (usually as a result of drinking) PLUS ALSO I'm never really embarrassed about the things I should be. People tend to think I embarrass easily because my face turns red ALL THE TIME. I don't, though. I SHOULD, but I don't, because when you fall down as often as I do, you learn to just brush it off.

So I could have written about the time I fell into a men's room or the time I got in a bar fight because of my mom or the time I fell out of my loft in college and didn't remember it or the time I fell down on my birthday in the bar's parking lot and didn't remember it or the time Heidi's boyfriend dropped me on my head because I refused to get off someone's porch and he tried to carry me inside (but I don't remember it).

However, these are some of the rare times I've actually felt embarrassed. At least for a little bit.

1. Got caught stealin'

This one time? We were in a bar in Columbus? And I saw this sign on the wall that I liked. So I took it down and folded it up and put it in my purse. One minute later, I was approached by one of the bartenders.

Bartender: Did you just steal a sign off the wall?
Me: . . . no?
Bartender: Um, my manager saw you.
Me: He didn't.
Bartender: He said you put it in your purse.
Me: Weird.
Bartender: Can I see inside your purse?
Me: Um. I don't know.
Bartender: Please leave.

And then we left. Because I stole a sign. And then I was all, "WHATEVER, we were leaving anyway, suckers!"

FAIL

2. Adventures in Babysitting

The first time I babysat, I thought I was prepared. I'd taken a Red Cross First Aid Babysitter Extraordinaire class. I knew how to Heimlich the shit out of a baby. I knew how to change a diaper, prepare a bottle, properly support a babies head, you name it. Unfortunately, I was babysitting for my cousins, and while one was a baby, the other was a toddler and needed to eat real food. I could heat up the bottle OH HELL YES but I ran into some trouble with the real food. My aunt had left a can of ravioli on the counter for dinner, along with this strange contraption that I guessed was to open the can. I picked it up. What IS this thing, I thought, and then used my superior deductive reasoning and realized it was a can opener! However, I had never used a manual can opener before, because we only had an electric one at home (wah wah) so I FREAKED OUT. I tried to use it. I really did. And then I started banging the sides of the can with it, hoping I could poke a hole in the side. Eventually, so my poor cousin wouldn't starve to death, I called my parents and my dad came over. To open a can for me.

This is still a hot topic of conversation during many family get-togethers.

Also, this other time I was babysitting my dad's coworker's daughter, and we were playing that game where one person puts their hands on top of yours, you try to hit them, and they try NOT to get hit. Well. We were playing it in front of a glass coffee table, she pulled her hands back, lost her balance, and fell right through the coffee table. She was fine, but it scared the hell out of her. It also made quite the mess, and since I didn't think I could get away with just covering it with a blanket, when her parents came home, I was vacuuming up the tiny glass shards while their daughter cried and cried on the sofa. I was not invited back, I don't think.

FAIL

3. Brass monkey, that funky monkey

Once upon a time, some good friends were in town, and as is often the case, we celebrated by drinking profusely at a variety of bars (my parents were even at one of them). At the last bar, I celebrated by convincing everyone to buy Jello shots and then I took too many of them and danced with an old man (I mean OLD) and then on the walk home, I fell down in a McDonald's parking lot in front of a man and his son in the drive thru and then I tried to run home AND break into someone's condo. When Heidi tried to tell me the condo I was breaking into did not, in fact, belong to our friend, I turned into a belligerent four-year-old (as often happens when I've reached the drunken point of no return) and I refused to believe her, so she had to physically drag me away. The next morning was SUPER FUN because I'd forgotten all of this, but no one else had.

FAIL

4. E.T. phone home

There is a newspaper called the KO Times in my town, delivered weekly (whether you're a subscriber or not). In each paper, they ask people around town to answer a question, take their pictures, and print their answers next to their pictures.

One night at work (local library), I was innocently enjoying my break when some lady walked into the breakroom. There were a few of us in there, but when she asked this question: What would you do if aliens landed on Earth? I was the first to answer. With this: I would ask them to take me home with them, and make me their pet. I didn't know who she was. But when someone gives me an opportunity to say something stupid, I can't exactly turn it down, you know?

Anyway, then she was all, "can I take your picture?" and I was like, "um, this is unorthodox," but I let her do it anyway, and then she told me I'd be in the paper the next day kthnxbai. And when the paper finally came out, everyone I knew cut it out and hung it up somewhere. One of my coworkers even decorated my picture, by drawing a dog collar around my neck and a little food bowl next to my floating head. The picture is long since lost (I hope), but here is my own representation:

EPIC FAIL