I’m a really friendly person. Like the kind of friendly who talks to random strangers in the grocery store, or in line at Lowes, or wherever I am really. My husband says I’m a “social butterfly,” and I guess that’s pretty much true. But there is a downside to overt friendliness for me. I’ve shared about this problem before.
Instead of saying something clever or smooth or normal, I had what I call an “I carried a watermelon” moment. (From Dirty Dancing…when that’s all Baby can think to say about why she’s at the staff dance party….awkward verbal moments…you know what I’m talking about.) Anyways, I met Joe McIntyre when I was working at a Top 40 radio station several years back and he was interviewing on the air. The morning show was over, I went upstairs to check the advertising logs (I sold advertising) and Joe walked back in to take a picture with the morning show guys. And there I was. So when introduced, it went something like this….
Morning show guys: “Hey Logan, have you met Joe? This is Joe.”
Me: “No, I haven’t. Hey. When I was a kid I totally painted your name on my Keds in puff paint.”
The end.
I totally carried a watermelon! What the crap?!….Puff Paint?!?! (Don’t worry Rebecca Kirkland…I didn’t take you down with me, even though you were my accomplice in the puff paint shenanigans.)
So today, I had another verbal and social moronic moment.
We went to Arbys to meet a friend for lunch after she’d invited Tid Bit to one of those inflatable jumping places this morning. When I walked in (holding Hudson mind you,) the manager was sort of hilariously trying to scratch his back on the wall. Clearly one of those hard to reach middle-of-the-back itches. He kinda laughed and said “I can’t get it!” SO without thinking much about it I was like “turn around…I’ll scratch it for you!”
So I scratched the random manager’s back at Arbys. To which he then says “Well hey. So, what are you up to later…tonight…or another time?”
I was completely mortified and awkwardly waved my left hand in the air laughing and saying “I’m so sorry…I’m totally married….totally married….totally married!”
Um….awkward. Especially when I realized that I wasn’t even wearing my wedding band! Thankfully I didn’t launch into the reason I wasn’t wearing it….got eczema after I had my first child, it gets worse when I take a shower, forgot to put it back on, now waving my hand around like a moron as if I’m sporting it anyways.
Oh have mercy. Then he offered to carry my tray since I was holding the baby and I said “oh…I see…I scratch your back, you scratch mine?!” trying to lighten the already awkward cloud in the air that I’d caused.
Yeah….didn’t help.
One day perhaps I’ll find a remedy for my chronic conversational colitis. (yeah, that’s just another clever way I came up with to say verbal diarrhea.) Til then maybe I can just on occasion try to….
Hope today you eat more of your own food than words!
Too hilarious! Tid Bit asked me if I was "posting a picture of me scratching that man's back to go on my blog?" Oh goodness sakes…that would have really made for a more awkward moment!! LOL!
Too funny!
Hysterical. Thank you for the puff paint shout out. We painted everything! Shoes…jean skirts…jean jackets. For some reason, neon green and orange were my favorite puff paint colors…yikes!
Rebecca, just had to give credit where credit was due. After all, if it wasn't for your poster over your bed of Donnie Walberg…who knows if we'd have even gone so far as all that puff paint?! I couldn't help but wonder when I met Joe though if he didn't realize his star had faded when I was mentioning memories of him all the way back to puff paint.
That's SO FUNNY!!! I had a similar experience to you when I met Danny Bonaduce (The Partridge Family) and Mario Lopez at an event in Las Vegas. I was chatting away with Mario Lopez (HOT HOT HOT!!!) and the first thing that I could think of to tell Danny was that I had just seen him and his wife on TLC's "The Baby Story." Danny looked mortified and Mario started laughing at him! I don't know why I told him that other than I didn't know anything else about him. LOL!