Wednesday, November 7, 2012

Did I just become someone's inside joke?

This lady would have been someone inside joke except it happened on video so now 13 million people can laugh about it.

Today I went for a run. It is probably the last warm day of the year, I had some free time this morning and I have been exceptionally fat and lazy for the last few weeks so it felt like the thing to do. I headed out and was feeling good. About a block from my house I guess I didn't lift my foot high enough and I tripped on a bit of sidewalk. As I tried to regain control my strides got wider and more crazy, my arms windmilled like I was trying to take flight and I eventually belly flopped on someones lawn and slid to a halt. It was epic. I couldn't breathe for a minute, my neck was sore and I was covered with mud and grass stains.

I don't think anyone saw me - there were no cars around and no one visible on the streets - but whenever something incredibly embarrassing like that happens I always wonder. "Did I just become someones inside joke?" You know the kind: you and your friends witness something funny or embarrassing or crazy and you tell the story about it for years, even if though the person that the story happened to probably doesn't even remember it happening. Did someone see me fall and even as you read this is reenacting the event with their friends at brunch and laughing hysterically?

I'll give you two examples: many, many years ago I was working and was on a break. I work in retail so I worked in a mall and went to meet a friend to have a Cinnabon for dinner (ah, to be young and have a rockin' high metabolism!) It was the Christmas season so the mall was crowded and a friend and I found couple chairs in the corner of the the cinnabon and enjoyed my Carmel Pecanbon and Diet Coke. There was a mom there, with a bunch of small kids who was clearly frazzled. They had taken a break from shopping and were having a small snack. As they got up to leave, on of the kids somehow spilled her hot chocolate all over her pants. The mom, incredibly flustered, yelled "Now look what you did! Now you are going to be hot-sticky-cocoa pants all day!!" I nearly laughed out loud and still giggle when I think of it. I'm sure that mom has 0% recollection of that day. But my friends and I still laugh about it.

More recently, some friends and I were on a long road trip. We had stopped at a gas stations in Nowheresville, Idaho for refreshments. As we wandered the gas station we walked past a girl and her friend who were admiring a display of incredibly tacky, gaudy purses that you can only find in a gas station in Nowheresville, Idaho. We overheard one girl, who was holding up a particularly classy purse, say to the other, "Well I am going to get it. And my husband can just kiss my a$$. I never treat myself!"  We laughed about her and her ugly purse for probably the next 20 miles, and we still chuckle when we think of it. Again, I doubt she even remembers the conversation, unless her husband left her for her extravagant spending on the $15 gas station purse. But we will probably say that to each other for the next 20 years.

Please tell me you and your friends do this to? If I am the only one then clearly I am kind of a mean person. Did any of you see me fall today and are laughing about it right now? If you did, that's OK. I mean, what do I care if a bunch of strangers are having a laugh at my expense. Just don't bring it up to my face. That might be too embarrassing.
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