Bonjour, mes amis!

Yes.  I’m still away.  At this very moment, I could be weeping at Jim Morrison’s grave or purchasing baguettes at the Champs-Elysees.

In any case, I’m thrilled to introduce you to my friend Hillary, who makes her virtual home at Because my Life is Fascinating.

And she is…fascinating, I mean.  She has a gift for taking those mundane little moments in life and exploding them into pieces of writing that make you laugh.

Or nod your head in agreement.

Or think.

Or shed a tear.

She’s someone to watch.  You heard it here first, friends.

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Greetings, Spin Cycle Readers. I can’t tell you how tickled I am to be able to guest post for Sue! I’m gonna go ahead and try though.

When it comes to bloggers, Sue is top-shelf. So when she asked me to entertain ya’ll while she gallivants around Paris, I did a little happy dance.

Then I panicked cause she’s such a fantastic writer, and how would I ever match her brilliance? Yeeeeks.

Then I got depressed because I’ve never been to Paris.

And finally, I drank a glass of Merlot and dealt with both the anxiety and the depression. I have no idea why I’m paying my doctors so much money. This stuff fixes everything!

Except Paris. C’est la vie.

Enough whining. She didn’t ask me here to do that. Allow me to introduce to you the top five awkward moments according to me.

Top Five Awkward Moments

1. Are they waving at me?

We’ve all been there. You think someone is waving at you so you wave back, and then you realize they weren’t really waving at you.

I’ll never forget the time a professor (who I had met maybe twice) waved at me from across campus. I waved back, commending myself for making such an impression. He was walking toward me, beaming a great big smile. “Where’s that beautiful smile?” he called out. Confused, but nevertheless flattered, I beamed back a Colgate-worthy response. That’s when the girl scooted past me and greeted him. I was mortified.

2. I forgot your name.

You know who they are, maybe you know a lot about them. But you don’t freaking remember their name! Smooth as you play it, this fact sells you out.

3. Whose turn is it at the intersection?

Car or pedestrian? Pedestrian or car? My car or your car?

I absolutely hate this silent, back and forth conversation that seems to last for an eternity:

“After you.”

“No, after you.”

“Oh, but I insist, you go.”

“No, I just couldn’t. Please, you must go.”

“Well, then. I don’t want to be rude.”

“Ok, why not?”

{And then in unison} “Oh, I thought I was going now…”

Repeat.

4. How long has THAT been in there?!

Ten minutes after having the most animated conversation of your life—the kind where you show all your molars and even the scars from your wisdom teeth by laughing so hard—you go to the bathroom.

That’s when you see it: the biggest, honking piece of food lodged between your two front teeth. You’re the last one to know about it.

The only thing that trumps this brand of awkward is a flyaway booger. The kind that you cannot feel, but others surely see.

5. How do I join this conversation?

This is probably the one I am most guilty of. I am not really shy, but sometimes I have bad timing. I’ll be at a party or some larger social scene, see a group of friends or worse, acquaintances, and try to join the circle. Everyone’s talking and engaged in conversation, except for me.

Five minutes later, still no one’s acknowledged me. Seriously, I think a garden gnome could do better than I at fitting into the group. The only thing left to do is walk away. But how? Backwards, with head slightly ducked seems to be the appropriate way.

And so, like a shunned buzzard, I inch away from the group I cannot join and wonder if somehow I slipped into Harry’s invisibility cloak without knowing it. Yes, that’s what must have happened.

Welp, those are mine, now it’s your turn!

Friends?

I am not here.  I’m on a little excursion with unidentified individuals to a top-secret location, for an undisclosed amount of time.

Which may or may not be ten days in Paris with girlfriends.

Squeeeeee!

Ahem.

Anyway.  I have enlisted the help of two friends to look after The Spin Cycle while I am away.  Today I’d like to introduce you to Sandra of Absolutely Narcissism.

Sandra, to me, is like that cool chick that you saw down the hall in high school but were too scared to talk to because she was so stinkin’ fabulous.

She is smart.

And funny.

And popular.

And wildly irreverent.

And she makes no apologies for it.

She is Canadian, so she says exotic things like “favourite” and “realise.”

And did I mention that she is drop-dead gorgeous?

But then you do work up the nerve to talk to her…and you come to know that she is just an all-around good egg with a heart of gold.

Please meet Sandra.  And then go visit her at her home in the blogosphere.  But whatever you do?  Don’t be haters until you’ve gotten to know her.

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They Hate Me!

I’m that parent that teachers talk about. Oh yes, they do.

I know they gather round the table in the break room, and while tearing into their granola bars, the conversation is abuzz with gossip about that annoying mom; that mom who clearly doesn’t give a crap about her kid, you know which one I’m talking about, right? She has that cute little boy in the 4^th grade who can’t read very well.

She never signs the agenda so we never know if she’s actually bothered to check if her kid even has any homework…That poor little kid probably has to pack his own lunch.

By now, the rest of the teachers are starting to connect the parent (me) to the stories of the poor little kid, who by the way, does NOT have to pack his own lunch. But he doesn’t like to eat anything. What’s a mother to do? So I send what I know he will eat: processed crackers and cheese. Sure it’s not super healthy, but there must be some nutritional value in that, like calcium…and maybe, plastic?

And he can too read! It’s just that he doesn’t like it. Am I supposed to beat him over the head with the 4^th grade storybooks, which by the way are stupid and boring? Give the kid some books with the word “poop” in them, and guess what, he won’t be jerking my chain at story time anymore.

The teachers will continue their rants: She’s the woman whose kid doesn’t dress for the weather, the teachers are saying. He comes back from recess with red, chapped hands because his mother didn’t send him any mittens. What kind of a mother doesn’t send mittens, they’ll add.

But I do tell him to take his mittens! I lay them out on the table next to his breakfast. I even watch him leave the house with them. But between my driveway and the school, I have no idea where those mittens disappear to. He claims he doesn’t know either. He’ll tell me, “I think I might have dropped them somewhere when I took them off because my hands were so hot.”

What should I do, teachers? Should I sew the mittens onto his hands? Would that be better?

Sure, I could have followed my 9 year old to school, like a perfect parent. But I didn’t. Because my mom never followed me around, and guess what? I still have hands, and I know how to read AND write. And back then, there was no such thing as a book in which my mother signed her name to show that she was aware I had homework to do.

So how do I even know the teachers hate me?

Well, I don’t for sure.

Except I did get a note in the homework book last year, in which the teacher specifically told me: “Could you please send your son proper winter clothing for recess. And could you also send him a more nutritious lunch; one with fruits and vegetables. I know your son is a very smart boy because his teachers from his previous years have told me so. But they also mentioned that you don’t sign the agenda, and as a result of this, he falls behind in his homework.”

Unfortunately, I didn’t get this message until near the end of the school year …

…Because I kept forgetting to sign the homework book.