Is a Healthy Mouth Dirty?

There is no big incident here, just a time to share.

When I was young, I only ate onions if they were cooked. Lately, I have discovered not only a tolerance for all types of raw onions, but a love of the red ones. I love including them in my sandwiches for lunch and it makes me feel so healthy! However, I realize that even though I typically finish my lunch with something super sweet and drink plenty of water, my breath reeks of red onion for at least several hours. I've tried gum as well, to no avail.

I'm lucky that I'm not required to get too close to anyone so I don't think anyone else notices, but the taste in my mouth adds a touch of paranoia to my day. (Do I really need any more reasons to feel nervous at work? I think not!)

"Stop eating the onions!" you say? There has to be another way. I am just not prepared to give them up.

I'm wondering if I should bring a toothbrush to work, but I don't have my own office, so I'd have to carry it in my bag at all times. And, I will admit that at my old job, whenever I saw people carrying their own toothbrushes at work, I always thought "That's smart, but just too weird."

At this point my options are:
1) Say goodbye to onions and ironically tear up
2) Say hello to brushing after lunch and learn new jokes about having a "dirty mouth"
3) Tell myself that most likely no one notices and savor the red onion breath as a tribute to how much I love them

(Ok, so that last part is even too weird for me.)

One Big Party Foul

Being a generally awkward person, I have been to a number of slightly uncomfortable parties. Most likely I will write about some of them at a later time, but a recent one seemed to wrap up a number of potential awkward situations (messuations, as I like to call them) all in one. I will try to categorize them for your reading pleasure (you can thank me later).

First off, these days I feel it is a bad sign when I go into a house party and the lights are mostly off and the music is blaring so loud you can't talk. Also, I will explain that I did not know anyone at the party except for the two female friends I went with, and one of them had been invited by someone at the party.

1. What to do when you realize the person you are talking to is not interesting.
I was standing in a group with my girlfriends talking to two guys. After a minute or two of talking to one of the guys, I realized that this conversation was going nowhere. It was cringe-worthy. It took me way too long to realize I could just angle my body towards one of the girls to end the awkwardness. Even then, though, it was still awkward as now I had my back turned to this poor, nice guy.

2. What to do when you realize the nice person you're talking to probably wants to be hooking up, not just making a new friend.
I realized about an hour in (probably much later than I should have noticed) that this party was basically made for hooking up. Girls were mostly talking to other girls they knew or guys they could flirt with, and most guys were not necessarily interested in just making a friend. Even after I mentioned my boyfriend, guys were still flirting and hoping to dance. Now, I love dancing, and I will even dance with a guy in a semi-grinding way for a brief amount of time. However, if you do not understand the basic principles of rhythm or where your legs go, then please don't try to dance with me. As I am usually pretty sober at these events and very interested in dancing, I feel way too uncomfortable about this type of weird non-grinding, non-structured dancing where we basically wiggle very close to one another. As this was happening with a nice guy, I saw that my female friends were in another room, so I was alone with the guy, wondering when the wiggling could stop. (Our conversation had been nice! But this was...well, not.) So I did what I will from now on refer to as "pulling a Cinderella."

"What time is it?" I asked.

"Uhh, it's a quarter to 1."

"Oh no! It's late! I have to go!"

I immediately bolted to the other room to find my friend to say goodbye. However, at this point I ran into an old friend and chatted with him, so when the dancing guy came in, it looked like I was just fine and happy in this other room. (I will admit that this is true.)

3. What to do when you have a delayed realization that someone is very drunk.

I swear one guy at the party looked like an older, bigger version of Harry Potter. When one of my friends mentioned this to him, he said no one else had ever said this before. (Liar!) Anyway, he didn't really have much to talk about for the first half of the party, but later in the night, he came over to me and was dancing up a storm! It was great! And then I realized...oh, he's very drunk right now. Part of me was relieved and danced with him instead because he was being funny and most likely wouldn't even remember this anyway. Still, I find it very strange to suddenly realize that someone is not just being very funny and social, but incredibly wasted.

Anyway, I will admit there were some pretty entertaining moments of the night including s'mores, good apple cider, and fun dance music. Not the wiggling, though. Never the wiggling.

Survey Says: It Takes Work to Get an A

One of my most memorable classes in college was all about market research. Not because each class was filled with exciting lectures, but because everyone in the class (I'm talking girls and all of the gay guys) always gossiped with one another about how attractive our male Teachers Assistant was. In my project group alone, a gay friend and I would debate who the TA would give sweet, longing glares to, him or me. (Hindsight says neither, but it got us through lectures, so let us be!)

Anyway, as my group prepared for our final presentation in which we would present our survey and the multitude of results there were to explain, I joked that we should also mention the TA was hot. My fellow group members laughed, considering we had spent 50% of our group meetings discussing this, and then suggested we go with it since I was the last one in the group to present anyway. Now I have done some bold things in my time in college, but this was extreme. After a minute or two, I agreed, thinking that it would be the very last day of class anyway, and I would never see the TA again.

So, on the last day of class, my group sat nervously as we sat through one boring presentation after another. (It would have been hard for any presentation to be exciting in that class.) I noticed that one group had even invited executives from a local business to watch their presentation. When my group got up to present, my knees were shaking. I knew there was no way I could back out since we had even made a slide in our powerpoint presentation.

I don't think I heard anything that came out of my group members' mouths. As I began to conclude our presentation, I looked over to the TA, and seeing his beautiful, blue eyes, I knew I had to go through with it.

"And in our final survey, we concluded that TA is hot! Any questions?"

The class roared with laughter and applause, and both the professor and the TA were beaming. I'm pretty sure the TA looked at us and said "A+!"

What a success! I felt completely satisfied with going out on a limb and so did my group. (We later learned that we all received A's for the class.)

So where does the awkwardness come in? Well, because I had actually ended up enjoying the class and the professor, I decided to take another class with him. Little did I know that on the first day of class, the same TA would walk in! My professor looked at me, looked at my TA, then back at me as he chuckled a little too loudly. I'm fairly certain I quickly looked down at my desk as my cheeks turned scarlet.

When it came time for another final group presentation, I tried to convince my new group to follow up on my past confession, but to no avail. Fortunately, I did well in the class without having to profess my attraction.

I also ran into this same TA a year later at a party, but I tried to keep the conversation limited as I chatted with both him and his new girlfriend.

If you're out there, TA, call me! (Sorry, Boyfriend. But he's hot!)

No Coaches in Coach

Even though this has happened to me quite a bit, I will post it now since it just happened again recently.

Airplane Etiquette. What is it? Sometimes I feel like I'm finally able to understand the best way to act on the plane in order to either have amusing, but comfortably limited small talk or to be left alone with my guilty pleasure Cosmo mag or Sudoku. But no, every now and then, I get into the conversation that does not know when to end, and my neck pays the price. It's never with someone my own age, either. It's always someone who is over the age of 65.

I have to confess it's not all bad. I've heard amazing life stories. One woman even gave me a hand-sewn snowman filled with MnMs that she had intended to give to a friend's daughter...(maybe that should be a later post?)

This last experience was also mostly pleasant and filled with many great words of wisdom from a very nice old man, but any time the conversation seemed to die down, I was so unsure whether I was supposed to keep it going, I'd try to think of something else to add. Every other time I did this though, I quickly realized he'd wanted the conversation to die. (Notice I still did this multiple times, though! Oops!) I think he might have experienced the same phenomenon at least a couple times as well.

Finally, he saved us both by saying he wanted to continue reading his book. My neck thanked me as I turned back to my article on the Stud of the Month or whatnot, but not more than 10 minutes later, he started talking again! This time I was only saved by the plane landing 20 minutes later.

In the future, I may try saying I need a nap, or that I need to finish my Sudoku puzzle before landing, but part of me is always tempted to keep talking until the other person says something along those lines first, especially if the other person is older. I tell myself that training myself to listen is part of my future career, so I might as well get all the practice I can get.

This Package is Fragile

Several years ago, I was a lowly unpaid intern at a publishing company. Although I slaved away for no pay, one of the benefits of the internship was receiving a copy of everything (books and kits) that I helped edit. At the end of the summer, the company asked for my mailing address so they could send me copies of all my projects which was great, but since I was a college student in between addresses, I listed both my dorm and my permanent home address. A couple months later, I finally started receiving packages at my dorm and was very excited to see polished copies of books and kits I'd simply seen manuscripts for. A few days after the first package arrived, I got a call from my mom who informed me that she too had received the same package. Great! I was basically getting two copies of everything which meant I could give some away as gifts or whatnot! My mom was pretty excited too, getting a chance to see what I had worked on during my internship. I received a new package about every two weeks for the next couple months. With each package, my mom would call me to discuss my experience with the project which was fun because I had forgotten all the projects so receiving them was a great way to jog my memory of my internship experience.

Two months into this process, I was excited to receive what was my final package. It was larger than most, indicating that it was probably a kit. (The company made many kits which would include books as well as other items like toys and posters.) The kits were always the most exciting because I had only seen the text for the books, so it was always surprising to see what else came with the book. Well, this package came with a lot of extra components! When I opened up the box, all these products immediately fell to the floor. This included a deck of cards with hearts on the back, a feather, a blindfold, and a red plastic thing which I discovered on the box was a "personal massager." After consulting with friends and the internet, I learned that this is code for a vibrator. Woah! I knew I had read some racy text at work, but I had no idea it would result in a kit like this!

This is when I remembered that my mom was receiving everything I was. I dreading the expected phone call and any potential negative reactions. How was I going to explain this? Well, I should have remembered that my mom is French, and when she called me, she was ecstatic. She thought the kit was great! She made no mention of the vibrator, and I think we both win for that, though I still wonder what exactly she loved about the kit. Well, I try not to think about that too much.

The Price of a Free Meal

Those who know me tend to say that I love a free meal. What's not to love? I love food, and I love not paying for it even more! Sometimes though, I pay in dignity, which is ever diminishing in my life.

The year after graduating college, some friends of mine were organizing a dinner for Women in Engineering and had realized that some people they had ordered meals for had canceled at the last minute. Being the hero that I am, I took their offer to sit in on the fancy dinner so that a meal would not be thrown away. A little concerned about my outsider status as a non-engineer, I convinced an even more outsider friend of mine (a male business student also in love with free food) to join me.

Things seemed to be going smoothly as I walked into the ballroom with my name tag that simply said my name and not what kind of engineering I studied. (Vagueness is the key to lying.) As I sat down at the table that I was assigned to, I realized that I was the only female at the Google table except for the Google representatives themselves. (I found out later that the Google table had been the most sought after place to sit in the eyes of those who had properly signed up for the dinner.)

Tiny droplets of perspiration formed at my temples as I realized the Google representatives fixed their stare at me, happy that at least one other female was at the table. I looked to my partner in crime, and he assured me that all we had to do was make small talk and enjoy the meal.

My steady smile faltered when the Google ladies announced that before we start eating, they wanted everyone to go around the table and announce their name, what year in college they were, and what kind of engineering they studied. At this point I looked at their name tags and realized that one of them was the same year and college as me. Oh no. I looked once more to my friend who whispered that we'd make something up. Systems Engineering is always a safe bet, right?

I will admit this right now. Other than being somewhat vague, I am a terrible liar. One would think this is probably a good thing, but not at a time like this. My fear was set aside as I knew my friend would make up his story first, and I would most likely repeat whatever he said. Finally as the table of young male engineers all complimented Google and went on about how much they'd love to work there, it was my friend's turn to introduce himself. To my horror, he told the truth! Just that he was a business student, but at least he was still an undergraduate student!

All eyes on me now, my friend's smile at my inability to lie well was so big I wanted to push him off his chair.

"Well, I, uh, graduated last year, and, well, I'm just here to help out a friend."

The Google representatives' faces filled with disappointment. The male engineers faces' were full of shock. They thought my being there had taken a spot away from one of their fellow Google-loving friends. (It had not, in my defense.)

Well, at least it was over and we could begin to eat. My friend and I were able to talk to each other as the engineers fawned over the Google ladies. Right as we were finishing the first course though, my friend excused himself from the table, saying he had work to do. I tugged his arm lightly and whispered, "Do not leave me alone here!" Alas, his smile grew as he walked out the door.

For the end of the meal, I tried to make small talk with the Google ladies. One went to the same college as one of my best friends from high school, so I did the ridiculous thing where I asked her if out of all the students that were in college with her, she knew my one friend. That was pretty much the end of our conversation.

I am fairly certain that Google will never be interested in hiring me at this point, but I have to admit that the free dessert was worth it.

The Game of Telephone

As I was walking down the street with a gal pal, I was casually talking on the phone with a boyfriend I'd been with for about a month. I was trying to get off the phone quickly since I was in the company of a friend, but as we were saying goodbye, I thought I'd heard my boyfriend say "I love you". Because I was trying to rush off, I responded with "OK" and quickly hung up. At this point, I looked to my girlfriend and started to panic. Had my new boyfriend, who I was crazy about, just said he loved me and all I'd said was "OK"?? I had the golden rule in my head at the time of waiting for a guy to say it first, but at this point, I was perplexed. Should I wait until he says it again, or do I say it first the next time we talk? All this ran through my head along with the possibility that I'd simply misheard him.

The next day while he was hanging out at my place, I asked him as smoothly as possible, "Hey, did you say 'I love you' on the phone yesterday?"

His answer: "Uhh, no."

I suddenly wished I had never brought up the situation at all. I'm pretty sure my face had this written all over my face because he responded as smooth as can be with, "But..I do. I do love you."

I try to text more often now.

No Time for Excuses

One would think that farting at work in front of coworkers would be one of the most embarrassing things that could happen in the workplace. Thankfully, I did not do that (and get caught).

Unfortunately, I still ended up being embarrassed when a well-respected coworker of mine, a very formal, charming man, farted a bit loudly while in the company of several coworkers (all female) as we chatted in a small circle over lunch. Because of the flow of the conversation, pretending nothing happened was what everyone had collectively, and appropriately, decided to do. However, I could not hold back my natural fart reaction, so after the conversation had continued to moved on smoothly I burst out laughing. (Is this not a natural fart reaction for most people?)

Appropriate solution when everyone looked over at me: "Oh, I just thought of something funny that happened the other day."

What actually happened: I simply looked over sheepishly at the perpetrator and shrugged. In the end, I felt like I was the one who should've said "Excuse me."