awkwardmemories.com

back when i was a cop in the bronx

micah the admin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 02:58:18 +0000

I’m waiting in line at Walmart with my young baby. It’s a holiday weekend, and the place is packed. I’ve been standing there about thirty minutes, and it’s almost my turn, when the man in front of me suddenly notices my baby and strikes up a conversation. He’s massively tall, middle-aged, with long, straggly gray hair, and has glasses with what looks like a wadded up napkin behind one of the lenses. Despite his odd appearance, we’re having a nice normal conversation. My baby starts to fuss, and I mention that I really need to get him home to feed him. At this, our conversation takes a disturbing turn. He casually mentions that he used to breastfeed when he was a cop in the Bronx. I think “There is no way he said what I think he said. I must have misheard him”. He then proceeds to go on and on about his life as a cop in the Bronx, and all the terrible child abuse he’s seen, and how he was a detective and they transferred him to this area. I smile and nod politely. He is clearly out of his mind. It’s almost my turn at the register, but I pretend I forgot something and politely excuse myself. Then I go stand in another line for half an hour.

Rachel – NH

rubber on the toilet

micah the admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 15:49:03 +0000

I was only 11 years old when my family moved to the United States from Ghana [West Africa].
Ghana being a British Commonwealth country I had spoken English all my life with no difficulty. However, moving to America was a challenge as I had trouble getting used to all the slang and such. It made conversations hard at times because I didn’t want to look like an idiot by always asking what this and that meant.
Anyways, after I had been in the US for less than a year, summer came along and I did what most American kids do during that time – I went to a summer camp. With my youth group specifically. An eye-opening experience it was for me in many a ways. Naturally, a war of pranks begun, sometimes it was between cabin members, other times a battle of the sexes. Being new to this whole scene, I didn’t know to what extent some of these pranks could go to, they escalated during the week and actually some pretty bad ones happened but this particular one wasn’t so bad just exaggerated by my naivette … I went to the bathroom to pee and soon realized that my pee wasn’t hitting the porcelain, I stood there in confusion for a while, lifted the toilet seat and to my surprise found a clear plastic placed neatly over it. I run back into the cabin yelling “someone put a rubber on the toilet!” x 3 The youth pastor heard about this and was furious, gathered all his little junior high boys together in one cabin and was angrily questioning them, trying to find out who would do such a despicable thing, I became even more confused at that point not understanding why he would be so seemingly mad about a prank of that degree when worse ones had been going on. Later on, someone came in from the bathroom and said all he found there was a saran wrap with my pee dead center, at this point everyone started laughing. I became even more confused. My youth pastor had to explain to me exactly what “rubber” implied in that context. My confusion turned to embarrasment. Said returnee then shouted through his laughter “hey, at least it wasn’t poop”…

Frank – Ghana

little injustices

micah the admin — Fri, 30 Jul 2010 03:59:59 +0000

It was third grade summer break and my family went on vacation to visit relatives and friends. We had dinner with some old friends of my parents from way back when. I didn’t know them but because their daughter was my age it seemed appropriate to everybody else to send us both to her room for hours so the grownups could talk. It was a large house and a bit ritzy, and even though it was nighttime they didn’t have the lights on in the halls or anything. For some reason the ritziness and the darkness made it all seem like a fancy haunted house to me. We played for a bit and then my new “friend” decides to watch a movie. She takes me to some room upstairs where the lights are all off and throws in a movie. I forget which. But as we’re sitting together in the dark room a preview comes up for “Hocus Pocus” – a Disney film about the three witch sisters who say “Double, double, toil and trouble” and all that. My eight year old “friend” starts spontaneously SCREAMING. So I start screaming! I was thoroughly freaked out to be in a strange house in a dark room with a strange (and I also suspected spoiled) little girl next to me screaming. We frantically try to find the door in the black room, and as we get to the door knob our parents have already bolted up the stairs to save us from whatever it is that’s making us yell like lunatics. The lights go on and my little friend recovers and then starts laughing. “She just started screaming for no reason, so I did too. She was probably afraid of the movie,” she tells her parents. I was in tears from being so rattled and furious and I just couldn’t get the words out to tell anyone that she was lying. I was humiliated.

Beth the Other Admin

where does the poop go?

micah the admin — Thu, 29 Jul 2010 03:41:29 +0000

I was fourteen years old and babysitting a toddler for a couple hours at his parents’ cabin. We had a wonderful time playing games and eating animal crackers. Right before his parents were due to return, he filled up his cloth diaper. I started to change him when I ran into a little problem: what to do with all the poop? You see, all the babies I’d previously sat for had disposable diapers. All I’d had to do was wad up the dirty diapers and toss them in the trash. I knew I couldn’t toss the cloth diaper, but I didn’t think I should put all that poop in the clothes hamper, either.

I knew the answer was right in front of me, but I had a major brain cramp. Where…did…the…poop…go? My mind froze and I panicked. The child’s parents would be arriving home any second. They must never, never know I didn’t understand this basic thing about child care, or they would laugh at me and never hire me again. After a few minutes of frantically racking my brain while the toddler ran around the kitchen, sans pants, I decided to try to think it through from another angle. “Where do we put food that we don’t want anymore?” I asked myself. “Aha! The garbage disposal!”

Feeling vaguely that it was wrong, but not knowing any other options, I emptied the diaper’s contents into the sink and, with a spoon, scooted the poop toward the drain. Feeling relieved that my ordeal was almost over, I hunted around for the garbage disposal switch. There wasn’t one; I had just clogged the drainpipe. At that instant, I had an epiphany: “The toddler’s poop goes in the toilet, you IDIOT! The same place YOUR poop goes!”

Crimson with shame at the extent of my spaciness, and mortified at what I had done, I hastily poured half a can of AJAX down the drain, and ran the water. I kept one eye on the clock, and one eye on the child as I frantically mashed down the remnants of poop that kept bobbing back up. I had just washed the spoon and scrubbed the sink for the hundredth time when the parents came home. I guiltily accepted their money and told them about our afternoon, omitting, of course, the diaper drama.

Apparently they never had any problems with their sink, because they asked me to babysit many times after that. I gladly did, being very careful from that point on to put human excrement in it’s proper receptacle.

The End.

Rachel – NH

i lost the company car

micah the admin — Wed, 28 Jul 2010 00:01:16 +0000

A couple years ago, I worked at a group home for the severely mentally ill. It was a great job, but I had to juggle so many duties that I sometimes forgot little things, like where I left the company car.

My shift was three days and two nights. On the second evening, I drove the car to a nearby pharmacy to pick up meds for a patient. I remembered the meds, but unfortunately I forgot the car. I walked the two blocks back to the group home, in a romance-induced haze as I talked to my boyfriend on my cellphone.

The next morning, I woke up and noticed that there were no cars in the driveway. Was the car stolen in the night? I called my boss in a panic. She, in turn, called her boss, who called the police. A few hours passed, in which we all felt terrible about being robbed. Then one of my coworkers happened to drive past the pharmacy and saw the car in the parking lot, right where I’d left it. She called my boss, who called me. She was so relieved that we’d found the vehicle. In the middle of our conversation, I suddenly realized that I was the one who left it there, and blurted it out!

Fortunately, very fortunately, she had a sense of humor, and I was only mildly chastised for my spaciness.

an unexpected picture message

micah the admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 06:00:48 +0000

I received a picture message from an unknown number today. I recognized the area code and thought maybe it was my sister or brother-in-law sending me a picture of their new baby. I wasn’t sure if I had their new number in my phone. This is the picture that I received.

It was some random guy trying to impress Sharry. I sent him a picture of me making a weird face, and told him he had the wrong number. :o) Always check the number before sending a shirtless cool picture of yourself, man. On second thought, don’t send pictures like this. It isn’t cool.

Micah the Admin

i thought it was funny

micah the admin — Wed, 14 Jul 2010 05:56:58 +0000

I worked in a drug rehab with teenagers. Most of their joking was juvenile and perverse, but one day a patient told me a joke that was actually funny. I laughed so hard and couldn’t wait to tell my wife. I forgot about it for several hours until we were at a dinner party with about twenty people. Most of these people I knew but not all. After we ate everyone was sitting around kind of quietly in the living room. I decided to liven up the party with a couple jokes, so I told the one the patient had taught me earlier. The room went silent.

One friend spoke up with a gasp, “Micah?!”

“What?” I replied.

“Do you not realize what that…”

“Umm… does it… oh no!” I trailed off and tried to play it off by talking to my wife about it. I was innocent – not realizing it was a REALLY dirty joke. The problem is that the joke had already been told.

Micah the Admin

the bathroom bully

micah the admin — Tue, 06 Jul 2010 05:48:02 +0000

To give some background, this story goes back to the early 70’s, when I was in elementary school. At that time, the government subsidized a part of the public school lunches, which meant that each student had to pay less to buy his lunch. Because of that, the price for lunches was only $.60 and the small ½ pint cartons of milk were reduced to 4 cents each. So, every day I went to school with my bag lunch and 4 cents in my pocket.

Another thing to know is that the boys’ bathroom had no doors on the stalls, just walls. So, you always ran the risk that someone would catch you in the middle of you doing your “business”.

So, one day I was in the bathroom minding my own “business”. All of a sudden, who should burst into the bathroom but the school bully. Seeing me sitting there, he pulls out a knife and says, “Gimme your money!” I replied, “Well, all I’ve got is four cents to buy milk. Do you want that?” Looking a bit disappointed, he said, “Nah, that’s alright.”

Then, he starts bragging as he pulls out all the change that he got from a number of other students. He goes on telling me how much he got from whom and what he was going to do with the money. Meanwhile, I’m just sitting there on the pot, listening to him, not feeling all that comfortable in doing what I originally purposed to do now in front of him.

Finally, feeling satisfied with sharing about his accomplishments, the bully left. Even though I was relieved, I sat there a bit stunned for a few moments. Then it came to me – “Oh yeah. I gotta relieve myself.” I finished my business and went back to class.

Joseph – DC

apples to apples

micah the admin — Sun, 23 May 2010 22:50:56 +0000

Picture this, its Thanksgiving, the whole family is there. So after having a few hours of visiting eating and thanking the Lord for the blessings He has given us, we break out the game of apples to apples. This is my first time to play the game even though I’m 19. We’ve been playing for a while (everyone from my little sister who is 10 to my grandmother who is in her late 70s) when it gets to my turn, and I have the word “busy”. So I start getting cards like, “homework”, “school”, “chores”, “work” and so on (about 15 people are playing this game). Then I read one and it says “honeymoon” I must have gotten a strange look on my face because my best friend just starts laughing. Then it dawns on me, and I kinda threw the card down and went “oh! no no no”. At this point all the adults are laughing at my reaction/the card. My little sister asking my mom for an explanation (which she does not get by the way). After choosing from one of the other cards, everyone is just so curious, so I ask “who put that?” Turns out it was my Grandmother!
I’m pretty sure I was bright red for about 5 minutes. But its nothing I will forget anytime soon.

Rachel – Somewhere

your dad is in the hospital

micah the admin — Mon, 17 May 2010 12:24:44 +0000

happy mother’s day!

beth the other admin — Sun, 09 May 2010 12:03:14 +0000

My family went out for lunch at a new restaurant in town. It was Mother’s Day and the place was packed. We all treated ourselves to margaritas and were having a lovely time. But that’s when it happened. My dad (bless him) has a naturally loud voice, and when he has a drink it tends to get a bit louder. He started telling us a funny story from work where a woman said something quite shocking and awkward. It was much more awkward when my dad practically yelled the punchline, having to do with the FEMALE ANATOMY, of all things, to us. I do not exaggerate – the entire restaurant fell silent and people started turning around in their seats to stare at us. The place was full of little old ladies, young mothers and small children! My dad seemed to notice. He leaned forward and “whispered” to me, “Was I talking too loud?” Happy Mother’s Day!

Andrea – CA

a “special” christmas dinner

micah the admin — Mon, 26 Apr 2010 03:24:59 +0000

Several years ago my family and I had the most awkward Christmas dinner. It was the year that my grandparents decided they would treat us all to a special dinner at one of their favorite restaurants.
When we arrived at the restaurant, it was packed. Completely busy, but we weren’t worried. My grandpa had made a very special reservation several days prior to have a private room for the whole family to dine in. Our confidence in the reservation was short lived as we found out the staff had made a mistake and had already given the room to another party. So instead of our nice private room, they put a bunch of tables together and stuck us in the bar. Fabulous.
So after an hour or so passes, we get our meals and we’re eating and enjoying our time. Suddenly, an old man, who was sitting in the booth behind us, falls out of his seat onto my brother, passed out. Now, the old man is on the ground, not breathing and his wife is hysterically crying (which also made my cousin cry). My aunt decides this guy needs some sort of help (he was choking) and so she socks him in the stomach! A nurse, who was sitting at the bar, yells at my aunt, runs over, pushes her out of the way and starts doing CPR and the Heilmlich maneuver. Next thing I know, paramedics rush past me, revive the old man, and roll him out on a gurney…all while we’re eating dinner.
That was enough drama for Christmas dinner, right? Probably not. As we’re all trying to calm each other down and get back to enjoying dinner, the restaurant keeps getting more and more crowded by the minute. Apparently there was no more room to sit in the waiting area, so this strange old man decides to sit down right next to me on the booth/bench thing I was on. I was totally creeped out..and for a long time none of my family even noticed this old man sitting right next to me at our table. Finally, my grandpa saw the guy and says to him, ” I don’t think you’ve met my granddaughter, her name is Emily.” It was totally awkward. After awhile, the man left and I thought that had to be the end of our crazy night. Nope.
There were crowds and crowds of people waiting to eat. What made it worse was that the service was completely slow. My cousin didn’t even get her meal until everyone else was eating dessert. Anywho, as my family was trying to finish up dinner and dessert, an angry old man starts pacing throughout the restaurant, yelling at each table, “YOU EAT AND YOU LEAVE!” We loved that. What a merry Christmas!

Emily – CA

almost lovers

micah the admin — Sun, 25 Apr 2010 14:43:38 +0000

I remember reluctantly going early to help prepare my great-uncle’s house for his 80something birthday last summer. There was this gorgeous girl helping with the food. I figured she was around my age and I wanted to “talk” to her and possibly get her number. My trip might end up not being a total waste, I thought. She was around my aunt a lot and the way they were talking it was like my aunt raised her or something but I was sure she wasn’t her child. Anyways, this girl was really good-looking, no joke, so I finally see her alone and I muster up the courage to go talk to her. And so it went …
Me: “Hey”
Her: “Hey ”
… long awkward pause
Me: *I point to my aunt* “Do you know Aunt Flo?”
Her: “She’s my aunt”
Me: “oh … that’s cool” … another awkward pause … “I guess that makes us cousins”
Her: [with a rather sarcastic smile] “Yep”
I die a little inside, make up some lame excuse about something I have to do and quickly walk away. I tried my best to not be seen by her the rest of the day.

Frank – Earth

where’s hong kong?

micah the admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 20:27:50 +0000

A few years ago my family was in Hong Kong. We had taken the metro from one side of town to the other, on our way to the mall. We were told that once we got off the metro we were to look for Hong Kong Station, go up an escalator, and then we’d be at the mall. We had been walking for a while with no luck. So I decided to ask for directions. I went up to a lady who worked there and said, ‘Excuse me, where’s Hong Kong?” She tried to keep a straight face, and my family started laughing at me. I quickly continued, “Station! Where’s Hong Kong Station!”
I felt like a complete idiot and my family teased me the whole day. But, we did find Hong Kong Station!

Amelia – Brazil

I…I…I…I gotta go!!

micah the admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 05:13:26 +0000

When I was 14, I met this guy at a church camp.
I thought he was very sweet but I did not reciprocate the feelings he had for me. He would give me chocolates and gave me this plastic necklace with an ‘A’ on it for my name. He also wrote me a sort-of love letter. I was freaking out. He was my first pursuer.
Somehow he got my phone number and started calling me. He would call me collect, so my parents were paying for a phone call I did not want to take. Once he even called me at 11 PM, which made my parents pretty upset.
I remember pretty well the last time he called me. We talked for a minute or so and then he said those six words a lot of people dread: I need to tell you something. I got really nervous.
This is how our conversation went after that:
“It’s like this…… I… I… I…”
“You…?”
“I li… I li… I…”
Silence.
“I, I gotta go!”
“Me too!”

I feel so bad for him now. I say he was the first person to tell me that he liked me, even though he never actually got to say it.

Amelia – Somewhere

the children’s dressing room

micah the admin — Wed, 21 Apr 2010 04:31:11 +0000

First of all, I am a pretty short person and I have a young face. My whole life people have thought I was younger than I actually am. So when I was about 15, my mom and I were shopping and I went to try on some clothes. In this store, they had a section for women, which split into two sections: one for adults and one for kids. After going through the quick process of getting into the dressing room, she directs me towards the right section that I’d never been to: the kids section. I was very confused. There isn’t a sign that differentiates the two sections, but I could tell it was the kids section by the much smaller stalls and bunches of five year olds with their agitated moms. I hesitated to go there. ‘The kids section? Come on! I’m 15!’ I thought. But she looked at me as if she was thinking ‘Go ahead kid! What are you waiting for?’ I went ahead to the kids section feeling very…awkward. Later I heard my mom calling for me, and I told her where I was. When she walked up, she herself was confused. ‘WHY are you over here?’ After that I was very tempted to make a shirt that said how old I was to wear everywhere I went. People were always acting as if I was kid!

Amelia – Somewhere

ummm…why are you calling me?

micah the admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 05:23:34 +0000

In first grade I was friends with a girl that we will call Candice. First grade. We went to the same school pretty much for the next nine years and never spoke to each other. I’d see her in passing and would hear random bits about her, but that’s it. One night when I was a sophomore in high school the phone rang. My dad answered, “who? Candice? Micah, it’s for you. It’s someone named Candice White.” My dad smiled at me in a sort of wink wink way. I wondered why on earth Candice White would be calling me. She had become popular and was in a serious/crazy relationship with a guy in the very popular jock crowd and only just recovering from another crazy/serious relationship with another guy just like him. Everyone knew about it. I took the phone anyway, held my breath and answered. “Ummm…hi?”

“Hey, Micah,” she said with a way too excited peppy voice.

“Hi.”

“Do you know who this is?”

“Yes. What’s going on?”

“I just wanted to talk.”

“Ummm…ok. Why are you calling me?”

“I was just thinking that we should start talking.”

“Ok…”

Realizing this was some strange attempt at asking me out, I went on to explain to her that I was intentionally not dating anyone and not going to. I had my heart set on Beth the Other Admin already. She responded with a few more sentences about how we should talk more. We never talked. We should just say “hey” and stuff in the hallways at school. Whatever. I said, “Ok…I guess.” The awkwardness continued for a month or two after this. We would see each other in the halls at school and say “hey” or “hi.” I tried to smile, but it was always a little creepy, and I was always slightly afraid of her two angry yet very cool jock boyfriends.

Micah the Admin

the poll

beth the other admin — Sun, 18 Apr 2010 04:26:02 +0000

The results are in. They’ve been in awhile. We’ve been waiting and waiting, hoping for more votes that would put us victims of mistaken identity in the majority. It was close, but more of you have not had your gender confused, which kind of makes the rest of us feel even worse about being mistaken for the opposite sex.

next time we’re getting a hotel

beth the other admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 21:47:08 +0000

Years ago my husband’s grandmother died suddenly. We drove the eight hours from Texas to Florida where the funeral would be held with Micah’s brother and his wife. To save on money we all decided to spend the two nights with “Patricia,” a nice woman who was related to them somehow. We arrived at the house late at night. It was very big and in a posh neighborhood. The first thing I noticed was the enormous Christmas tree, fully decorated, in the living room. It was the end of April. Patricia greeted us and seemed a little out of sorts. Not unusual, I thought, after somebody close had just passed away.

She took us on a tour of the home, showing us the kitchen, the dining room, the living room, all that. She showed us the “Martis Gras” room, a sort of party room with a full bar. All four walls were entirely made up of windows and no curtains, so even the wall connected to the Christmas-tree-living-room was “exposed.” There were party decorations from a month prior all over the floor. Empty cups, busted balloons, confetti, masks, etc. She told us it was the room where the dogs usually slept. There was dog food spilled over on the floor next to a love seat. “That’s weird,” I thought to myself. “Her house is so grand, why is she showing us a messy room?” She showed us the library next. Another enormous Christmas tree was there among the bookshelves, half-decorated. It was in the process of being taken down, but whoever started had given up long ago. ”That is really weird,” I thought. There was a sheetless twin sized blow up mattress on the floor. Huh. And then there was a pretty little couch chair off to the side WITH A HUGE CHANDELIER SITTING ON IT. “Am I in a horror film? This isn’t right.”

And then she showed us upstairs where the bathroom was, the bedrooms, and then she said goodnight and went to her room. Umm… What? We were confused. Where were we supposed to sleep? And then it dawned on us… “I think we’re supposed to sleep in the crazy rooms,” one of us said. There was a single-person blow up mattress. A chair with a chandelier on it. A love seat in the window-room. No blankets, no sheets, no pillows, goodnight! Completely weirded out and exhausted from the day’s drive we each picked a room and tried to make it work. My brother-in-law and his wife got the library. We got the Martis Gras room. Micah slept on the floor on little decorative pillows and I slept on the love seat. I had brought a blanket with us “just in case” and if I hadn’t I don’t know what we would have done. We woke up the next morning and Patricia never acted like anything was weird about the arrangement. All the other guests, however, were mortified when they heard about it. Oh, and it was my birthday. Very memorable.

Beth the Other Admin

the chatty naked man

beth the other admin — Fri, 16 Apr 2010 19:23:07 +0000

I am a video editor and my job sometime requires me to work on location. A few weeks back, I was working on site at a country club in Palm Desert, CA. It had been a long day, and I was preparing to wrap things up so I could head home. I made a quick stop into the men’s restroom which was connected to the Country Club’s locker room. When I swung the door open, I was shocked to see a semi-short, pot bellied man in his late 50s standing in the middle of the room completely naked! I told myself, “Hey, it’s a locker room, it’s normal” and I proceded to walk towards the toilet stalls. As I passed him, I for some reason felt the need to be polite and said hello. Big mistake!

The guy took my greeting as an invitation that I wanted to talk. (I didn’t) He proceeded to tell me stories about back in the day when he was a driver in Hollywood. (I didn’t really care) He told me how he made great money back then, but you can’t make money like that any more… all the while, he was moving closer and closer to me until he was a couple of feet away from me, and all the while he was completely naked (well, not completely… I’m pretty sure he was wearing sox and tennis shoes for some reason).

Needless to say, it was really awkward!

Michael – CA