Faux Pas

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Social Ineptitude and Resulting Pity Party

Yesterday we had a Parent Appreciation Luncheon at Carla’s school and I am still reeling from the experience.  Reeling may not be the right word. Perhaps “steeped in self pity” is more accurate, I’m not sure, I am destined to fail at all things including appropriate word choice.

At the top of the luncheon, all the kids in the entire grade got up and did a little song and dance routine. It was very cute. And then they got to usher us to our seats in the cafeteria and then we all ate lunch(eon) together. There was a lot of down time at the beginning while the teachers corralled all the kiddos and got them pointed in the right direction. Which meant that there was plenty of time for me to be SUPER socially awkward and inept and anxious about it.

Let’s just get one frustrating thing out of the way right up front, which is that my husband wasn’t able to make it to the luncheon. And yes, he’s on call, and yes, I’m sure there were single parents in the mix, and even in the case of two-parent households, I’m sure that other parents weren’t able to make it, and/or they have been at their jobs longer than my husband has been at his and feel more comfortable taking off in the middle of the day and/or have spouses who were more persistent about reminding them to find some way to take the time off, but it SEEMED like every child there had two parents except Carla, including two other physicians, which at baseline made me a) feel guilty and b) feel lonely. If my husband had been there, I could have at least talked exclusively to him, instead of sitting there mentally rending my garments as I tried desperately to gather the courage to go talk to someone.

While we were waiting for the kids to set up, I saw another mom that I have been friendly with in the past. If I’m being honest, I wish she were my best friend: she’s so lovely and put together and smart and friendly and kind. She started talking to me, which was nice. But then one of her friends came up to us, and the two of them started talking, and I started to panic. Was I supposed to join in the conversation, about things they have in common and about which I know nothing? Was I supposed to excuse myself and go… stand in a corner? I ended up doing neither, and just stood there silently with what I hoped was a calm, friendly, I’m-a-good-listener smile plastered on my face and nodded along with them. They were nice about it, making eye contact with me occasionally as though I were part of the conversation. It’s not like I was entirely mute; I tried to make interested-sounding noises even though I was much too panicked to focus on what they were saying. And then another friend of theirs came up and joined in and I just kept standing there, my anxiety flinging itself against the inside of my brain like a fish trying to escape its tank, and I tried to ask questions where I could – but they were obviously “I am making conversation” questions and not “I’m part of the conversation” questions, you know? – and tried to laugh and continue to make “I’m totally taking part in this discussion” noises. And the cafeteria was super hot and I started sweating and I became uncomfortably aware of the inside of my mouth and how my breath could not be great even though I definitely brushed and flossed before I came. And I didn’t know the other moms at all, or who their kids were, and – as is always the case anyway – I couldn’t figure out the rhythm of the conversation well enough to interject with a new subject or a related anecdote or a pertinent question. Not that I could properly follow along with the conversation anyway; as I mentioned before, I was too focused on all the THINGS going on in my head to focus on what they were saying.

Finally, a teacher called us to attention and we got to watch the kids’ little performance, which was a nice break. The ladies I’d been “talking with” drifted off to find their spouses and I stood by myself, clutching my sweater (why had I brought a sweater when clearly I’d entered one of the flaming hottest circles of hell???) and my purse and my desire to leave immediately and/or melt into the floor.

And then it was “luncheon” time, and once again I had to navigate the extreme horror of talking to a parent I don’t know that well. This time, across the table. Unfortunately, this parent was either as shy/uncomfortable as I am, or she had already written me off as no use to her. So my lame attempts at conversation were met with single word answers and apparent disinterest. You’d think this would be a good thing! Lets me off the hook, right? But instead, I kept trying to make lame small talk because I wanted her to like me. Obviously she wasn’t talking to me because she’d written me off as Not Worthy of Her Time, right? Okay, okay, so possibly she was having her own inner freak out about having to talk to me and fending off similar worries. Either way, I don’t hold it against her.

Fortunately, Carla was with me at this point, so I could direct most of my attention to her. But as we lunched, I was very aware of all the other parents in the room, laughing and chatting and having a great time. I mean, I’m pretty sure I wasn’t the only person in the room who doesn’t like groups/crowds/forcible mingling. But it never FEELS like there are others. Instead, it feels like everyone else finds social interaction super easy, and, not only that, but fun, which I find incomprehensible. I long for “easy.” Fun is a pipe dream.

Finally, when I was able to escape, I ran into a couple of familiar couples on the way down the hall. They are all super nice and friendly, but they were in couples, and seemed to be talking to each other, and plus one of the women was the woman whose friend-group I’d horned in on earlier and she was almost certainly done with conversational babysitting, so I tried to smile and make nice friendly noises, but then I motored on past to leave the school and get in my car and go far far away. And as I was doing that, I was mentally chiding myself for avoiding them instead of trying to interact with them. You can’t make friends with people if you dart past them every time you see them! Friendships are not built on awkward smiles and waves and “have a great day”s tossed over your shoulder! (Why not, though?)

And I DO wish I were friends with more of the parents at Carla’s school. So many of them seem great! But the way you get to know people is by talking to them during these school events, and I get so flustered and self-conscious that I just can’t do it. It’s moderately okay one on one, but when there are two or more people, I stop being able to think. I have no idea how to join the flow of conversation. I have no idea what to say. I often walk past little clusters of moms in the hallway after drop off and wonder what in the hell are they talking about?!?! I have no clue, absolutely none.

And then I go home and feel horrible, as I did yesterday. And the bad feelings remain. I feel lonely and isolated, which are terrible feelings to begin with. But then I also feel culpable, because it’s my own fault I don’t have friends. It can’t be THAT hard! Other people do it all the time! There must be something wrong with me that I am always and forever on the outside.

Hence the pity party.

We have a big Parent Breakfast coming up, as part of the kids’ transition into kindergarten. (KINDERGARTEN. Let’s reserve that panic attack for another post.) So I anticipate more of the same sweaty awkwardness and wallflowering and self-loathing to follow in a few short days! Yay!

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A Manual for Dealing with People Who Come to Your House to Fix or Install Things

This week a nice gentleman from our security service come out to test the security system and replace all the batteries in the window and door sensors. As happens Every Single Time someone comes to my house to provide some sort of service, I spent the entire time he was here in a restless panic of What Is the Right Way to Deal with This?

It begins with the Time Window. I spend the hours before the Time Window fretting about the state of my house, like the air conditioning repairperson is going to care whether there are breakfast dishes in the sink or the cable person will give a second thought to the unwashed laundry on the floor of the closet. (It’s there because SORTING.)

Then, as the Time Window nears, I begin stressing about what I should be doing. I shouldn’t make anything to eat, lest the service person arrive as soon as I have food in my mouth. I shouldn’t start a project, lest I get interrupted. I shouldn’t make a phone call. I shouldn’t work out or take a shower. So I end up kind of pacing around my house, catching up on small housework or straightening things that will neither impress nor dismay the service person. I always have the TV on, to provide background noise.

Once the person arrives, I fret about what to DO while s/he is in my house. Do I follow her around, ostensibly to answer questions? Do I guide her to the appropriate area of the house and then… leave her alone?

If I go the following-around route, do I ask questions to appear as though I care and/or will remember anything about the reason the furnace is making a weird noise?  Do I make inane small talk about the weather or the basketball finals or how it’s summer already and doesn’t time go by so quickly? Do I lurk in the background, trying to assume a helpful air? Do I find something to occupy me near wherever she needs to be?

If I go the leaving-alone route, what do I DO? I have to be available, and I have to be interruptible. Do I pretend to watch TV, while really sitting on the edge of the couch, ready to leap up and address any questions or issues? Do I continue to find small items of housework to tackle, if I even have any left after my pre-appointment fussing?

What level of hospitality is required/expected/necessary/nice? For movers, I have offered water; for the people who recently removed a bunch of junk, I offered soda (which they left behind, presumably because it was diet soda). We have a lot of beer; should I offer beer?

When is a tip required/expected/necessary/nice? I mean, I know a tip is NEVER “required,” but… I think it’s more of a given in some situations than in others. Like, with movers. I automatically build in “get cash for a tip” to my moving preparations. But with the person who replaces your faucet? The person who delivers your mattress? The person who inspects your gutters? The person who sprays for silverfish?

The tipping thing gives me GREAT anxiety. Partly because (except in the instance of movers) I only ever THINK about the tip right before the service person is expected to arrive, so I never have cash on hand (or if I do, it is like, a $50 bill that seems a bit much or a single $1 which seems very stingy). Partly because I just don’t know when a tip would be appreciated-but-not-expected or whether the service person starts bad mouthing my lack of generosity the instant he leaves. Okay, that is uncharitable. It would be worse if the service person left, tipless, and began to worry about whether the lack of tip meant she hadn’t provided great service. UGH.

And yet, one time we had two faucets installed and I planned ahead and tried to tip the very nice, very efficient man who installed the faucets, and he rejected the tip, in a semi-repulsed way that almost seemed like I’d perpetrated a Major Faux Pas or maybe offered him a fistful of dog poo instead of a $10.

And THEN, if you decide a tip is a good idea, HOW MUCH DO YOU TIP? A percentage of the service? A flat $5 per person? Does it depend on the type of service rendered? And, if so, what is the scale?

SO MUCH ANXIETY.

I would appreciate a Handbook that clearly lays out guidelines for all of the above and more.  Once I heard that if the service person is the owner of the company, you don’t tip. But if the service person is an employee, you DO tip. Or maybe the guideline was that if the service person is a contractor, you DO tip, and if an employee, you DON’T. ARRRRGH.

All I know is that Any and Every Time we need some sort of service that requires a person to come to our home, I spend the entire day fretting and fussing and worrying that I am doing the wrong thing. And when the person is in my house, I wander around – following her sometimes, other times leaving her to her work in peace – alternately wondering whether this is the day when I am murdered by a psychopath and agonizing about the tip and using phrases like “everything looking ship-shape?” and “oh goodness, that’s a stumper” and making inane statements about the weather and offering too much information about myself just to fill the air.

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The Popcorn Incident

Oh Internet. As much as I love embarrassing myself for your entertainment, I didn’t really want to share this one. (Although YES, I acknowledge that it could have been MUCH worse and I’m glad it WASN’T.) But, despite writing hundreds of words on about seven alternative posts, it seems that THIS is the one that wants to be written.

I trust that you will read with the proper amount of sympathy and then excuse yourself to the restroom to laugh discreetly under cover of the sound of a running sink. And that you will share similar tales of humiliation in the comments. Or at least do that thing where you pretend it happens to everyone! All the time!

Because I have given up sweets, I have been craving carbs like whoa. Crackers. Bread. Pasta. Popcorn. Just pile it all up onto a plate and send it my way please.

(Good thing the sweets restriction is not for weight loss purposes!)

Saturday night, my husband is at the hospital overnight. As is my custom when he’s overnight, I cannot bear the thought of sleeping alone in our bed. So I stay up very very late watching a marathon of The Big Bang Theory.

At around 12:17, I decide I want popcorn.

Our pantry contains two types of popcorn:

Option 1: A 100-calorie pack of Pop Secret.

Option 2: A whole box of normal size packages of fake-butter-flavored Boy Scout popcorn.

I choose Option 1, read the instructions, and throw the bag in the microwave. Three minutes seems like a long time for such a small amount of popcorn, but hey – that’s what the instructions said. It’s not like I need to leave it in that long. A veteran popcorn maker, I know that you pay more attention to the pops than to the time remaining. And when the pops start spacing themselves two to three seconds apart, you remove the popcorn and start stuffing your face.

I peek into the microwave at some point and notice steam coming from the bag.

That’s odd, I think to myself. I didn’t realize popcorn steams like that.

A few seconds later, I peek again. The steam is thicker and more… insidious than normal steam. And it is pouring from the bag with great vigor. So I open the microwave and a big plume of burnt popcorn races for the ceiling.

I throw open the window.

That’s when the siren pierces the midnight calm with its furious wail.

Because, as is my custom, I’d turned on our burglar alarm as soon as my husband left. And opening any windows or doors triggers the alarm.

Fanning at the smoke with a dish towel, I run over to the alarm keypad and punch in our code. Then I fly back to shoo the smoke out the window into the icy January morning.

The security company is supposed to call us when the alarm goes off. When I don’t get a call right away, I realize they must have called my husband. Who will probably freak out. So I send him a text letting him know it was a mistake, nothing is wrong, I haven’t been murdered.

Then the phone rings. It’s the security company dispatcher. I babble at her, still shaky from the popcorn fire and the ear-splitting burglar alarm, telling her it was a mistake and I am so sorry and blah blah blah.

When she finally gets a word in edgewise, she asks me for my security code and then tells me that since I haven’t reset the alarm, she has called the cops.

O. M. G.

I don’t know how to reset the alarm! I tell her. I plugged in my code!

Plug it in again.

I do. Nothing.

Well, she says, trying for patient but succeeding at exasperated, you try it again and I’ll let the cops know it was a false alarm.

I get off the phone with her. I stab in the code a couple more times.

That’s when my husband calls.

Um, he says, I got a call from our security company that the alarm went off and they had to send the cops to our house. Are you okay?

He is very calm, Internet. Much more calm than I am, and I know I’m okay.

At top speed, I tell him what’s happened. He remains very calm, unconcerned, no trace of even mild bemusement or irritation, and then reminds me – kindly, mind you – that he has actual dying patients to tend to.

I am afraid the cops are going to show up. And I’m fresh out of the shower (don’t you shower at midnight on a Saturday?) wearing nothing but a white sleeping tank top and pajama pants. My house is fogged in with a thick layer of popcorn smoke.

I hightail it upstairs to grab a sweat shirt.

I’m halfway to the second floor when the phone rings. I race back into the kitchen, where, of course, I’ve left my phone.

It’s the security company again. I still haven’t managed to reset the alarm. We determine that the woman on the line could be dealing with ACTUAL emergencies, rather than helping me figure out how to reset the thing. We determine the reason it won’t reset is because I haven’t closed the kitchen window. I slam the window shut, rekey my passcode into the alarm panel, and dash back out of the kitchen.

As I’m skidding down the hallway, I see police lights striping my neighborhood with red and blue.

I am sure all my neighbors are rushing to their windows, ready to watch as the cop leaves his car and marches up my front steps. Perhaps his gun will be drawn. Perhaps his partner will go around the side of the house to scope out the situation from the side window. I imagine having to answer the door, baring my tank-top and still-wet hair to the biting January night as the entire neighborhood watches. Just another wife-beater-wearing weirdo for the next episode of COPS. (At least it’s a CLEAN tank top.)

Is she a meth cooker? A prostitute? A murderer? my neighbors will wonder. They’ll whisper about me at Super Bowl parties and barbecues. The rumors will get wilder and more outrageous, until I’m a sex-crazed asylum escapee who’s chopped 10 consecutive husbands into little bits and now makes popcorn-scented bombs in her basement. Their kids will peer in our windows and run away shrieking – half-terrified, half-delighted – every time I leave my house to empty the trash. The wives will stand across the street in clumps of three or five, speculating about my stringy hair and questionable fashion sense and how to run me out of town. The husbands will grouse about my effect on property values.

In the few seconds I pause to decide whether to open the door or sprint upstairs for the sweatshirt, the police car extinguishes its lights, pulls into my driveway, backs out, and speeds off down the street.

 

At least I know it only takes about 10 minutes for the police to respond to an emergency at my house.

 

I know you are dying to learn how the night ended. I stayed up until 3:00 watching The Big Bang Theory reruns. And, of course, I made another bag of popcorn. Successfully, this time.

(This is where you tell me about an equally mortifying thing that happened to you.)