We had a kitchen table discussion last night about our most embarrassing experiences. DH told us how he choked on water in the middle of a lecture and cough/sprayed it all over himself and the room. Yup, moderately embarrassing, but in the big scheme of things probably only a 2/10 or so. I was going to give it a 1/10, but then Medium Fry told a story about how she was - I'm not really sure what - rummaging in her backpack at the bus stop? And people were judging her for being disorganized? At 7am? Yeah, nope. No one even noticed. 1/10 for entirely self-manufactured discomfort, which bumped DH's water story to a 2/10 by default.
DH anted up: he spilled coffee on his lap at work and spent an hour hanging out in his underwear with his pants tied to a fan to dry out. Sure it's a group office, but only one other fellow was there to witness the scene. If there had been a larger audience, or even if DH didn't have such excellent legs, I would give this story a 4/10, but even he wasn't all that uncomfortable about the whole thing. (His colleague, on the other hand...) 3/10 for semi-private, highly relatable clutziness, with solid pants-free-at-work plot twist.
Small Fry, who still runs around the house naked telling everyone to "squeeze my chubby buns!", surprised no one by not having any embarrassing moments to share at all. (I'm helping his future self get over himself by posting the chubby buns thing here. You're welcome, Future Fry.)
These people! It's like they've never lived! I sometimes say I'm not easily embarrassed but in reality I used to be like Medium Fry, imagining my way to mortification over every little thing. I've just built up a tolerance by repeatedly making an ass of myself. I think of it as being sortof like the flu vaccine in that it's demonstrably helpful in protecting yourself from embarrassment, even if not 100% effective against every strain you're likely to come up against, plus you have to keep doing it regularly to reap the benefits. Hence the repeat offences.
The family-friendly story I shared was about a time I was doing field work with a bunch of men (not unusual, but important here for flavour). I had a site map rolled out on the hood of one of the work trucks and I was being so boss babe, jabbing at the map, delegating and directing: you'll tackle this and we'll tackle that; we'll adjust the site to accommodate these issues; I'll check this out to make sure it's not a problem; etc. "Everyone on board?" Nods all around, so I pushed back off the truck and there they were: two enormous dust-free circles, obviously boob in origin. We all just... looked at them for a bit. The silence was such that you could hear my boss-ness deflate slightly. And then we went about our work and never spoke of it again. 4/10 for mild group discomfort coupled with unfortunate ego effects.
The not family-friendly story I didn't tell was about a time I accidentally left a "small appliance" in a hotel bed one morning when I was out for a field stint. (What can I say? Guess I'm just a roll-over-and-fall-asleep-after kind of gal.) I came back to my room that afternoon and the first thing - the only thing - I saw was my trusty travel companion on my pillow, tucked halfway under the blanket like it was having a li'l naparoo. I could literally see the housekeeper in my mind, torn between full pillow display acknowledgement and discreet tucked-in plausible deniability. I do not get paid enough for this shit. Is there anything in the training manual about this? Please let there be gloves in the cart somewhere.
This was day one of my week-long stay, and I honestly, truly considered packing my bags and leaving town. All my previous inoculations together were only like 10% effective, tops, so I had to fall back on a combination of, 'You'll never see these people again' and 'They're [profession] - they've definitely seen worse.' (Have they, though?)
The scars are still too fresh for me to rank this one accurately - personally, it's feeling like at least a 7.5/10, but I'll leave it to you to decide for yourself. Just as soon as I work up the gumption to press the Publish button...
Friday, March 29, 2019
Tuesday, March 12, 2019
Fortunately / Unfortunately
I redid my first aid certification recently. Actually over a month ago, but it's taken me this long to recover enough to talk about it.
In my experience (i.e., recertifying every three years for work), first aid class has gotten progressively more on board with modern notions like personal space - or, more likely, not getting sued for fostering any in-class molestation. This is cool by me; I'm from Saskatchewan, so a very generous amount of personal space is basically my birthright. Approximately 1.8 square kilometres will do most days. So with the exception of tying splints, in which case you still get control over any crotch-adjacent bandaging, first aid class is now more like first aid reiki - you sortof wave your hands around and pretend to do something useful for your patient's (similarly imaginary) ailments.
Unfortunately, this particular instructor was having none of that personal space business, and in fact insisted on walking us all slooowly through each individual, highly touchy step, as if to achieve maximum touchiness: "Now, gently press your partner's orbital bones to check for fractures." "Now, press along their jawline." "Now, open their mouth and look inside for blood or broken teeth."
Fortunately my partner happened to be a very obedient young fellow, so when I growled, "Do NOT touch my face," he sat promptly back on his heels with his hands clasped in front of him and did a straight-ahead stare at the wall until I gave the go-ahead to check my neck and shoulders for injury.
I mean, I don't want anyone touching my face at the best of times - it's plain creepy, plus what if there's a chin hair?
"Now, palpate your partner's abdomen." What the?! "DO NOT TOUCH MY ABDOMEN." *Straight-ahead stare.* "Okay, fine, you can check my legs now."
Okay, I really don't want anyone touching my abdomen. That fucking shar-pei disaster zone is no one's business but my own. It gets 5 square kilometres of personal space - I don't even want you seeing it through a telescope.
Unfortunately, the instructor had other tricks up her sleeve. Namely, constantly interrupting herself to tell stupid stories in the middle of our practice exercises. So you'd be standing there with your arms around your partner, with the absolute entirety of your personal-space-requiring being pressed against their back and your leg up their butt (that is, the-position-no-longer-known-as-the-Heimlich), and the instructor would interrupt the lesson to tell the class a little tale about something. And, like, should I keep hugging this stranger? Should I let go? How long is this fucking story? Worst of all, if I am unable to not-notice how firm this young fellow's abdomen is that I'm awkwardly hugging while this idiot goes on about this one time she saved someone from choking at a nursing home, it is surely inevitable that he will be unable to not-notice how not-firm mine is while she goes on about why it's no longer called the Heimlich Maneuver.
And finally, just when I thought I couldn't wish any harder for the ground to swallow me whole, came the point when she decided we should try out a modified j-thrust position "for pregnant women or very large individuals", which involves going under the armpits and doing compressions over the sternum. Or in my case, for poor Joshua (his name was Joshua) to have to stand there with his arms around me, trying his best to avoid making contact with my rather substantial bosoms while the instructor... told another story. We don't remember which story this was because we both literally died of embarrassment. Dead. I am writing this from beyond the grave.
I initially thought this post was going to follow the format of the storytelling game, Fortunately / Unfortunately, but now that I'm remembering it the whole thing was basically just a two-day death spiral of unfortunateness. My hope is that someone out there will glean even a tiny bit of sick glee from my sad tale, and maybe even the wisdom to always book first aid with someone you wouldn't mind heavily violating your personal space for two days. But I think the most fortunate ending of all would simply be if Joshua and I never see each other, ever again.
In my experience (i.e., recertifying every three years for work), first aid class has gotten progressively more on board with modern notions like personal space - or, more likely, not getting sued for fostering any in-class molestation. This is cool by me; I'm from Saskatchewan, so a very generous amount of personal space is basically my birthright. Approximately 1.8 square kilometres will do most days. So with the exception of tying splints, in which case you still get control over any crotch-adjacent bandaging, first aid class is now more like first aid reiki - you sortof wave your hands around and pretend to do something useful for your patient's (similarly imaginary) ailments.
Unfortunately, this particular instructor was having none of that personal space business, and in fact insisted on walking us all slooowly through each individual, highly touchy step, as if to achieve maximum touchiness: "Now, gently press your partner's orbital bones to check for fractures." "Now, press along their jawline." "Now, open their mouth and look inside for blood or broken teeth."
Fortunately my partner happened to be a very obedient young fellow, so when I growled, "Do NOT touch my face," he sat promptly back on his heels with his hands clasped in front of him and did a straight-ahead stare at the wall until I gave the go-ahead to check my neck and shoulders for injury.
I mean, I don't want anyone touching my face at the best of times - it's plain creepy, plus what if there's a chin hair?
"Now, palpate your partner's abdomen." What the?! "DO NOT TOUCH MY ABDOMEN." *Straight-ahead stare.* "Okay, fine, you can check my legs now."
Okay, I really don't want anyone touching my abdomen. That fucking shar-pei disaster zone is no one's business but my own. It gets 5 square kilometres of personal space - I don't even want you seeing it through a telescope.
Unfortunately, the instructor had other tricks up her sleeve. Namely, constantly interrupting herself to tell stupid stories in the middle of our practice exercises. So you'd be standing there with your arms around your partner, with the absolute entirety of your personal-space-requiring being pressed against their back and your leg up their butt (that is, the-position-no-longer-known-as-the-Heimlich), and the instructor would interrupt the lesson to tell the class a little tale about something. And, like, should I keep hugging this stranger? Should I let go? How long is this fucking story? Worst of all, if I am unable to not-notice how firm this young fellow's abdomen is that I'm awkwardly hugging while this idiot goes on about this one time she saved someone from choking at a nursing home, it is surely inevitable that he will be unable to not-notice how not-firm mine is while she goes on about why it's no longer called the Heimlich Maneuver.
And finally, just when I thought I couldn't wish any harder for the ground to swallow me whole, came the point when she decided we should try out a modified j-thrust position "for pregnant women or very large individuals", which involves going under the armpits and doing compressions over the sternum. Or in my case, for poor Joshua (his name was Joshua) to have to stand there with his arms around me, trying his best to avoid making contact with my rather substantial bosoms while the instructor... told another story. We don't remember which story this was because we both literally died of embarrassment. Dead. I am writing this from beyond the grave.
I initially thought this post was going to follow the format of the storytelling game, Fortunately / Unfortunately, but now that I'm remembering it the whole thing was basically just a two-day death spiral of unfortunateness. My hope is that someone out there will glean even a tiny bit of sick glee from my sad tale, and maybe even the wisdom to always book first aid with someone you wouldn't mind heavily violating your personal space for two days. But I think the most fortunate ending of all would simply be if Joshua and I never see each other, ever again.
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