Taking A Break

As the school year winds down, I am going to take a brief break from blogging to focus on not-failing my classes, moving out of the dorm (for the last time!), and getting ready to take on a totally-new summer job. The next few weeks are going to be pretty hectic (see below), but I should be back sometime in mid-June.

Until then, click HERE to read a HILARIOUS blog that my friend LD recently discovered. Seriously, it has literally made me laugh out loud in the library... in class... and alone in my room. It should hold your cravings for wittiness until I return.

Blind Date

Have you ever been on a blind date? I only ask because I thought the practice was slowly phased out with the advent of modern technology. Now it’s practically impossible to be set up with someone who hasn’t already peeked at your mutual friends, liked your profile picture and “poked” you on Facebook, or trended you on #Twitter. And when we expose practically everything about ourselves on the Internet, from our activities and interests to our favorite quotes… then there’s really no such thing as a “blind date” anymore, is there? I once had an English teacher who met her husband on Match.com. Before their first actual date, she had a friend at the local police force run a background check on him. Parking tickets. Former jobs. Places of residence. I’d say if anything, she went into that first date knowing more about her date (and future spouse) than most people do by their six-month anniversary. Poor guy.

But, to my surprise, blind dates still happen. Which leads to my next question: Have you ever been on a successful blind date? When my friend from the basketball team and WNBA draft pick (#kindofabigdeal) and I decided to go to trivia night at a local bar last week, we accidentally crashed her sister’s train wreck of a blind date with a nice, quiet boy from the suburbs named Spencer. While we answered trivia questions about the world’s largest sapphire and Madonna’s book collection, the unmistakable “disaster date” dragged on at a small table in the corner. Spencer was hardly remarkable. He likes to run (for charity, presumably). He works in logistics (what does that even mean?), and he loves his dogs (one of which happens to be both blind and deaf). Unfortunately, the excitement of Spencer started and ended with a riveting conversation about the relationship between the handicapped dog and the normal dog. There was no chemistry between him and the basketball player’s sister. And the date finally ended with her saying she was “too afraid to take public transportation after 10 PM” and they scurried off without an exchange of phone numbers.

So this whole experience got me thinking... How many people have found themselves in a terribly uncomfortable situation such as this one? Practically everyone has been on a horrible date at some point in his or her life. Somebody that just makes you want to run out of the bar as fast as humanly possible. (For me, it was a guitar-playing, exotic-beer-drinking, philosophy major who kept mentioning that “music was his true passion.” Gag me.) Of course there are two right ways to end an awful date: be honest about the lack of attraction and end the date early or grit your teeth and tough it out. But where’s the fun in that? I think it’s much more exciting to run the lifeless date further into the ground. That’s why I bring you this:

Ten creative ways to get out of that way-too-long date with that way-too-wrong person that are guaranteed to make you laugh when you tell your friends about it the next morning.

1. Start talking about current events and let it slip that you don't see the big deal about this whole "oil spill thing"

2. Wipe your nose on your date's sleeve. Twice.

3. Mention your quest to be on reality television. When your date asks what show you’d like to be on, say “Either ‘Teen Mom’ or ‘The Biggest Loser’ … depending on how this date goes” And then wink.

4. Discuss the dietary trends, bowel movements, and activity patterns of your cats. All 12 of them.

5. Talk about how prison really changed your life. And not for the better.

6. Bring up your list of most-inspirational people: Elle Woods (from Legally Blonde), Regina George (from Mean Girls), and Snookie (from Jersey Shore). (This one works especially well if you are a guy)

7. Stand up every five minutes and circle the restaurant with your arms outstretched, making airplane noises.

8. Debate any hot-button issue: politics, healthcare, religion. Take both sides.

9. Mention that you also actively maintain a profile on the dating site Meet-Christian-Singles.net … even though you are agnostic.

10. Undress your date. Verbally. Preferably loudly, and in public.

In case you were wondering, we got last place in trivia. Who would’ve thought that the Petrified Forest was in Arizona, not Wyoming. Next time we’re going to make the Director of Basketball Operations come with us.

P.S. Hope you enjoy the new layout. I think I finally found a picture that captures my point of view. Ha. Ha. Ha?

Oh No They Didn't

I have always said that my life is one big joke of failures strung together by my ability to smoothly brush off awkward situations. It all started when I was 5 years old. My brothers ripped their shirts, covered themselves in ketchup, and convinced everyone at my kindergarten birthday party that there was a lion in the woods behind my house. Panic ensued. One girl had an asthma attack. Parents had to be called. The party ended before we could even play pin the tail on the donkey. But I didn’t let that traumatizing afternoon deter me (For the record, I didn’t really even like the kids in my kindergarten class). Starting the following year, I recovered with 4 successful parties in a row at Skateland, the local rollerblading rink (to which neither of my brothers was invited) – and to this day, I pride myself on the ability to throw fantastic parties. Recent themes have included “It Used To Be Cool – the 90s fad party” and “Celebrity Rehab: Amy Winehouse vs. Lindsay Lohan” … My friend once attended a “Daddy/Daughter dance” themed party. (But things took a turn for the worst as it ended up being called the “Pedophiles and Ponytails” party) I consider that a hilarious success in its own way and I plan on throwing one soon.

When I was 13, life threw another curve ball at me… this time attempting to crush my dreams of becoming a superstar. I had convinced my drama teacher that I should be allowed to perform a scene from “The Incredibles” in our spring show because of my striking resemblance to Edna “E” Mode, the fashion designer for superheroes. You can see the scene here. (I know, I was a weird looking kid). Everything was working out perfectly for my acting debut until my superhero costar ate too many Hot Cheetos at lunch and puked all over his costume. He had to borrow my clothes. My mind went completely blank the first time I saw him on stage, wearing my tight-fitting shirt. And there were a few moments of dead silence before I finally remembered my lines; but once again, in the face of adversity, I recovered. The sketch was a hit thanks to my ability to imitate Edna’s unique voice, which was apparently the voice of actor (yes, a man) Brad Bird, as the middle school paper so kindly pointed out the following week in a review of the show.

So here I am. At 19 and 11/12^th years old: a wide-eyed college student and amateur blogger who is fairly confident in her abilities to overcome any awkward situation. As a basketball manager, I often think "well, there is nothing more humiliating than this." But this past weekend I was proven wrong yet again. The world threw a unique set of circumstances at me that even I would struggle to overcome.

You see. There was an Ultimate Frisbee tournament in my hometown last weekend and my college club team was competing in it. As a member of the club ultimate team, I naturally offered up my house for the team (about 20 girls, ages 18-22) to stay at. A home-cooked meal and a real bed is way more luxurious and cheaper than when we pack 8 girls/room at the Super 8 Motel and eat breakfast at Walmart. When I asked my parents for approval, they said that they would be out of town that weekend, but it would be “totally fine” if the team stayed at our house. From that conversation onward, I sparsely spoke with my parents about the weekend … just about menial things like groceries and air mattresses. So you can imagine my surprise when I pulled into my driveway last weekend, with three other vans of girls close behind, to see a strange car parked in my driveway. “Who is this?” I said to my teammates, as we unpacked our bags from the trunk. “Maybe it’s a burglar!” my friend joked. Little did she know, the joke was only beginning.

I opened the back door and then I saw them, the familiar pair of shoes that rested by our back door every single Monday. They were the shoes of our cleaning lady, Barbara, a 60-year old Polish woman who had been cleaning our house for nearly 20 years. I dropped my stuff and ran through the house yelling “Hello? Hello?!” My first thought was that Barbara had been sneaking into our house for years whenever we were out of town, taking bubble baths and throwing parties, and I was excited to catch her in the act. But this idea was quickly shot to hell when I found Barbara sitting on the couch watching coverage of the Royal Wedding in pajamas, eating a takeout pizza. While I was completely surprised to see her in my house on a Friday night, she was completely unsurprised to see me. Barbara barely speaks a word of English, but she was able to fumble out some sentence about being excited to see me, meet my friends, and “babysit.”

That’s right. My parents had secretly hired their almost 20-year-old daughter a babysitter. Barbara awkwardly watched us unpack our bags and get ready for bed, occasionally asking questions as she tried to figure out exactly what sport we played and if she was expected to make us breakfast in the morning. Eventually I convinced her to go upstairs to her room, and the rest of my night was spent explaining to my teammates exactly how crazy my parents are. How doing things like this was normal behavior for my mother, who still gets upset when my 24-year-old brother drinks alcohol. How, while I may have been mischievous in high school, that nothing I did was worthy of this sort of constant supervision.

By the end of the weekend, we had turned the unfortunate “babysitter” situation into a catch phrase. Anytime someone on our team did something stupid, on or off the field, someone else followed up with “… and THAT’s why we need a babysitter!” Girl gets hit in the face with a frisbee? That’s why we need a babysitter. Somebody loses the car keys? That’s why we need a babysitter. Can’t decide what to order for lunch? That’s why we need a babysitter. What began as an extremely unfortunate and embarrassing situation for me ended up being a highlight of the weekend. I took this as a humbling experience. A friendly reminder that every time I find one reason to laugh at another person, I can easily find ten reasons to laugh at myself. As if being a women's basketball manager ever lets me forget that.