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 11/12th 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.
No comments:
Post a Comment