Embarrassing Story #1

Having just bragged to my sister about adding the subscription link to my blog, I cut our conversation short so I could practice more computer wizardry by sending out one mass email to everyone in my address book to let them know. Within seconds of hitting Send, I realized that somehow I had sent out 6 of the same email to every person.

I called my sister back, laughing so hard I couldn’t get it out at first. We then laughed together, as we often do. We love to collect and share the funny stories of our days, phoning each other for the sheer joy of laughing together.

But this was very embarrassing. It is. Having cleverly confessed in my email to feeling self-promoting, (so they wouldn’t think it first), I then blew it by barraging their email boxes with 6 annoying messages. I felt a little better when my sister told me that she once hit the Reply All key, sending her lunch order for a Reuben from Bogie’s Deli to the entire faculty at Collierville High.

This reminded me of another embarrassing story, and, desiring a little levity in the midst of my sack-cloth and ashes week, I’ve decided to post it here instead of dealing with the second sin of the sisters of Sodom (previous post), though I’m working on that one.

It was 1982. Newly married, we had just moved to a NATO base in Germany. We had a couch, a bed, a few dishes and cooking utensils, and a beat-up dinette on loan from the Army, so our apartment was cold and depressing, as was the weather. A few visits to the base had revealed to me the hierarchy inherent in the military. The Air Force had word processors, the Navy had IBM Selectrics, but the Army was still using manual typewriters.

So, when we were invited to attend a planning meeting for Vacation Bible School volunteers at an Air Force officer’s home, I was just becoming aware of rank and position, things of little consequence to me until marrying an Army Lieutenant.

They lived “on the economy”, which meant they could take their money and choose. The apartment was decorated with new Scandinavian furniture, artwork, Belgian rugs, fresh flowers. The formal dining table was set for six, the candles were lit. Even the aroma of the food made me think of success, permanence, home, things I felt keenly bereft of.

The other guests were in the Navy. The wife was incredibly beautiful; tall, elegant, but naturally so, with long, perfectly straight, sun-kissed hair. Her husband, a pilot, was just as stunning. I had an awful haircut that made me look like a cross between the little sister on Happy Days and Janet on Three's Company. Pat was wearing some crummy tennis shoes with grass stains I’d somehow failed to intercept.

At either end of the table, during the meal, the hosts dazzled us with their college fraternity and sorority stories. Like spectators at a tennis match, we turned our heads to the right, left, right, left, as they virtually monopolized the entire evening, obviously thinking they were master hosts and conversationalists.

It was the wife’s turn. She was to my right. I can’t remember the story; in fact, none of them were memorable; only what happened next. As she was talking, I saw her eyes fix on my husband, then widen, as her mouth dropped. I turned to look at Pat and saw that his entire chin was covered in broccoli cheese casserole.

He had dropped his napkin on the floor. Wanting to maintain the appearance of being interested in yet another story, he had reached down to retrieve the napkin without taking his eyes off her, but had unknowingly dipped his chin in his plate. We all laughed heartily, including the hosts, for which I was grateful.

I was also grateful when it was time to go home to our grim apartment, to sit close on the green Army-issue sofa and reconstruct the evening. As newlyweds just getting our feet wet in things societal, we experienced Solidaritat. We hashed out together what it means to be hospitable, how to treat guests, how not to dominate conversations, what it is to feel inferior, how to work past that. We decided we probably wouldn’t be invited back.

We weren’t.