An Update

Hello eveyone!

Many of you may be wondering why I haven’t been posting regularly.

The sad truth of the matter is that school has taken over my life. I have no time for reading, writing, or any other fun things. I spend my time immersed in school work.

I wish I could juggle all the things in my life perfectly: school, work, family, friends, husband, blogging, but unfortunately I am a horrible juggler. So, I’ve decided to take a break from blogging. No, I am not giving it up. I am only taking a hiatus.

I don’t know how long this break will be, but when I decide I am ready to start blogging again, I will alert you via Facebook. For those of you who follow my blog, but are not my Facebook friends, I first of all thank you for keeping up with my blog, and second, I suggest you check back once a month.

Thanks again my faithful blog readers. I will be back. It’s a guarantee.

As for my time off during Christmas: I will be working on submitting my very first completed novel to a publishing contest! Wish me luck!

Over and Out,

Susie

Smiley Face Stickers are a Thing of the Past

Today in one of my classes a group did a presentation, and for listening they were giving away a chocolate bar. All we had to do was answer a simple fill-in-the-black quiz. Of course, my ears perked up as soon as I heard the word ‘chocolate’. I answered that quiz with determination, and when the group asked if anybody wanted to volunteer to give the answers, my arm shot up like a flare from a flare gun.

I answered all the questions right and it was time to get my chocolate bar! One of the group members walked over and handed me a tiny little chocolate bar. One of those chocolate bars that you would get from trick or treating on Halloween. As you would expect, I was extremely disappointed. You could probably even see the smile fade right off my face. I had expected a full sized chocolate bar. Would I have done the quiz had I known it was for a wimpy one bite Crispy Crunch? Heck no.

It was then, during my disappointment, that I realized the sad state I was in. I had turned into a greedy little present generationer. (Yes, I made up that word. Stay with me here, I’ll explain).

Present generationers are the people (mainly teenagers) who need more and more to be happy. Kids used to be happy with a smiley face sticker when they did well on something. And they sure did love those stickers. Remember in Sunday school when we used to memorize our Bible verses and we’d get stickers for a job well done? Well, kids don’t do that anymore. If you tell a kid to memorize a memory verse, they just stare up at you like you’re an alien with no clothes on expect for a pair of fuzzy pink socks. Stickers are a thing of the past.

Kids now need bigger and better things as motivation. I’m living proof. While I’m not a kid, I’ve been conditioned to want bigger and better. My own Sunday school teenagers would never accept anything less than a full sized chocolate bar as motivation. They want ipods and flat screen TVs now. Frankly, it’s just plain annoying.

But, I wonder…did we do this to ourselves? I mean, really, how did this start? Was there a Sunday school teacher who stopped giving stickers and started giving candy, and when candy wasn’t enough, chocolate? Everybody should have just stuck with smiley face stickers.

Perhaps these kids who started getting candy and then chocolate started telling other kids in other Sunday school classes about their awesome prizes. These kids who are now aware of what’s going on in other Sunday school classes want what their friends are getting. And so that teacher starts giving candy. And the cycle continues.

I’d like to meet this Sunday school teacher who ruined everything for us. I wouldn’t need a full sized chocolate bar if it weren’t for this teacher. Okay, okay, I know this probably wasn’t what happened and there was probably never a Sunday school teacher involved, but I can make up scenarios, right? Maybe it was the video games, who knows? But whatever happened changed me too, and I don’t like it, not one bit.

And why in the world does a group need to hand out chocolate bars as incentive to listen! How did the world get this way!? We should want to listen either way! I’m not saying that I listen; I’m just saying we should want to listen.

I don’t want to be present generationer, but I think it may be too late.

Image from: http://www.partydelights.co.uk/images/stickers/STICSMIL_th.jpg

Oh How I Love my Sleep

I fall asleep during the most inappropriate times.

Every Sunday I fall asleep at church. Right in the middle of a sermon. Okay…that’s a lie. Directly after the introduction. I sneakily close my eyes and lower my head just slightly. By doing this, nobody behind me can tell that I’m sleeping. Unfortunately, everyone to the sides and in front of me can easily tell. This includes the pastor. On a side note: I’m pretty sure that it’s impossible for me not to fall asleep. I’m thinking about letting scientists experiment on me.

When my head starts to nod, I try to find a spot behind somebody’s head. This makes me pretty much invisible. Everybody knows that if you can’t see the pastor, surely the pastor can’t see you. The problem with hiding behind somebody’s head is that this somebody could easily move or shift. This is something I wouldn’t notice, because I’m sleeping.

I think pastors have a sixth sense. If somebody has closed their eyes for more than four minutes, the pastor senses a disturbance and locates the sinner with little difficultly. The pastor then writes this person’s name in his little black book of people who need prayer. Okay, so the pastor doesn’t have a little black book where he writes down names each week, but that’s what it feels like.

I’ve been caught a few times. I’m just minding my own business, sleeping, when I feel a set of eyes boring into my head. I open my eyes and find myself staring into the pastor’s. I look away quickly and pretend to be reading my Bible. This is slightly problematic since I rarely bring my Bible to church.

I hope the pastors don’t get offended by sleepers. I mean, let’s face reality; you’re surrounded by people, many of whom have large heads to block yours from getting seen, the sermon is long, and you’ve woken up early. These are great conditions for sleeping. We sleepers really can’t be blamed. Frankly, I think the pastor is asking too much of us to listen for more than fifteen minutes at a time, yet alone forty.

I used to have this teacher for history, and I would fall asleep, literally, every class. It was right after lunch, and everybody knows that you first have to let the food settle by sleeping before even thinking about paying attention. I won’t lie, I felt bad about sleeping during every class. Of course, not bad enough to stay awake.

One day, I approached this teacher and asked him how it made him feel when I slept. He told me that it made him feel stupid. I told him that I would try to stop, but I was pretty sure I had some sort of condition where fatigue controlled my body. It was a good thing I was doing well on assignments or he surely would have failed me.

The next day, I fell asleep again. When I awoke, there was a small puddle of drool on my desk. It was highly embarrassing, and the people around me laughed. You would think that an experience like this would propel me to stay awake. Ha! If you think a little drool would keep me from sleep, you’re crazy! Sleep overpowers embarrassment; everybody knows that. So unfortunately, neither the drool, nor the teacher’s response helped me to stay awake.

One day, a friend of mine noticed my sleeping problem and offered me a caffeine pill. He used them all the time when he got sleepy, and he told me that it would literally be impossible for me to sleep after taking one. Of course, it never occurred to me that he was offering me drugs. It was small and purple and had a picture of a rooster on it. I swallowed it, knowing my teacher would be proud.

Class came around and to my friend’s complete astonishment, I fell asleep. Apparently, it became a class conversation as to how I could have possibly fallen asleep. But as you know, I was asleep and cannot verify such accounts.

After such an experience, I now laugh in the face of roosters.

 

Image from: http://www.dragoart.com/tuts/1939/2/1/easy-step-by-step-drawing-instructions-for-how-to-draw-a-cartoon-rooster.htm

My First Major Highway Experience

I hate driving on major highways.

There are cars and big trucks all around me, and there’s always a good chance that a trucker might not notice my little Toyota Corolla driving beside him.

The other day I was trying to switch lanes, going from the outer into the middle…the trucker beside me, in the opposite outside lane, was thinking the same thing. We both started manoeuvring into the middle lane at the same moment, and by the time either one of us noticed, we were both past the point of no return. It’s a good thing my car is tiny, because I just cranked the wheel to the left, and sandwiched myself between two cars beside me. The car behind me honked his horn, and I flushed in embarrassment. It seems the trucker won. They always do.

The first time I drove on a major highway, it happened by accident. I was visiting a friend in Windsor, and my GPS was telling me where to go. It got me there just fine, but for some reason on the way back, it decided that I should take a different and less familiar route. I had no idea where it was taking me. Until, that is, I noticed that I was on an enter ramp for the 401 HWY.

To make matters worse…much worse, it was dark and snowing hard. There was a thin layer of snow already on the ground and the snowploughs hadn’t distributed any salt yet. My visibility was horribly limited, and those dang mesmerizing snowflakes kept distracting me.

These conditions made me drive like an old lady. I had both hands tightly clenched on the steering wheel, my back was hunched so far over that my face was just inches from the dashboard, and my mind was racing a hundred miles per hour of all the things I had not yet done in life.

So here I was, driving on the 401, in the blinding snow, in the dark, at eleven o’ clock, with nobody but me knowing where I was. I’m surprised I didn’t pass out from mental exhaustion. The road was slippery, so I let my car slow down to sixty kilometres an hour, and this then produced a whole new round of fears in me. What if the cars behind me didn’t realize I was going so slow, would they hit me from behind because they wouldn’t have enough time to stop? Is it just me who finds the road slippery, or are other people driving slow too? Is it a full moon, and are werewolves real?

Okay, so I didn’t actually think that last thought, but it was valid because at the time, I was the only car on the 401. Everyone else had been smart enough to avoid such deadly conditions. I was watching the road carefully, doing my best to stay in my lane, when I noticed headlights in my rear-view mirror. Was he driving fast? I couldn’t tell. He came up behind me and then passed me in the next lane. He was in a four wheel drive, going at least eighty. Great. Not only was I scared beyond belief, but I was also embarrassed. Who goes sixty on the 401? Only me.

I kept driving and looking at the GPS for when my exit would come up. It wasn’t helping me at all, and I made a silent vow to run it over with my car when I got home. Eventually, after thirty minutes of incredibly tense driving, the GPS told me my exit. I located it and drove onto the exit ramp. What a wonderful feeling that was.

At that point I only had twenty or so minutes left until I reached my house. It was still snowing, the ploughmen were still sleeping, and my car was still very bad in the snow. Miraculously, I made it home without careening into a ditch, getting eaten by werewolves, or getting hit by faster cars behind me.

It was one of the worst driving experiences I’ve ever had.

I now avoid all major highways.

Image from: http://www.atwillett.com/lighting_pictures/snowstorm_drivingcar.jpg

Beauty

I don’t write about serious topics often, but this is a serious topic.

I am sick and tired of women feeling as though they are not beautiful. I am sick and tired of women thinking that they need to change how they look to achieve beauty. IT HAS TO END.

This beauty that we are comparing ourselves to is very rare. It doesn’t seem rare to us because we are so incredibly seeped in media that un-natural beauty constantly surrounds us. Makeup artists spend hours making our TV perception of beauty a “reality”, but frankly it is everything but that.

Like everyone else in North America, I am fascinated by beauty. While at university, I have this habit of looking at everyone who passes by. I’m searching for un-natural beauty, the kind we see on TV. I have not found it. What does that tell you? I pass by hundreds of young adults every day, and not once have I seen un-natural beauty. I’m not saying that the people I pass by are ugly. No, I’m saying that they are all beautiful, but not un-naturally TV beautiful. The people I pass by are all average.

When I say the word “average”, unfortunately I am comparing it to the media’s perception of beauty. But if there was some way I could rid myself of that perception, everybody I know and all the strangers I pass on a daily basis would be absolutely beautiful, and the word “average” wouldn’t even enter my thoughts.

If we could let go of those filters tainting our eyes we would see something startling. We’d be able to look in the mirror and not cringe when we see our stomach rolls, acne, and love handles. We’d be able to look at our own bodies with satisfaction and an admiration for true beauty.

It saddens me to know people who are perfectly healthy and look absolutely beautiful, but do not think of themselves in that same way. They look in the mirror and see the media’s perception of beauty, and instantly they find things about themselves that they think need to be changed. I look at them and think that absolutely nothing should be changed, except for their confidence levels.

I think that when we look in a mirror and become disgusted with ourselves, we our offending our creator. Did God not say that he made us in his image? So if we are always trying to change the way our body looks, what does that say to the being who made us? I’m not talking about changing our hair. I’m talking about the women who go to plastic surgeons and have their lips enhanced, or their nose transformed. I’m talking about the people who go to extremes and drastically change their diets, just to lose a few pounds. I’m talking about the women who are a perfectly healthy weight and yet think they are ugly and overweight.

Let me tell you a little secret. Men do not like skinniness. Men like curves. Why then do all women think that men are attracted to skinniness?

My husband and I were walking through a parking lot one day, and we both observed a skinny young woman wearing tight clothes everywhere. My first instinct was jealousy, not particularly over her skinniness, but over other things. Look at her perfect hair, I thought. And, wow, look at those legs. She’s got great legs. Legs that don’t curve in weird ways. My husband’s first instinct was to mutter a disgusted “eww” and avert his eyes. At first I thought that he had done this because I had caught him looking, but when I asked him about it, he told me he found skinny women like that to be unattractive. You can imagine the shock on my face.

Compared to media’s perception of fake beauty, I am not on that level of beauty. But, somehow, and I wish I could tell you how, but somehow when I look in the mirror now, I am not disgusted with what I see. I am happy. Don’t get me wrong, I am not trying to brag about how I look; I am far away from being as beautiful as one of those fake TV stars. I have rolls, weird curved legs, huge thighs, big feet, bad skin, spider veins, stretch marks, and poufy, frizzy hair. Yet somehow I see beauty.

Is it possible for us to put aside all the images we’ve ever seen of un-naturally photo-shopped beautiful people? No, it isn’t.

But, it is possible to re-train our thoughts and finally be able to look at ourselves and one another with an admiration for true, God-given, beauty.

 

Image from: http://epicself.com/be/real-vs-fake-beauty/

Good Times at the Dentist

I had all four wisdom teeth pulled last year and boy what an experience that was.

Because oral surgery was needed and it wasn’t a simple pull and extract operation I was given the luxury of sedatives. The dentist hooked up an IV to my vein and pumped me full of drugs. Unfortunately, there was a slight problem with this. The usual dosage that the dentist gave me wasn’t enough to put me out. I was fully awake; following the dentist’s every movement with my eyes. He walked over to the stainless steel bench holding his tools and began to talk.

Dentist: “I don’t know why we have to keep putting out our patients. They’re having their teeth pulled out! It’s not necessary! I’m tired of having to pry open their mouths and listen to them mumble about their boyfriends!” (I left out the swear words…he said two).

The dentist then grabbed a scary looking tool and walked over to me. I couldn’t talk or move, but I stared at him wide eyed hoping he would notice. I was awake! Thankfully his assistant noticed.

Assistant: “Uh, Dr._____ she’s awake.”

Dentist: “Not possible.”

Assistant: “No really, she’s awake.”

The dentist looked at me with shock. Probably because he knew that I had heard his rant.

Dentist: “Give her another dose.”

The assistant walked over to the machine hooked up to my arm and pressed a button. I watched as more liquid flowed into my arm. I stared up at the ceiling because it was too awkward to look at the dentist now that I had heard him swear. I thought about his comment of patients mumbling about their boyfriends, and wondered if I would say anything embarrassing while out. I hoped not. I then had a moment of confusion when the lights turned out. I remember thinking: how is the dentist going to pull my teeth out if the lights are off? The lights then flickered back on and that was all that I remember. I was completely out after that. Completely.

I won’t lie to you, it felt nice. It felt really nice. I understand now why drug addicts are addicted to drugs. The feeling of forced unconsciousness is a wonderful sensation. Unfortunately and fortunately, that wonderful feeling was gone when I woke up; unfortunately, because I wanted that great feeling to last, and fortunately, because if it had lasted, I would be a drug addict. I woke up feeling groggy and unaware. I could barely walk and my mind was all over the place. I felt stupid and probably looked stupid. As my husband was escorting me to the car I actually pointed to a car and gave it a thumbs up. Yes, I was out of it. I was giving thumbs up’s to cars.

All in all, it was a crazy experience. One that I hope never to repeat.

 

Image from: http://www.bet.com/Lifestyle/bodysoul/HaveASmileLikeBeyonce_WhiterTeeth_Lifestyle_BAS_Flipbook_Photos.htm?i=10

My Adventure With Greek Cheese

I once worked for a restaurant/reception hall. You couldn’t really call this place either of those two things, but for this blog post, that’s what I’m sticking with.

It was my job to make this reception hall look fancy for the bride, groom, and their guests. I would polish every single utensil with a water and vinegar solution. I would set up the decorations and lay out the table clothes. I would vacuum and dust. And I loved it! It was a great gig…except for my lunches.

You see, I worked for Greek people, and Greek people love their food. During lunch the chefs would round up all the employees together and make us try their latest food creations. Afterwards we would give our opinions and decide whether or not it was good enough to make it onto their menu.

I’m not one of those types of people who can eat anything that’s placed in front of them. I am slightly picky. I sniff at new food, making sure that it smells appetizing. Then I examine the new food, and make sure it has no hair or finger nails in it. Then I take a small bite of the new food. If it’s something that I can handle, I take another bite, and so on and so forth until I’ve had my fill.

Unfortunately, during these lunches we weren’t allowed to be picky. Picky got you fired. So I ate everything that was put in front of me. I ate new and interesting salads, weird spicy mashed potatoes, fish creations of all kinds, and unidentifiable meats that to this day I have no idea what they were. I never complained, sniffed, poked, or examined the food. I ate like any normal non-picky person would eat, with no regrets.

One day I was called away from my duties of polishing silverware to taste-test a new menu option in the kitchen. It wasn’t lunch, nor was I hungry. But, I joined the rest of the employees in the kitchen, because if I hadn’t I would have been fired. On this particular day, the chef was the owner, and he had made something that smelled bad. Now when I say the word “bad”, I mean bad, in the worst possible sense. I walked into that kitchen with trepidation. Anything that smelled that bad was clearly not worth eating. I entered the semi-circle of employees standing around the chef and he handed us all a skewer with a whitish blob impaled on the top. I held it at arm’s length and then winced and gagged a little. The chef hadn’t noticed.

The chef then explained what it was that we were eating. It was cheese. Fried cheese. Fried Greek cheese. It sounds okay, right? NO! WRONG! Even before I got the blob to my mouth I had gagged five times. I contemplated choosing between the options of eating this cheese, and possibly dying, or worse, throwing up in front of the chef! Or getting fired. It seemed both options were leading to the same thing anyway.

I watched as the rest of the Greek employees ate their cheese with smiles and satisfying looks on their faces. I did the unthinkable. I put the cheese in my mouth and prayed to God. Please God don’t let me throw up. Please don’t let me throw up. I’ll pray more if you allow me not to throw up!

I threw up.

Thankfully though, I managed to hold it in just long enough to run to the bathroom. I did not throw up in the kitchen in front of the chef. I remember that just before running out of the kitchen I gave the chef a nod of approval and a closed-mouth smile. Had I opened my mouth to utter any syllables, I would have thrown up right there and then.

Two weeks later I was fired. Apparently throwing up in the bathroom was just as bad as throwing up in the kitchen.

I stay away from all Greek cheeses now. Yes, even Feta. There are days when I still smell that awful aroma of that horrid whitish blob. It’s embedded itself in my memory and sometimes comes back to haunt me. There is no escaping it.

Be afraid of whitish blobs stuck on skewers. Be very afraid.

 

Image from: http://www.thenibble.com/reviews/main/cheese/cheese2/cheese-curds.asp

Spoiled Food

Have you ever poured yourself a tall glass of refreshing milk, only to realize that after you’ve taken a huge gulp, it’s spoiled?

Well I haven’t. I have an excellent nose. I can smell bad milk a mile away, or so I thought…

I was sitting down to enjoy some oatmeal the other day, and after I took a few bites I realized that I just couldn’t go any further. It smelled…bad. And it tasted even worse. I bought some bad oatmeal. I didn’t even think oatmeal could go bad. I gagged a little, then gagged some more, and then packed up the rest of the oatmeal packages to return them to the store.

I walked into that store confidently, knowing that I got bad oatmeal. Bad oatmeal with an indecipherable expiry date.  I explained my horrible experience of taking at least three bites of the bad oatmeal, and without any questions the store clerk gave me my money back.

Later that week I decided to eat some cereal. After taking a few bites, I declared that my cereal was bad. How did I get bad oatmeal and bad cereal? I remember thinking how insane this was, what are the odds?! Who gets so many bad products?

By now I’m sure you’ve figured out my mistake. My mistake was ever deciding to pick up a bowl. I should just stick to buying food at restaurants; it’s what I’m best at.

I didn’t get bad oatmeal, and I didn’t get bad cereal. I got bad milk. I look back on this memory and wonder how stupid I could have possibly been to not even think that the milk was bad. I’m not lying when I say that it did not even cross my thoughts.

I have a new appreciation for milk now. When I drink it, I think of how good it tastes, and how awful it becomes a day after the expiry date. With most foods I don’t worry about the expiry date, a few days/weeks overdue doesn’t seem to matter. I eat eggs even if they’ve expired three weeks ago. Sour Cream is good for at least eight days after the expiry date, and cheese…well cheese lasts until it’s covered in mold. But milk…now that’s a different story. People should follow milk’s expiry dates without question.

Ever since I ate that bad oatmeal I’ve been feeling nauseous. I can’t eat anything without feeling nauseous…and no I AM NOT PREGNANT! Let me repeat this, just in case you missed the “NOT”: I AM NOT PREGNANT! The bad milk tainted my taste buds for life. I can’t eat anything now without first thinking back to that awful taste! I just recently had oatmeal for the first time since that horrible ordeal, it tasted…different.

I’m hoping that this experience will someday leave me, and I’ll be able to eat food normally again, but I doubt it.

Stay tuned for my follow up post about my adventures with an unknown Greek cheese…

The Old Woman Who Lived in the Shoe

Could you imagine being a mother of sixteen children? How about a sibling to fifteen brothers and sisters?

Nope, I couldn’t either.

I read about a woman who had sixteen kids, and I had to do a double take and re-read what I had already read. 16 KIDS!! I don’t even know how to wrap my head around this. That’s enough kids to make your own baseball team, and have extras! That’s enough kids to fill a small bus. That’s enough kids to run your own farm without ever having to pay employees. You get the picture.

I wonder how long it took for this woman to run out of names. I can barely think of one boy name that I like. If I had to think of more than one, I’d probably just start naming them after fathers and grandfathers and then other people’s fathers and grandfathers.

I wonder how big this family’s dinner table was. Was it big enough to fit everyone, or did they have to take shifts? I’m betting on shifts.

How were the sibling’s relationships with each other? I mean, by the time the mom is done having kids you’d have a significant age difference between the oldest and youngest.  Some siblings would probably get really close to others in the same age bracket, and then pick on the younger ones.

I wonder what kind of personalities each kid got, and if they’re all different. And how would the birth order theory work with sixteen kids!?

As you can see, I’m having a very difficult time imagining such a life.

This woman, who I don’t even know, reminds me of the old lady who lived in the shoe. I don’t really know why; perhaps because the old lady who lived in the shoe had a lot of kids. This is really the only parallel.

I can just picture it now: the kids are outside misbehaving, they’ve tied poor Timmy to the swing, and now they’re playing piñata with him using those sponge swords. Timmy’s not having a good time. All of a sudden, the mother rushes out of the shoe-house waving a rolling pin in the air, shouting at her boys to leave Timmy alone. The boys run off, leaving Timmy tied to the swing that he had been enjoying just a few moments before. This is how I picture life as being when you have sixteen kids.

I wonder if the youngest children received anything new at all. They probably wore everyone else’s hand-me-downs, and used everyone else’s broken toys. Those poor children. Imagine playing truck with a truck that’s missing a wheel. It’s always going to tip over, no matter what you load in the back. Or imagine playing with a doll, who’s been drawn on, had one of her eyes ripped out, and her head swivels all the way around because the siblings before her kept taking if off!

I’d like to meet every one of these kids (grown-up’s by now), and do a case study on their lives. Who got picked on? Who was the instigator? Who were the shy ones? Who loves math, and who loves reading? I could ask so many questions!

All I know is that I will not be having sixteen kids. I am not willing to move into a shoe, nor am I willing to carry around a rolling pin, looking like a crazy lady.

Nope, three to four kids will do fine.

***

Image from: http://mommylife.net/archives/2009/11/01/woman-livedinashoe.gif

Awkward Phrases

I went through a Tim Horton’s drive through the other day and ordered one of those sausage breakfast sandwiches on an English muffin. My friend then decided that she wanted one too, but this was after I had already given them my order.

My mind went blank and I said: “Oh! I’ll take another one of those thingys, the EggMcMuffin on the English muffin…Oh, I mean not EggMcMuffin, but the…yeah…you know, I mean the thing I just ordered.”

The Tim Horton’s worker responded with: “Yeah, I know exactly what you mean,” as if she got that all the time.

Of course when I pulled up to the window to pay, my face was bright red and my friend and I were laughing hysterically.

I usually pride myself in getting drive through orders perfect. Certainly, that didn’t happen this time, and it became an awkward, embarrassing moment.

Another awkward phrase that I say much too often is: “you too.”

I was in the grocery store when I saw an old friend of mine. She had just come back from her honeymoon and I asked her how it went. Of course everything was great, not like I expected any different response from her, and then asked her where exactly she went. “The Mayan Riviera,” she answered. I told her that my husband and I, and my family wanted to go to the Mayan next year. But because of our grocery store setting, our conversation got cut short and she told me to have fun when I go, and I answered with the awkward, “You too!” Oh boy. That doesn’t even make any sense. Why would I say that? Yeah, have fun on your Mayan vacation next year too! Jeesh. Sometimes I wonder about myself. Of course my friend just gave me a smile and walked away, probably not sure what to say to me after having just embarrassed myself. I couldn’t stop thinking about those stupid two little words all the way home, and you can probably sense that I still kick myself over it.

We, as in people, like to say “You too” when in restaurants as well. After receiving our food, many waitresses/waiters will say, “Enjoy your food!” And of course, the natural reaction from us is to say, “You too!”

This is always an embarrassing situation. The waiter isn’t eating anything, and probably won’t be until either break or shift-end. I’m sure they’re used to hearing it, but if I was a waitress and people kept saying “You too!” to me, I’d constantly be jealous that I don’t get to enjoy the food. I’d probably also be thinking that the only food I get to enjoy is the stale Twinkie in my lunch box, and then I’d become resentful and treat my tables badly. Then I would lose my tips.

We also tend to say, “you too” when in response to someone telling us “Happy Birthday!” And “Congratulations!” The list goes on. We say this a lot, and most of the time, without thinking.

Can you think of anymore awkward phrases? Maybe you said something to someone lately that became completely uncomfortable, tell me about it! I’d love to hear your stories. I can’t be the only one in the world who says embarrassing things…