The Misfortunes of Memory: let’s never do the Time Warp again

You know those embarrassing things you do that you actively try not to commit to memory? As you can imagine, this happens to me on the regular. Seriously, if Snape came after me with a legilimency spell he’d shortly die of laughter, you know, if Voldemort didn’t off him first. One sad account is that at the end of freshman year of college I watched the Rocky Horror Picture Show on Netflix when my roommate was gone for the weekend. It’s catchy you guys! I don’t know what you all do when your roommates are gone but I YouTubed that right up and promptly taught myself the Time Warp. Yep that happened. But that’s not the embarrassing part.

I started drinking that summer. I am socially awkward. I only dance when it’s inappropriate to do so. Those three things some how add up to me teaching just about anyone who would listen how to do that dance just about anytime I drank and just about everyone laughed and (gasp) joined in! It might have been funny if it didn’t happen more than once. It might have been funny if I was really drunk but I wasn’t. In fact, another misfortune of this memory of mine is that for the first year I drank I would never have more than three drinks because I was, ahem, a lady. Newsflash past self: ladies don’t scream “I am a lady, I don’t drink excessively!” or “let’s do the time warp again…” in a social setting. They just don’t do it. I tried to forget, then again I tried to do a cartwheel too and look how far that’s gotten me.

Time Warp

Other Things You Don’t Say to Your Cute Lab Partner

You might want to check out the original “Things You Don’t Say to Your Cute Lab Partner” first!!

If either everything in the world is out of whack or he just really likes your dirty cardinal and navy practice uniform and the look of softball dirt in your messy ponytail and he decides to sit by you every class period from there on out, there is a list of things you should and should not do. You should say hello to him when he says hello back. You should also look at him when he says it-harder to do, I know. You should make sure you don’t have a huge brown dirt stain on your butt or that your shorts aren’t tucked into the spandex you have on underneath. You should at least wear diamond stud earrings; they really complement the fake powdered tan dusted all over your face. You should really look at him when he says hello.

You should be yourself, even in all your awkward glory, but you should not make sound effect or act like a lunatic. You should show your aptitude and strive to get a good grade in the class, but you should not point out how stupid he is. You should work together on a graphing project, you should not do it yourself. You should ask him for help on calculating a certain number even if you can do in your head what he can do on a calculator, and you should not, I repeat, SHOULD NOT every say “it’s really not that hard! Let me just do it for you…” If he is that stupid you shouldn’t be trying to impress him, but you should never break a guy’s ego like that. Remember Ron when Hermione disarmed him in Dumbledore’s Army? Not cool. You could have suggested doing it another way, or traded jobs, or even suggested you take over because he did way too much already, but even if your IQ is double his, you can’t call something he is struggling with easy and finish it yourself in two seconds. It’s pompous. And since I know you aren’t too good at listening to me, do mess up on something obvious down the road so that he can play the genius and point it out.

If you do end up making a fool of yourself, it is a “do” to offer him your notes when he missed class last Thursday. And maybe even let him copy your homework. A “don’t” would be sending him your lab after that, than he’s just using you. But if a little while down the line he asks you about some information on a lab you were pretty sure he had all the notes for anyway, do give it to him. If he asks to work on it with you, don’t just email it to him because that would be “easier” go to the library and meet up with the kid you lunatic.

This should go without saying, but if he offers you a ride back to your dorm, don’t turn him down. If you drove up yourself, you leave that car there and retrieve it later. Nope? fine, then the next time make it a point to walk to class. He asks again? Do not say that you like to walk. He asks again, do not pretend you didn’t hear him. He volunteers to drive the class for a field-trip? Do not get in your professor’s car instead! And if you decline to drive with him to the other side of campus to watch a presentation for class, I seriously can’t help you. Go find someone more of a loser than me, maybe they wrote a book for you. If you do accept one of these offers, do put your seat-belt on so that little dinging bell doesn’t keep going off. Do not sit there in silence, but do not ask him stupid questions like the origin of his email address. Do ask about his apparent favorite hockey team, but do not just sit in silence when he tells you that hat is his friend’s and he’s never actually watched hockey. Do try to be normal. Do not try to act normal (there is a difference; I’m just not sure I know what that is). Do act funny in front of him when you luckily sitting with your friends, this glimpse of you being normal can’t hurt. But do not tell your friends that he is there or he will notice them talking and looking at him all throughout the presentation. Do say goodbye.

When he asks for your phone number to ask about a test, give it to him, but do not think it’s because he likes you. Do be careful that he is using you for your brain. Do not think that he is actually using you because neither of you are really getting anything. Do be suspicious when he keeps texting you about that final project. But also do think it is cute that he keeps telling you how nervous he is. Do let him write the group paper, but don’t hand it in the way he wrote it. Do suggest taking a shot together before the presentation, but do not forget to make a plan to actually do that. Do ask him to poke you if you start rambling too fast, and do tell him you’ll do the same if he starts saying “um” a lot. Do not panic when he messes the presentation all up. Do smile when he says he wanted to poke you but you were doing so well he let the speed slide. Do not tell him he did “all right, I guess.” Do agree with him that it has been fun working together, but do not, and this is the big DO NOT, tell him that you got an A. Because then he will tell you that he got a C- and you will say something stupid like “you didn’t to THAT terrible.”

That is probably the most terrible thing you could say. If you said something along those lines instead of inviting him out to drink it off, I will hurt you. Just kidding, we all know that that is EXACTLY what I said. And that was the last thing I ever did say to him, for awhile…

When “falling for him” isn’t as graceful as it sounds

The fact that this antidote is being filed under one of my least embarrassing stories, is, in itself, disheartening. Willing to do just about anything for a little cash in college, I volunteered to set up the gymnasium for home games. I was in season during the fall, and setting up for a tournament as the baseball team was having a practice on the other side of the gym. I got locked out of the equipment closet, which I suppose is lucky seeing as I could have been locked in, and waiting for my coach.

I don’t know if you picked up on a little word in that last paragraph spelled b-a-s-e-b-a-l-l but that is a sport where a bunch of guys get together wearing incredibly appealing pants and a nice cap over their tanned faces and hit a ball around a field. These players are one of God’s gifts to women and also men as being in even a practice uniform gives them a three point handicap on the ten point grading scale. This being said, you can’t blame me for sitting far enough up in the bleachers so that I can look onto their practice as I waited for my coach with the key.

Side note: get yourself a copy of your baseball team’s practice schedule and make yourself run around the track while they are working out. You’ll keep running because a) you have a nice view and b) they act as motivation for on the off chance they notice you, you don’t also want them to notice how you could only run a mile and a half. Plus, it’s like communicating without having to speak or even be near the person, just be careful not to fall on your face or anything.

But anyway, there I was chilling in the bleachers when a wiffle ball came my way. Now I was perfectly capable of throwing it back myself but one of the boys came hustling after it. Even though he picked up the ball two bleachers down from where I was he took the extra steps up to ask me how I was, when our game was, and to wish me luck. He then winked at me, yes you heard it, actually winked at me, and quickly returned to practice before his friends embarrassed him or something.

Flabbergasted, I finished setting up the gym and headed back to my dorm. My roommate of course was all into the idea and was determined to find him. After yelling at me for not asking his name or introducing me, we decided that roster pictures were our next bet. The wrench in this plan was that if baseball pants were a three point gain, roster pictures were a five point deficit. No guy looks good in a roster photo. Between this fact and the other little tiny one which was me being too shy to actually look up at this boy who I could only sense was incredibly adorable, we had little to nothing to go on.

The actual identity of this player was a mute subject however because whoever he was, bore witness to burying my face in the hard gym floor. That whole day I was certain that this was it: cute athlete was going to come watch the game with his friends, tell me I played well after the match, we’d run into each other walking to class and the rest would be history. Well, I got one thing right: the team did come to the game, or at least walk through our half of the gym on their way to practice. We were stretching at the time, I was in a Spiderman position stretching out my calves and trying to get a look at all their faces as they walked by to see if any sparked a memory, but just as I thought I could be falling for someone, I physically fell. Losing balance in my stretch my face smashed into the hardwood and my whole team laughed at me, as did that of the school’s baseball team. Mine did it with love, the boys probably in shock. But one thing is for certain, along with my face, I smashed my chances with that mystery player as well.