Adult in Training

So my boss is on vacation.  This means that the job I usually do at POE has changed.  I’ve been handed off to the regular overnight manager, to do with me as they please.  Which means that last night I spent pretty much the entire night moving Christmas candy around on a shelf.  I know what you are all thinking: How can you get a job as thrilling as mine?  Bribery usually works, as does nepotism.

So while I was taking a break, while waiting for my actually break, I decided to have a look at Cosmo.  This issue has their bedside astrologer little mini-pamphlet inside, and I wanted to know if I had a good year in store.  Imagine my surprise when I read that as a way to heat things up between my man and I, Cosmo suggests that that I take off my panties during dinner at a restaurant, and put them in his hands. 

Really?

I don’t know.  I’ve never really considered myself  “sexy”, so maybe this is a somewhat accepted practice, and maybe guys do like having underwear thrust upon them while they’re eating.  I mean, stranger things have turned out to be true.  But really?

First of all, how do you even take off your underwear in a discreet enough way that A) your boyfriend is surprised by your gift of used panties (which I assume is part of the point) and B) so that everyone sitting around you in the presumably crowded restaurant doesn’t turn to their dinner partners and say: “That girl must have read Cosmo, see, she’s taking off her panties.”?  Because in my head, I can’t really imagine it.  Assuming you can even get them past your ass, which would be a considerable feat, how do you then bend over and get them from around your ankles, like “Oh, hey, look what I found!”? 

I don’t know.  Do people actually take this advice?  Will restaurants soon be flooded with women trying to take off their underwear?  And how do you dress for that evening?  Would you do a dry-run, testing it out in your own kitchen first, to see which outfit makes it easier for you to skim your knickers off?  And then, assuming that you did all that, and managed to make taking your underwear off at the dinner table look sexy, after giving them to your man, what is he supposed to do with them?  “Oh, gee, thank you!  It’s just what I always wanted.”? Or put them in his pocket and keep them for later?  Would you immediately leave upon presenting your gift – frankly I would immediately melt into a puddle of shame, so I’m not sure this is even an option for me. Or would you stay for dessert, knowing there is a pair a knickers burning a hole in his pocket?  What if he gives them back?  “Keep these in your purse for me, would you?”

This is why my boss needs to come back from vacation.  Because without him ordering me around, my mind wanders to alarming places.

Everyone’s been through the old photo albums, full of all the pictures your mom took of you when you were little.  Some would call them embarrassing.  Others – myself included – would say that they are, with few exceptions, the only good photos that have been taken of me.  Being un-photogenic is a curse, I don’t care what anyone says. 

After I turned seven and stopped being cute just by being alive, the number of pictures of me (and to be fair, of my brother as well) significantly drops. There aren’t really that many of me when I was in high school, and I think the only ones of me in college are when I was drunk, and at my graduation.  So maybe when I look back on those times, my memory is clouded and jaded, without the benefit of actual proof, but sometimes I think that I was the best version of myself when I was in high school.

I wouldn’t have believed it then.  When I was in high school, I couldn’t wait to get out.  Out of school, out of my house, out of the country.  I just wanted to leave, because I felt like I was missing out on life.  Missng out on something big, that thing that makes life interesting. Now, looking back, it feels like the only thing I was missing was being jaded.

Maybe it’s just because I’ve been in a bit of a funk, on and off since I came back from school, but in the five or six years that I’ve been out of high school, I can’t really point to very many things that are better now than they were then.  I’ve gotten older and a little bit wiser, but all those lessons came tough, and I worry that perhaps they came at the expense of my optimism. 

There’s  no doubt that I’ve changed since high school.  And I’m not sure if the person I was in high school could have survived the “real world” – not to be confused with “The Real World”.  But instead of that fact comforting me, it sort of just makes me sad.  Could I really not have survived, without an outlook that now feels bitter and jaded? 

I miss my high-school-self.  I miss the feeling that the world is just waiting for me to discover it, instead of feeling like the world is waiting to eat me alive. I miss knowing that friends will always be there for you, instead of holding them at arm’s length and waiting for them to leave.  I miss trying to figure out who I am and what I can do, instead of realizing  that the person I am is not the person I thought I would be when I imagined myself five years after high school.

Sometimes I wonder why I have any friends.  Now, please don’t mistake this for self-pity, it is simply an observation.  Sometimes I find myself doing things, and immediately afterwards I think: “God, why would anyone hang out with me?” Or sometimes: “If I weren’t me, I’m not sure I would be my friend.”

Because lets be realistic; I’m kind of a weirdo.  Or, at the very least, a pretty big geek.  But not in the cool, computer-hacking way. And currently I am also probably the most boring person on earth.  Pretty much all I did today was walk Avi.  On the way back, we saw two blue jays.  I am not lying when I say that we stood in the middle of the road, looking up at them for like three minutes.  Until I caught myself staring with my mouth open, at which point I quickly looked around to make sure that no one was covertly watching me.

Also, I tend to be the most uncoodrinated person I know.  As a result, embarrassing things tend to happen to me.  This could go either way.  It provides fairly entertaining comedy sometimes – because who doesn’t like to point and laugh at unfortunate people?  An example of this would be the time I fell off the top bleacher at one of Katie’s softball games last year.  Because I thought I was going to get hit by the ball, and tried to shift out of the way.  And so in an attempt to avoid injury, I caused myself more harm.  

But, it could go the other way, where the embarrassment rubs off on those around me.  Like when I say things without thinking (which is basically all the time).  So sometimes words sneak out, before I realize that they are inappropriate.  Like the time I called someone a douchebag in front of Meg’s dad – although he was really cool about it… and called me douchebag every time I came to visit after that.  Or the time I called someone a twat in front of Katie’s parents.

Berman’s told me a couple of times that she doesn’t get embarrassed anymore, after being around me for five years.  So maybe I have something to offer after all.

Tomorrow is Berman’s birthday.  Ever since I’ve come to school, Berman’s birthday has always been the event of the year.  In fact, I have always celebrated her birthday more than my own.  Part of the reason is that Berman’s birthday always falls during J-Term, when there is no school and nothing to do really, other than party.  While mine always fell during the last week of the regular hockey season, or during playoffs.  Which put something of a damper on my festivities.

This year Berman has to work the day after her birthday, and because she is a responsible employee, she doesn’t want to be trashed or horribly hung over, so we are celebrating today.  I did my part by provided the two most essential parts of the birthday: Beer and ice cream cake.  Frankly, it’s my opinion that no celebration is complete without them.  Although, my mom does a really good job of picking out non-ice cream cakes.  She knows my heart.  And by heart I mean taste buds.

But this is the thing: If I always celebrate Berman’s birthday more than my own, and this year pretty much all we are doing is drinking -delicious Canadian – beer and eating cake, what are we going to do for mine?