I'm In An Embarrassing Mood

There was something wrong with the muffler strap on my dad's truck so he took it in to the dealership to get fixed. He wouldn't be able to make it over during the day to pay for it so he asked me to do it for him so he could pick it up later tonight. I figure later tonight means five or six, during normal business hours, so I leave the keys there figuring that he'd be dropped off and would just grab them then. Wrong on both accounts.

I get home and as it turns out, my dad was going to pick the truck up way late, like around midnight and would indeed need his keys. But like the loving, doting wife that she is, my mom decided that she would go pick it up so he wouldn't have to. After I got home from work she asked me if I would go with her ("After you eat we're going to pick up daddy's truck") and drive the truck home. After informing her that I did not have the keys because of a father-son miscommunication, she told me that she completely understood ("You're an idiot") and called my dad so that he too could join in on the understanding.

I really didn't feel like going out, especially not after having the molehill of an issue turn into a mountain of manure which was then dumped on me, but I am a loyal son (no rent payments) and agreed to help out anyway. I go outside, walk across the deck to the driveway, take a step to turn the corner right on top of a patch of ice. My right leg goes straight up into the air, my left arm drives into the ground and I perform a pathetic roll.

Motherly instinct: On
"Are you alright?"
"Yes."

Motherly instinct: Off
Cackles loudly.

Embarrassed, I get up and start running to my car.

Motherly instinct: On
"You didn't hurt yourself did you?"
"No, just my pride."

As I was driving home, keys in hand thanks to the showroom manager, I thought, "I'm in an embarrassing mood." Whenever this happens, I feel the need to tell the entire world whatever cringe-inducing event has just occurred in my life. I guess it's my way of getting over it. This makes two embarrassing falls in three days.

I went skiing at Camelback on Saturday and I'm standing in line at the lift, one of the next ones to go and wouldn't you know, I lose my balance, fall over backwards and almost poke my friend Kile's eye out with my ski. The entire line laughed at me, even more so as I tried to stand up and almost couldn't.

But I'm over those (well, almost - I'm still shaking my head over the Camelback fall), so in the true spirit of embarrassing mood story telling, I present to you a never-before-printed tale crafted in the early days after deciding I wanted to become a writer.

There is no title, or real distinction between characters, so without further ado, I present it here with disparaging comments:

"Gay."
"What's up, beach?" (Awful)
"Nothing. What's going on?"
"Nothing. So what do you want to do?"
"I don't know...I thought we were going to the park, douche."
"Alright, fine. I just wasn't sure if that's what you wanted to do. Do you really want to go?" (The conflict here is intense)
"Yeah. I got no problem with that."
"Alright, so where do you want to meet?"
"Ummm...I'll just come to your house, ok?"
"Yeah, fine. See you in a few."
"Peace, yo."

(Instead of describing the scene change, I wrote a squiggly line)

"Yo."
"Yo." (Hemingway-esque)
"So what's going on?"
"What are we gonna do?"
"I don't know. Let's explore."
"Sounds like a plan, dawg." (Cringing)
"I love coming to the park. It's so nice, well, as long as its not shitty weather." (How insightful)
"Yeah. I want to find something cool. Treasure chest...million bucks...one of the two."
"And what are you going to do with the money? Treasure's gay." (Head shaking)
"What!? You're telling me you wouldn't take some diamonds or a crown?"
"Alright, I would, but a million bucks is better." (A philosophical debate for the ages)
"You know what I think is gay as shit? Those people who say money has no real value. Like, that 'means of exchange' bullshit." (As you can tell, I was taking an intro poly sci class at the time)
"Yeah seriously. Would you take a million bottles of coke, or a million dollars?"
"But then they'd say, 'Oh, a million bottles of coke' just to spite me, or because a million bottles of soda is worth more." (Huh?)
"Well, technically a million bottles of soda is worth more."
"Depends on the brand."
"True."
"Say a million bottles of Coke. That's like $3.5 million dollars or some crap, depending on where you buy it. So we'll set the price at $1.50. So $1.5 million. And then those people will still insist, out of spite or stupidity that they'd take the Coke. So where would they use the Coke? Are they going to spend it at Wal-Mart? Shit no."
"And then Coke would be like, 'Where did you get a million Cokes?' You're under arrest."
"Exactly. Dumb f---s." (When trying to make a point, the f-bomb always works best)
"I hate stupid people." (Self-incrimination)
"Me too. But they make for good conversation."
"True."

I can't continue. It's too horrible. The rest is filled with curses and late 90's-early 00's pop culture references (India Arie as a sexual icon? What was I thinking?). I thought enough time had passed, but now I think that will only happen if I'm dead and I leave it in my will to one of my great grandkids to read on their 18th birthday with the requirement that they burn it immediately afterwards. Even then I'll probably look down from heaven to see myself being laughed at generations later and the embarrassment will have stretched into eternity.

They say sometimes its best to let sleeping dogs lie. This one should have been clubbed and thrown into the woods.