Tuesday 14 December 2010

A series of awkward events

As most awkward moments pass by fleetingly (yet stay with me for many hours after!) they don’t warrant a full post, which is why this post will be a collection of some of the smaller yet more mortifying times of the last week.

Tidying up

Much of what I find awkward passes other people by, but this incident will make even the most shameless person squirm. This week I’ve had my first guests and of course when you gather a group of people together to be looked after by 2 strangers the first few conversations can be stilted and difficult. A practiced and experienced chalet girl will be able to cope and help the tea time conversation flow but a fledgling cleaner like myself will make a giant awkward tit of herself. The conversation went something like this:

Guest – “oh so have you come to this resort before?”

Me – “ yes, in fact I actually stayed with this very company that I’m working for now!”

Guest – “oh wow, what’s that like then?”

Me – “well its quite weird being on the other side of the tracks, it makes me wish I’d tidied up more when I stayed!”

Guest – “….oh….what are you trying to say….”

I followed this comment with a desperate back pedal and lots and lots of apologies, I don’t think they worked….the guest in question still seems pretty awkward around me!

Ski Safety

On the slopes there are two types of “looks” - cool and stylish (snowboarder) or warm and safe (badly fitting clothes and a helmet) and I definitely fall into the second category. So picture me looking like this, and lumbering along the road in my ski boots with all the grace and balance of a one legged giraffe. I had hit a particularly icy patch of road when a small and hobbitty French man approached me and started speaking fluent and scary French. I look around me in bewilderment assuming he must be talking to someone else and not the obvious tourist! However he then realises that of course the silly foreigner doesn’t speak his language and he changes to English

“Do you feel safe on your skis?”

“eerrr, yes?”

“well you obviously don’t feel safe in your ski boots, and I find this strange”

And then before I could even react to his odd comment he’d walked on his way to perplex and amuse more unsuspecting English girls!

The Wide Mouth Frog

You know those times when you tell what you think is an amazing joke but then no one else finds it funny? This happens to me quite often, for example

“what do you call a chicken in a shell suit?”

“an egg”

Yes, exactly. I can hear you NOT laughing. Well, the only thing worse than telling the awful joke is telling the joke that no one finds funny and then being asked to repeat the joke over and over because your friends think the silent reaction and your “way of telling it” is hilarious! The joke in question is the “Wide Mouth Frog Joke” I’m sure you can find it on YouTube and see how its meant to be told. The awfulness of this joke and my “way” has preceeded me and has culminated in a bar man actually asking to hear the “wide mouth frog joke” because apparently it’s so bad its good. Awkward. I just stood there and stared at him, and then swayed a little bit, and then turned a bright shade of puce.

Monday 6 December 2010

Tears and tantrums

There’s a thin line between awkwardness and pure humiliation, I think this lies at the point where others point cease to be embarrassed and start to pity you. Today I found, and crossed this line.

It was the first day all the staff were allowed out to ski and so lessons were arranged and groups formed. Bear in mind that although I’ve been living with all the staff for near 2 weeks I still wouldn’t feel easy enough to be a complete fool in front of them, I’m still endeavouring to make a good impression after “the face” incident. As this is the case I wanted to make a good impression with my skiing, I’m definitely not a brilliant skier but when I throw style and grace to the wind I can make it down most slopes!

In the morning i put on my new ski boots, did up all the fastenings and left the flat. Our flat is at the top of a very steep, very icy slope and so carrying skis, poles, helmet, goggles etc down this while wearing boots was a bit of a mission. On the way down I managed to, as only someone truly awkward can, pull all the muscles in both calves! However, I kept quiet and thought it would all go away as a group of 5 of us met the instructor and off we went up the bubble lift.

This was where the awkwardness began, trying to keep smiling and chatting whilst also trying to hold back tears of pain was problematic and difficult. Being in a social situation when you aren’t completely mentally there is a very difficult time in the life of any awkward girl, its equal to being in an amazing conversation and wanting to stay but also desperately needing the loo more than ever before! That nagging feeling that creeps into the front of your subconscious and makes you say stupid things because you weren’t listening carefully enough.

(side note: this happened to me once at work when I wasn’t listening carefully to the conversation held between my older and more sensible co-workers who were talking about the restaurant chain Zizi’s and one asked what the name meant and the idiot in the corner (me) shouts in the silence “PENIS” it was mortifiying!)

Anyway, back to our story; the lift came to the top of the mountain and everyone sprang onto the snow, everyone apart from me who hobbled like a drunken cripple on ice. It was at this point where I realised the pain had become too much and I probably wasn’t going to be able to ski for fear of being stuck halfway down a mountain and not being able to move. All of a sudden while having a group picture taken it all became too much for me and I burst into sad pathetic little frozen tears. This was the point where the situation went from awkward moment to humiliatingly pathetic, my friends who had seen me swell like the elephant man the week before now saw me breakdown at the top of a lift on beautifully sunny day. I can deal with embarrassed faces of my friends and colleagues but when the looks changed to sadness and pity I shrank into my shell and started to wish for a freak avalanche

Needless to say I put my goggles over my face (to hide my shame) and got the lift back down to the town centre. Anyway, the moral to my sad little tale is never cry at -15C because it burns like hell, never do all your fastenings up tight before walking down a hill and always listen carefully to your co-workers conversations!