Crossing the Border

I live about an hour away from the Canadian Border. Two friends recently came to visit me and had never been to Canada, so we took a day trip up. I warned them in advance that they'd need their passports.
Even though I've driven across the border 3 other times, I still get a little anxious when I drive up to the stop signs and little booths. Which makes for an awkward encounter with the Border Patrol person on duty... because I am really not a suspicious person. I try to be extra friendly and enthusiastic about my trip.
But I always forget the right response to "What is the purpose of your visit?" Tourism. Entertainment. Fun. Do those sound right? I list several of these, and mumble a few more until they ask how long I will be in the country. On the most recent trip, I said, "Just today." That was easy. What a relief. Then they hit me with the hard one! "Where are you from?" Now, my passport and license say one state. I went to school in another state, and I constantly forget I am no longer there, and I recently moved to a third state. So each of these is on the tip of my tongue, until I remember that it would be good to state the same thing that's on the document they are looking at. Then I remember that I'm not alone in the car, and my two passengers are from yet another state, so I have to specify who is from where. And like that, it's over!
I obviously built it up to be a bigger deal than it was. But I forget this as soon as I try to go from miles per hour to kilometers per hour, and when I return to the border going back into the US. The same thing happens. Except that this time there's new questions to throw me off, like, "What do you have in the car that you didn't have when you went into Canada?" The answer is, "Nothing," but it would be nice if they could phrase it differently. Maybe, "Do you have anything..." Because saying, "What do you have" makes me think they know something I don't know about the contents of my car. Anyway, then it's smooth sailing back on the roads of the good ol' US of A, and I can finally relax.

Happy Valentine's Day

Yesterday, which was my second full shift at work, I went on my first break! The staff room is nice, and I feel very cool when I punch in the secret code on the keypad to get into the room. Very exclusive. There's always people in the room, so I wasn't too sure how to go about my break. Do I introduce myself to the people, even though they are studying their papers and eating their food? And even though I may have met them already and just don't remember? Or do I sit down, pretend to be deep in the Arts section of the weekly paper? I went for the second option. Personally, when I am on break, I usually like to have some quiet, because that's what a break is for. To relax.
As I sat there, the three men who were eating were joking around with each other, but none of them said much to me, so I figured my choice had been just fine. Then a man came in who I think has Down syndrome, and works there every week or so. He had an aid with him, and I wasn't paying attention until the guys who were at the table with me starting talking to him. They were pretty familiar with each other, it seemed, and kept making jokes with each other back and forth. Then this man saw the Valentine's Day ad in the paper I was reading, and starting talking about Valentine's Day. Then, as I sat there continuing to read my paper, not particularly finding all of the guys' jokes very funny, this guy leaned over and kissed me! Saying, "She's my Valentine." Okay, he kissed my cheek, but all of the guys around the table thought it was absolutely hysterical. I'm not really sure what my face said, but I said, "Do you even know my name?" Which, judging by their laughter, they also thought was pretty funny. Maybe partly because none of them knew my name, and they knew it was my first day there. I told the man, and therefore the rest of them, and conversation continued.
After they joked around some more about this or that, the guy across from me made sure that I wasn't offended or embarrassed. Which I wasn't, and I told him I was simply surprised. Considering I didn't even see that he had been standing behind me. It occurred to me that instead of laughing at the new girl, which is really what they were doing, it would have been nice for one of them to make sure I was not offended in the first place. Or maybe at least introduced themselves to me, since I had proven myself to be a good sport. However, the rest of the break was finished in near silence on my part, as these men discussed their mutual love for vehicles with four-wheel drive.

First Day on the Job

Yesterday I went in to my new place of employment for a couple hours of training on the cash register. The girl who I trained with seemed nice, but very, very bored. Either to be training me, or to be working at the store, I wasn't really sure. One of the first customers we rang-up was an acquaintance of hers, and they had quite the conversation, which ended in my trainer telling the woman how ready she was to be "out of here." That's all well and good - she has every right to be bored of being a cashier. It is monotonous. But as a brand new employee, it's not something I really loved hearing... not very encouraging. But fine.
Then, as we walked around the store for an extensive tour (which may not sound necessary, but I assure you it was. This store is laid out in the most bizarre fashion. Today a customer was hanging around check-out waiting for his wife to show up, because he had lost her and was sure he would never find her if he went back into the aisles), we met up with countless members of the staff, whose names I forgot almost as soon as they spoke them. This girl stopped and had little chats with all of these people, and I stood there, feeling useless and... awkward. It wasn't as if I could go back to my register, because this was supposed to be my orientation for the job.
One of the girls we passed on our tour was obviously a friend of hers, and was keeping some secret about "what happened last night," which my trainer was apparently so desperate to hear that she had to get it out of her right then and there. Although just as apparent was the fact that this girl did not want to share this information with me, and so I slowly backed away and looked very interested in the assortment of cheeses behind me, mumbling something or other. Another guy she saw from across the produce section was a break-buddy, and she called out, "What time are we breaking?!" To which he replied, "The usual time." So did she really need to ask?
Which made me realize that perhaps all of these chats with friends were not exactly necessary, unavoidable parts of our tour (I had already begin to suspect), but opportunities for the girl to prove to me how popular she is there. Every time we came across someone, they looked at the two of us and I saw it dawn on their faces that I was the new girl, and I wondered what exactly that meant to them. Am I to be a burden, as I felt on this tour? Someone who asks annoying questions, and makes even worse mistakes? Or is it exciting to see that someone new is stepping in to help carry the busy workload, and maybe even be a new friend? I suppose they, and I, will have to wait and see.

Look-Alikes

I share an apartment with my sister and her boyfriend. This is not the awkward story, just a little bit of background. Throughout my childhood, no one ever (to my knowledge) would have believed that my sister and I were twins. Because we aren't. We're two years apart and... we look different. Her hair is darker, her face is a different shape, she is taller, etc... The only thing that people remarked upon were our big blue eyes, which told people we must be sisters. I remember my bus driver commenting on this very thing.
However, in recent years, and when we went to school together, we must have grown to look more and more alike. My sister's friends would sometimes start talking to me, believing I was their good friend, and my own friends did the same when they saw her around campus. It's one thing when a stranger thinks we look like twins - - they aren't looking at our faces day after day, so maybe they don't see the more subtle differences. But when our close friends began to confuse us?? It took me a while to get used to the idea that we look alike (at least to other people). For a while, though, if I saw one of her friends from a distance, I tried to avoid an encounter with them, I guess to spare them any confusion. That got a bit awkward.
Now to the current day: my sister has lived in this apartment for two and a half years, while I have only been here for 4 months. A few days ago, it snowed overnight and our town established an overnight parking ban for the roads. This meant that one of our downstairs neighbors, who owns an oversized pick up, decided not to move his truck to one of the town's parking garages as he was supposed to, but instead decided to put it in the parking lot behind our apartment. Each apartment in our building has one spot back there, and this neighbor's spot is taken by his other, smaller, car. Therefore, this man chose to park his car in the middle of our small lot, parking in 4 other vehicles, including my sister's boyfriend. The two of them leave for work every day at 7am, and this day was no exception. Except that when they got outside to the car, they found themselves blocked by this stupid truck.
At that point, it was too late to knock on the man's door, wake him up, and ask him to move his car, because it would have taken a lot of work to brush the snow of his car and maneuver the vehicles back there. So my roomies had to walk 40 minutes in the snow to work, where they arrived later than they needed to. I was appalled when I learned of this behavior, because it is just so un-neighborly to assume that your needs are a higher priority than others! Not only did he park in all of these people, but I myself had to move my car to a parking garage because we only have the one spot in back of our building, which took time and money. Why should this man get to park for free right behind his house if I can't?
Anyway, my sister called our landlord, who sorted things out by calling our neighbors up and asking what the situation was. I guess he figured that it wouldn't matter to anyone if he parked there, because there was so much snow that no one would be able to get out anyway. (Might I add that he is the person in charge of snowblowing the parking lot? Why wouldn't he snowblow so that people could get out instead of decreasing their chances even further by putting his truck there?)
So I guess the man and his wife felt bad by their behavior and wanted to apologize. I myself was home that day, and when I went out for a bit, I saw the woman outside the building. I was on the phone, but I said good morning to her as I passed by. She tried to say something to me, but I figured it was just "Hello." However, later that night, my sister got a call from our landlord so he could explain what the neighbors had told him. He also said, "The woman saw you this morning and tried to apologize/explain to you, but you just walked right by her. What's that about?" And my sister had no idea.
I had a good idea what it was about, though. She mistook me for my sister, who she was surprised to see after the landlord told her that she and her boyfriend both had to walk to work after being parked in. When I walked past her, ignoring her attempt to apologize, I am sure she thought that my sister was more upset than she actually was. Oops. She probably had no idea that they even had a third roommate, and if she did, she certainly did not know that it was a look-alike sister.

Healthy Markets

So I've been looking for a job for quite some time, which proved to be a very difficult endeavor in this city, even with my degree in sociology! Yes, I am being sarcastic, yes, I know, what did I expect to do with sociology? Anyway, finally, a light appeared at the end of this 22 week tunnel. I applied at a newly opened health food store, on the off chance that any positions opened up. It is not my usual store however. I prefer the natural foods co-op that is a 2 minute walk from my apartment, and seems to have lower prices and better sales. Though this new store is a 5/10 minute drive, it is bigger and cleaner and brighter, less crowded, and the staff seems far friendlier there. Anyway, when I dropped off my application, they told me there was, in fact, a cashier position, and asked if I would be interested. Most of the jobs I have applied at thus far have made a little more use of my degree, but this would at least be some customer service and cash-handling experience. And most importantly: income!!! (Though a bit meager.) So I went for a brief interview yesterday (another sociology major, now the front-end manager of this store interviewed me), and today, got a call back to cement the deal.
Which brings me to the awkward situation, though it is not too painful, merely ironic (coincidental?) and funny. I was at my co-op to pick up a few items for making sticky buns, and as I stood there, my phone rang. It was the front-end manager of the competition! I tried to find a quiet area in the store to talk, so that no one at the co-op would notice that I was being hired at the other store, and so that the woman on the phone wouldn't hear anything that would give away my betrayal of my new employer. Hahaha. I realize that this awkwardness was only apparent to me - - nothing either side could have heard would really have mattered - - but I was worried for a slight moment that if the manager heard a something like "organic Blue Sky soda" or "Kiss My Face lotion," she may have decided to go with an interviewee who was more dedicated to the store they were applying at.

The First Post

I've been wanting to create a blog in order to share my own awkward moments with people, and for other people to share their stories (or their friends') with me.
I have had my share of awkward experiences, but after a few moments of initial embarrassment, I usually appreciate the humor of the situations. I share with my friends, and they repay me with anecdotes of times in which they lacked social graces.
What defines a moment as awkward? I think it is based on the norms set by society, and when someone breaks these expectations, the awkward-ness appears. So why do so many people experience this? Is it because they briefly forget (or never knew) the norms and act on impulse? Or do they choose awkwardness above normalcy because they want to be different? Obviously every story is different, so perhaps it is a combination of these things... I don't know. But I would like to hear your stories.