Woooops!

Since it is still the International Month of Embarrassment, thought I'd share another little something with you all.



Once upon a time(1996 or so), in a land far away (Saskatoon) I was driving along with my good friend Margie. We were not only friends but roomates(2 among 4 or 5.) It was a Saturday afternoon and we were feeling pretty cheerful returning home after an afternoon of errands at the mall.

As we drove up 8th street, traffic slowed and we found ourselves at a standstill in a traffic jam. So we waited. I was in the drivers seat and as I was talking to Margie I saw in the car next to us someone I recognized. Now I don't know who my brain thought I was seeing but my hand went up faster than my brain could control it and started waving enthusiastically... now this wasn't just a "hey there friend" wave, it was an exuberant, emphatic, eyebrows raised, wide eyed, "it's so good to see you again my very dear old friend, I haven't seen you in ages" flailing arm kind of wave.

Now, that would have been alright had I been waving to an old friend, or a relative, or even a very pleasant aquaintance would have been passable. But the guy I was waving to was our landlord. (cue crack of thunder in background) Now, many people have very very nice landlords. I myself have had some very nice ones, but this guy, yeah, well, not so nice. I'm sure he was nice to his family and friends... but we were.... his renters, and that made us something, well something undesirable, to be avoided like pond scum, or reruns of 3rd Rock from the Sun. He made it pretty clear in his interactions with us that he plain didn't like us. (Hey, we were nice girls! )
So, I guess what I'm trying to say is that this guy that I was waving at like a maniac with a big goofy grin on my face was someone that we had this awkwardly cool "relationship" with, even small talk with him was painful.

You might think, "well good for you for being friendly", well sorry, no. A demure smile and a nice little wave of the hand would have been friendly, that would have been a nice gesture.

What my wave communicated was totally disproportionate to what the situation called for. And in the end, he just stared at us, made no response, and then I have no idea what he did after that as I didn't look back. (and we had to sit there next to his car for a bit until the traffic moved again, ugh.) I don't know if he even recognized us (hope not.) I have this little fear that perhaps he thought we were mocking him,(we weren't) because a split second after I started waving, my dear roomate Margie incredulously exclaimed "That's Kevin*!" and then began laughing, no, howling at my stupid gummy grin and frantic waving.

What I want to know is - who did I think that guy was? I still don't know.

*name change