Monday, February 28, 2011

Embarrassing

Where to even begin. I've had so many embarrassing moments it's hard to know where to start. Let's start with last Thursday, February 24thWhat I don't have of that day is a picture of me embarrassing myself at the ID check point at Eielson. Every morning I have to drive through the main gate and show my civilian ID. It takes five seconds, I get my uber polite, "you have a nice day now ma'am" from the cute base boy, and I'm happy.


However, this particular Thursday morning, as I drove onto base I remembered that I hadn't brushed out my hair after the usual blowdrying and hair spraying back at ol' Jillian Square. Not wanting the cute base boy to think I had just rolled out of bed, I grabbed my brush for a quick hair repair. I should have left well enough alone. The brush snagged in my hair. I continued to pull on the brush only for it to become further entangled. On the left side of my head. The side of my head that said cute base boy would see. Lovely. What was I going to do now? Hold the brush as if I meant to be brushing my hair while getting my id checked? Leave the brush snarled in my hair and pretend like I didn't know it was there? Ask him for scissors? 


Luckily I managed to disentangle myself moments before my car rolled up to the kiosk. Of course the side of my head now looked like a rat's nest where the entanglement homicide had taken place and a thousand times worse than if I had left things as is. Glad that went well. 

Unfortunately this wasn't the first time I embarrassed myself at the daily check point. One particularly frigid negative 30oddsomething morning my window was frozen shut. Pressing the automatic button did nothing but make a pitiful click, click sound as nothing happened. I looked up to see the cute base boy mouthing words at me. Oh, open the door. Oh, of course. I opened the door, handed him my id, he looked at it suspiciously and handed it back to me. I dropped it. Great. 


I tried to open the door wider so I could scramble on the ground for my card only for the door to smack into the stone wall of the kiosk, leaving me 6 inches to grope underneath the car with my ungloved hand for the lost card. Meanwhile I'm acutely aware of the line of cars backing up behind me. I finally feel the hard plastic, not because I can actually feel since my fingers are numb, but I felt it slide across the ice. Two failed attempts before I was able to grab the card and close my car door. If only I could get the heck out of there saving what little dignity remained. I pressed the gas peddle and due to the lack of traction, my wheels spun out of control and I went nowhere. I could hear the sound of toilets flushing away that last scrap of dignity. The base boy stares at me out his window, unamused. I heard his voice as I inched away: "you have a good day now, ma'am."

2 comments:

  1. Funny, Funny, Funny. I actually had tears with this one. Your amazing Heather. Laura Wilson

    ReplyDelete
  2. Thanks, Laura! Glad you're enjoying my follies. : )

    ReplyDelete