Ok, honestly, what if your baby looks like this?

Posted by The Awkward List in Uncategorized

121. When you get introduced to an ugly baby, and are forced to fake an “Oh my god, he’s so cute” face

Some people have a real fear of having an ugly baby. Of course nobody really says it, but its one of those things that people wonder.. I’m assuming. I’m not a mother, and will most likely never be but why wouldn’t you wonder things like: What if they develop artistic abilities vs. technical ones? Will they be left-handed? And if you wonder those things, what is wrong with imagining what their height or level of ugliness will be?

Real mothers out there would defend against this by saying that they would love the child no matter what he or she looks like and that’s fine and that I’m being shallow blah blah blah, I’ll read and reply to your comments anyway, but that isn’t my argument here!

Imagine the following:

Your friend greets you at her front door and says to you,

“Hey, I’m so excited you’re here! Come on, he is playing in the den right now,” with a huge smile.

“Awesome, I can’t wait to meet him,” you reply, excitedly.

“There he is!”

And you’re all like:

“Oh my–” you say, half choking on your own saliva, “he’s ad–adorable,”

Awkward, right?

Mothers get offended when you call their ugly babies ugly for some reason, I’ve seen it happen. At a Walmart (yes, it always happens at Walmart) while waiting in line to pay, a woman looked at the stroller of the lady behind her, and said:

“Oh my gosh! Look at you.. your clothes are so cute,” with her eyebrows up and in that weird voice people make when they look at babies (yes, we all know you have one too..).

“Isn’t she? Thank you,” the mother said.

“Her clothes really are!” the other lady replied.

Now I’m not sure if the other lady meant it in a mean way because quite frankly I don’t understand women and their multi-dimensional hidden messages, but I did catch a glimpse of the kid, and she looked like she had a wig on or something, nothing too weird. What happened after got awkward, FAST.

“Uh, excuse me?!” *insert a Z-snap here*

“OH, oh no. I’m sorry I didn’t mean that– No. Sorry,” the other lady said to the mother.

“Yeah, I’m sure yours were mini Angelina Jolies,” the angry mother replied.

I was behind them, and I left. Crazy stuff goes down at Walmart, yes I saw that video of someone getting run over by a shopping cart. Or was that Best Buy? Either way I was gone.

In my defense, both women were large.

I’ve been introduced to plenty of babies ugly and cute, and it usually doesn’t get too awkward because I follow a specific protocol.

1. Avoid making a face like this:

2. Do not assume a gender. Nowadays people dress boys in pink and girls in blue sometimes in order to stay away from traditional gender roles. If you see the kid playing with a Tonka truck, DO NOT FALL FOR IT. Don’t even take earrings or bows as hints. Ok, that may be a little extreme but its better to be safe than sorry.

3. Know what to say: Compliment, ask a question, and smile. Compliments can be directed toward the mother or the child, questions can be about the child’s age, where the child was born, but stay away from questions like “Who is the father?” and stuff.

Easy.

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To look at pictures of ugly babies on TheChive, click here!

When Texting Gets Awkward

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Texting can get very awkward very fast. It might have something to do with how tough it is to convey tone, or maybe just because as soon as you press “Send” there is absolutely nothing that can stop the darn thing.

Check out the following:

I don’t think she heard you, bro

Posted by The Awkward List in Awkward and tagged with , , ,

120. When you try to speak to someone who is wearing earphones, and you get ignored.

Except for two people (you know who you are) nobody really checks out my About page. But don’t worry; I’m not complaining about it or anything.. I’m using that as an excuse to tell you a little about my “normal” days.

I’m posting this through the handy WordPress app for iPhone while sitting on a bus. Here, I’ll take a picture:

20120501-210559.jpg

I’m not sure if it added since I just see a bunch of code over this, but let’s hope for the best.

You see, it’s difficult for me to not notice little details, and I only blame this blog for 10% of it because I’ve been like this for as long as I can remember.

1. When your car embarrasses you: Yes, I know we shouldn’t be concerned about material things in life, but sometimes it’s funny to do so. My sister and I make fun of my car because of one or two things that are wrong with it. Here are the one or two things:

1- I can’t tell what radio station it’s playing since the display is busted.
1- The trunk won’t open.
1- Sometimes the gas cap door refuses to close after fueling.
2- The windshield wipers make visibility worse and stutter on the way down.
2- It screeches when I turn on the air conditioning.
2- You hear a DING!!! when you turn it off

And it’s newest thing is squeaking when you start it. It wakes up my neighbors. And that’s how I started my day.

2. I drove over to the Metro station and had to park next to a guy who thought the lines were diagonal and forced me to take some space on the one next to mine. And now the OTHER person is probably going to go home and blog about how some guy doesn’t know how to park inside a parking space.

3. On my way to the ticket pass machine, I pulled out a bunch of change from my pocket in front of a homeless person that asked for change and I had to explain to him that I needed it to get to school and back. He didn’t understand the second time I explained so I gave up and walked away feeling super awkward.

4. I was working my way out of the train, when I was blocked by a girl with a HUGE bicycle.

Ok, maybe not that big.

So I look at her, and say:

“Excuse me, is this your exit also?”

No response.

“Umm, hello?”

She just keeps looking out the door, bobbing her head slightly.

Two other people looked over at me, and then I realized that I was trying to talk to someone that has earphones on. Awkward. Then I saw another lady try to talk to her, this one actually tapped her shoulder to get her attention once we were at the bus stop.

5. Later in the day, in class, my professor was explaining something on chapter 7 in our textbook. I did not understand one of his diagrams, so I raised my hand and after being ignored for a few minutes, I asked him what one of the values was.. and he replied:

“Oh its in your textbook”

“Oh, sorry.. my book doesn’t have it,” I said preparing myself for what was about to happen.

“What do you mean it doesn’t have it?” he asked.

“My book skips chapter 7. It goes from chapter 6 to chapter 8,” I said while slowly sinking into my chair.

The whole class laughed. Yes I know it wasn’t funny, but in this class even swatting away a mosquito brings amusement. Trust me.

“Psst.. its 80 Newtons,” I heard a girl whisper behind me.

Thank you, girl that sits behind me!

“Of course it has chapter 7,” the professor stated.

“Oh,” I said. And pretended to finally see it.

The whole class laughed again.

Now let me show you guys the Table of Contents:

Ok, you can barely see it but it goes from 6 to 8!

All of that took place in about one quarter of my day, so I’ll let you imagine the rest. Sure, the classroom experience was a bit embarrassing but eh, it was funny afterward. Way afterward. When I forgot about it actually. Now its embarrassing again.

Great.

Anyway, thanks for reading a little about my day.. Have an awkward one, everyone :)

Edwin

Changing lanes, then having to merge back in

Posted by The Awkward List in Awkward and tagged with , , , ,

I had a friend in Michigan that would not believe me that I drove around in 5-7 lane freeways here in Los Angeles. One of the freeways (the 5 Fwy) is expanding around here, and they kicked out a bunch of people from their homes in order to have room to add lanes.. hey, its a sacrifice we must make if we want to get to places faster instead of waiting in traffic.

People are always in a rush around here, so it feels nice sometimes to watch frustrated drivers through the window of the Metro rail, and wave at them as you zoom past them. But there are certain places that I need to get to that have no train routes. And that means only one thing.. take out the car.

Driving on the freeways isn’t as bad as people make it seem though, as long as you avoid rush hour, you’re fine. But even if traffic is awesome, people still decide to rush. A 65 MPH speed limit freeway turns into a game of “Don’t  hit the old people” as you zoom past them at 80+ mph speeds.

So yes, people do a lot of lane changing. A lot of it.

Imagine you’re behind a slow minivan, and want to pass them up. You change over to the right, and start to speed up when suddenly you see one of these:

“Oops.”

And there you go back in again. It is hilarious when it happens to other people that are trying to pass you, but when it happens to me it is extremely awkward.

A car followed me once I moved over to the right, and we both got pushed back right to where we were. Its just one of those things where you pretend that its no big deal but still refuse to make eye contact with anybody.

119. When a tiny piece of food flies out of your mouth while speaking

Posted by The Awkward List in Awkward and tagged with , , , ,

“Hey Bill, so yeah *tiny piece of the Dorito you’re currently chewing flies out* … uhh.. sorry about that.”

Super awkward.

Have you ever been forced to ignore such a thing in the past? Like when you’re having a conversation… –No. I know how to make this even more awkward:

Suppose you’re ON A DATE,

and you’re currently bragging about your fantasy football league. Of course, you actually think your date is extremely interested, when suddenly a small piece of your french fry flies out and lands on the table. Here is usually how such a scenario goes in real life.. you ignore it. Yes, I know you do, just admit it.

If you’re on a date with me, however, things would go a bit different.

Psyche!

They’d be the same.

I’d ignore it. Or if I really like you I’d laugh about it before pretending it never happened. Well first dates are awkward in general anyway.. do you guys remember this post on it?

But going back to the whole food thing, do you think its a matter of manners? I mean people speak when they have food in their mouths all the time! Yet I was told to not speak with my mouth full when I was growing up. I see it in movies, TV shows,and besides, women do it (I always imagined a woman coming up with all the Manner Rules). Even though the sound of a muffled voice can be irritating for some, that should be the least of your worries.. you should focus on the possible missiles flying out of the person’s mouth especially if it is something grainy or dry, like cookies or ..rice. Haha.

Awkward!

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Here’s a story posted on the awkward topic of “Listening in other people’s conversations” on Awkwardlist’s Facebook Page (Like!) by my blogger friend Angie from angiewest.wordpress.com:

Using the phone on the porch and saying something the neighbors overhear. 

(I’ve faded out some parts to show you what you’d be hearing while eavesdropping)
“I’m telling you Angie, I’ve got a bad feeling. Promise me you’ll be careful.”

“No, ma, no dont you say that. The last time you had a bad feeling, my house burned down. You keep your bad feelings to yourself. I’m at the end of my rope as it is.”

“I’m just saying be careful is all.”

“Careful? Forget it. Maybe I’ll just buy a bag of crack and stay awake and on guard for the next week.”

(House burned down while I was sleeping)

*neighbors cough and slowly begin to back away toward their own front door*

Oh. Hell. I’m outside. And I just said….
Wait, I was kidding. I don’t even know where to buy crack. I’ve never ever in my life touched a drug –oh forget it. Guess they won’t be coming over for coffee anytime soon.

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Yay for neighbors! Hahaha :)

Why size matters

Posted by The Awkward List in Awkward and tagged with , , , , ,

Accepted awkward moments are those that happen often, and are considered normal to some extent, so they are therefore in danger of becoming extinct from the awkward realm. A couple of these are observed in almost every situation we are in.. whether we are in a class room, or eating with some friends.

Let’s consider the example of the pizza box. When we first open a pizza box, what do you first? Well yeah, you look at it; but if multiple people look at it at the same, the size of the slices is really what is being looked at. Keeping this in mind, consider this: when you order a pizza at a sit down restaurant, there are several of these accepted awkward moments.

1) Who is going to grab the first slice? -Awkward mostly only if there was an exchange of eye contact beforehand

2) How big is the slice the first person got? -You would notice if the person got the biggest slice on the pie. It is especially awkward if the person reached across the pizza in order to get the biggest slice. Keep it safe and get the one closest to you.

3) Reaching for a second slice? -If there are 5 friends and 8 slices, those who are very hungry (and happen to eat slowly) will be looking at you if you are going for another slice. If you’re the reacher, avoid eye contact. If you’re the hungry dude, look at his plate; if he still has the crust left, he is officially a jerk.

Of course, there are more moments like those with just that example (e.g. what happens to the pepperoni that fell off and is on the tray?), but at least you get the idea.

Other things? Yes there are other accepted awkward moments.

The List:

1) When looking for a parking spot, and it looks like you found one but its actually a small car parked there. What sucks is that you slowed down for it, and the driver behind you noticed.

2) Accidentally staring at couples when they are made up of a very big (tall or fat, either works) and a very small person. Or when the woman is taller than the man (I personally don’t see anything wrong with it but it was insisted that I include it on here).

3) When you are on a walkway and realize that you forgot something and must turn around. I don’t really have a technique for making it seem normal, sorry.

4) Arriving at a shop or restaurant that is closed. They wait for you to park, and walk to their front door and then tell you that they are closed through hand signals. If there are other victims arriving as well, you try to be nice and tell them that it’s closed; but they just have to figure it out themselves by pulling on the locked door. “Why!? I told you..”

Eh, we all do it anyway.

The extras in a movie

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Have you ever been an extra in a movie?

Movie extras are forced to live through awkward moments. Sometimes they get paid for it, sometimes it is them that pay, and sometimes they do it for free.

When I’m watching a movie, and I see a crowd of people in a scene, like in a sidewalk or a bar, I can’t help focusing on the fact that these guys are acting. They are pretending to have conversations with each other and drinking ginger ale instead of beer at bars, pretending to be these cool people that everyone wants to be around.

What do these people talk about? Do they really say “watermelon” or “carrots and peas” over and over? Do they even have real conversations?

The one person that walks in front of the camera during a street view scene. You know what I’m talking about here? These people’s job is to walk and act normal. Acting normal is difficult, think of how awkward it is to act normal in front of a police officer.. yes, NOW you know what I’m talking about!

Is there a minimum level of attractiveness for these parts? Because I have not yet seen a scene where the extras are ugly to look at. Actually, I might be the only one here that actually notices them at all.. which is sad, both for them and for me.

Next time you’re watching a TV show or a movie, take a look at the extras and notice what they are doing.. and think about how awkward they must be feeling trying to “act normal”