Awkward List

Awkward moments and more weird stuff

tips

5. When you push instead of pull (a door)

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This probably won’t be the last post about doors. These magnificent inventions have been around for a very long time and yet we cannot seem to fully understand them. We have awkward automatic doors [post coming up soon], we misunderstand what proper door etiquette really is, and the most popular human error: understanding the  push/pull signs.

These signs are usually posted on doors, but I can definitely see why people miss them. They are usually small, and the font usually is adjusted to fit in with the overall theme of the establishment (C’mon people, imagine the word “pull” spelled out in the font that is used on the Chinese food “kari out” boxes) and they seem to blend in with everything else. So what do we do? As we approach the door handle, we think to ourselves:

“Oh, what does that say? Oh wait, I don’t need to bother reading anything. I got what I want from this restaurant, I’m happy. I’m loving life. And why bother to double check if the red octagon sign reads “STOP” on the way home. I am too good for this.”

Pop. Rattle.

The door won’t open.

So what to do? You pulled on the door and it didn’t open. Now you would think you know what the obvious thing to do in this situation is, but no ladies and gentlemen. We look around nervously to see if anybody saw our mistake and then we pull again.

Ha ha. Stubborn door.

If you’re with someone else at the moment, they are the best reminder that the best option to get yourselves out of the restaurant alive, you must push instead. Of course, this other person has no idea of what you’re going through! You have better things to think about at the moment,

“Did anybody see me?” and sometimes we even consider that the door might be broken.

 

 

 

Why can’t we just have revolving doors everywhere?

 

 

Now let’s get serious.

There are probably real reasons why we are always pushing instead of pulling. I mean, pushing is a lot easier than pulling (unless you’re a tow truck), but what I believe is a better reason that accounts for this situation is that the words look too much alike. PUSH and PULL are both four-letter words, they both begin with P, their second letter is U and they take up the same amount of space on a sign. It’s almost as those freeway signs (those of us in Los Angeles, know what I’m talking about). The words NORTH and SOUTH look the same and it can be the cause of missing the on-ramp.

To finalize, here is a real tip for you to remember next time you are approaching a door handle. It has been proven over and over, with very few exceptions; so you should be good for about 90% of the time:

If the door handle is vertical, it means pull. If the door handle is horizontal (bar), it means push. (If anybody thinks of a clever way to remember this, please let me know)

Fine print: This tip does not apply to automatic doors, car doors, or revolving doors.

I was trying to find a picture to give you a visual of this, but I had no luck. I’ll snap a couple of pictures next time I’m out. While people awkwardly look at me.

2. Making eye contact with a stranger

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It has been a long day at a grocery store, you are tired and you just want to get home. You reach for your keys, which take a long while to finally reach (and you begin wondering why it is so hard to put your hands in your pocket. Weight gain? NO!). You put everything away and reach for your car door, which happens to lightly tap the car next to yours.

Oops.

No big deal, right? Wrong! You casually looked inside just in case someone was inside, and yes. What is worse is that you’ve made eye contact with him. What to do now? Well sorry, I can’t help you there; I’m actually supposed to be writing about the awkwardness of making eye contact with a stranger.

You see, what makes this an awkward situation is the the eye contact. You could’ve just hit the car, and gone right inside and left. But no. You stayed and looked inside. Think about those other times when you accidentally make eye contact with someone you don’t know. Like in a restaurant.

You’re at your table, and across the room, you happen to make eye contact with someone else across the dining area. Alright, it happens. Now let’s say it happens again. You can almost feel it now. The awkward is creeping in.

It happens all the time. Do you ever fear walking toward someone while you’re on a sidewalk because of how uncomfortable it feels? It isn’t because of your clothes don’t match, or because you smell funny; it is because you won’t know what to do once you’re face to face with this other pedestrian. Do you look at her in the eye? Do you say “hi” without feeling like a creep? What to do, what to do. You can always refer to #1 and just hope you don’t get caught pretending to be on your cell phone..

Yeah! Just pretend to be on your cell phone.

63. Noticing that you're out of toilet paper

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…When it is too late.

La la la. . . going to the bathroom can be an enjoyable thing for certain people. They’ve come up with different names for that very important task. Heck, there is even a Toilet Paper Day (August 26th)! Anyway, it isn’t only known as “pooping” anymore, it is also known as many other things now. Taking a dump, dropping a bomb, releasing the brownies, dropping the kids off at the pool, unloading the truck. Plus some other ones that include stronger language.

However, one thing can definitely ruin that experience. After you sit down, begin to check your text messages and emails on your iPhone; and start playing Angry Birds and posting on your friend’s pictures on Facebook. . your eye might catch a glimpse of something horrible: A BROWN PAPER TUBE with a lonely sheet of toilet paper hanging from it that will definitely not get the job done. HA! And you considered yourself to be a risk taker. Good luck.

That moment; that instant when you see that your mind begins to think at a speed of 100,000 frames per second (I just made that up, so please no harsh criticism). A slow motion of this would look like this:

Oh no why didn’t I check? Can I tear up the tube and use that? Maybe there are spare rolls around here somewhere. Is it possible to clean with water? What if I just wash my hands afterwards? Receipts in my pocket! No that’s a bad idea. I’ll check the cabinet. Crap I can’t get up without making a mess. Dang it what did I eat!?

So what do you do in this situation? Uhh. . . well, you could always sacrifice a sock, I guess. Hey I don’t know. I thought my job was to just explain the moment!

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59. When automatic doors don’t open automatically

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A lot of things happen at Walmart. Today, I went in there with one goal in mind: To find a lint roller. You know, one of those things that you roll around your clothes to get rid of the lint? Yeah, one of those.

Well anyway, I went up to the door that said “Exit” hoping that it would let me in even though it was meant for people to get out. And it didn’t. So I went up to the door that was labeled “Enter” and it didn’t open. So I backed up, and pretended like I was normally approaching the door once again, thinking that maybe the door sensor might be aiming a little further away. The door wouldn’t move.

So I stood there, checked the time. Yup, the store was open. I jumped up and down, and waved at the little black box on top of the door. I pushed a button that was up there, I touched the door (hey, I don’t know! I’m new to this town. It might be all hi-tech.).

Nothing.

I even said please and the darn thing wouldn’t even respond. I could see people inside playing around with the vending machines, minding their own business. I even saw the old lady the checks the receipts glance over and turn away again. But then, an old man approached the door. I would’ve been mad it if it opened for him and not for me but no luck. It didn’t open.

“Damn door!” he said, and hit the crack between the two sliding doors, “Technology my butt!”

. . and it opened. Awesome! He walked in, and we both went our separate ways.

And as for my lint roller, after half an hour of asking around and going from the pharmacy area, to the grocery department, to the health and beauty section, I finally found a nice lady who told me to use my tongue to get rid of the lint.

I think she was serious.

Awkward.

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55. When you can hear people doing it

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It is late at night, and you are finally getting ready to go to sleep. For two nights in a row, you’ve been awakened at night by a tapping noise coming from the apartment next to yours but cannot identify it in your half-asleep state –but not tonight. Tonight you will sleep like a baby. Teeth brushed, pajamas ready, and the alarm is set. You’ve been waiting for this moment all day. Suddenly you hear something. What? A song, a soft jazzy tune coming from your neighbor’s place. A voice begins to sing, and you can recognize it. Oh yes, you know this song:

I’ve been really tryin’ baby
Tryin’ to hold back this feeling for so long. . .

This late? Why would anyone be playing a song at this –Oh. Oh no.

. . . Let’s get it on, sugar
Let’s get it on
Whoo, ooh, ooh . . .

And there they go.

Whether the sound is coming from the apartment next door, or from the floor above yours, such a situation is just plain uncomfortable. What makes matters worse is that if it happens every night, you eventually start to become familiar with the sequence. Either a soft tapping noise that gets louder and louder, loud noises and a lot of squeaking, or it could happen like just like the above scenario. You’ll know the pattern, duration, intensity, etc. If you ever have overnight guests, and they’re about to complain about it, you might even tell them,

“Oh, don’t worry, they’ll be done in about 3 and a half more minutes.”

“How do you know?” they’ll ask.

“Uh. . .”

But what are you supposed to do? You can ask them to stop, ask them to keep it down, or let them be. Asking them to stop or keep it down is pretty awkward (and it isn’t very nice), but if you let them be, they won’t know that anybody can hear them and they will keep going at it for a while. Decisions, decisions.

. . . Just let yourself go
Oh, baby
Let’s get it on . . .

(Song: Let’s Get It On, Marvin Gaye)

52. When it sounds like you farted

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(. . but you didn’t).

Talk about awkward! Sometimes I stick to leather seats in cars (I’m not sure why). It doesn’t bother me very much, but whenever I try to move in my seat I hear a loud farting sound. It isn’t that bad when I’m by myself, but whenever other people are around things get a little difficult and I, just like the general public, have to make an important instant decision to the best of my ability (which may depend on several factors including, but not limited to: current mood, if I’m sleepy, hunger level, and environment). These decisions may affect the way other people look at you, and if you’re trying to make a good impression you don’t want to mess this up. This is more common than you think, your shoe may decide to make a farting sound if it rubs against something else, your chair might move and make the noise. .  It happens, folks. Here are your options:

[Insert fart sound here]

A) Pretend it never happened. If you were talking, keep doing it. If you were just sitting somewhere silently when the noise was heard, do not freeze nor make awkward eye contact with anybody, because you would be setting yourself up for failure. Just act like nothing happened, and eventually people will forget it.

B) Announce the truth. You hear people say “I have to fart.” all of the time, you are probably familiar with these people. I’ve tried this option before when I lightly kicked a bag and it made a farting sound, so I put my hands up and said “It was the bag, not me.” which made everybody suspicious. It didn’t work for me, but it might work for you. Try it and tell me how it goes.

C) Try to replicate the sound. One of the more common ones is just to try to make the sound again, to demonstrate something other than your butt made the noise. A word of caution: sometimes you cannot replicate the sound and you’ll just look weird trying to do it.

D) Blame someone else. You can’t go wrong with this! Actually you can. . .  hmm.. Nevermind.

37. Questioning the spelling of a commonly used word

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Have you ever been writing something, like an essay for a school project or maybe just a new blog post, and then forget the spelling of a word? The spell check feature of my browser or word processor usually takes care of it but there have been times when I’ve experienced this awkwardness. Here, let me explain this through a little mental experiment:

In your mind, you see the sentence: We have many things in common.

You might not visualize it, perhaps you hear it in your mind. Or maybe you just know the sentence, and it arrives to your mind in one instant thought. . . eh, whatever your mind decides.

We have many things in common.

You spell it out, and if you don’t have access to a spell check program, you might start to question the spelling of the word common. You say it to yourself once, then you say it again. Suddenly you’ve said it four or five times and then the word sounds weird! Common? Common.. common.. common. Common!? C’mon, people. Say it to yourself: Common! Common. Writing this is getting a little difficult for me now, I think I should stop typing (and saying) that word. Even the word seems strange now.

So THEN, your mind begins to really get confused about it. Before you know it, you’re questioning the existence of the word. If you don’t stop there, you will end up questioning the existence of every word out there and you may never see the world in the same way again! Ever!

O.K. maybe I exaggerated a little bit there.

The thing I’ve discovered recently, is that you can do that with just about ANY word out there. Pick a word and say it to yourself 10 times and try spelling it out. The word itself will appear odd, maybe the letter A begins to stop looking like the letter A (or at least what we think it should look like) and we might have to review our Sesame Street episodes to let it sink into our brains once again.

So I have a tip for you writers out there. If you thought writer’s block was a problem, you’ve never come across this word hiccup. Consider yourself fortunate for that. In order to prevent it from happening, you must learn to acknowledge it. Notice it when it starts to happen and stop trying to bring sense into it, trying to “fix” it will only make it worse. Trust me on this one, I’ve ruined perfectly awesome words for a couple of days before.

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33. Getting hit on

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First of all, I would like to apologize to the guy from Starbucks, I will tell the internet about his awkward moment. He is the main character of today’s story:

After spending 6 hours in the university library, I decided to take a break and head out into the real world to get a cup of coffee at another Starbucks (we have one on our campus). It was finals week, and I was bored to death by the American government studies, I just needed to see things other than the black Times New Roman letters in my American Government textbook and my unreadable notes.

I arrived with a big bag filled with notes, a laptop, charger, pens, highlighters.. you know, the student essentials. After putting my things on a chair next to a man (who was talking on the phone), I noticed a very attractive woman standing by the teas and other stuff that Starbucks sells. She must have been in her mid-twenties, tall with long dark hair, and wearing a black dress. I asked her if was waiting in line. She said no, and I proceeded onto ordering coffee from the tall barista guy.

Since ordering plain coffee takes around 10 seconds, I stepped back and waited for it before heading back to my chair. Then I saw the cell phone man approaching the woman. Was he doing it? Yes he was! He was going to go up to her and talk to her. Big move. [Whenever I tell this story, I like to imagine that everybody put their coffee down, the music stopped playing, and all eyes focused on the man about to do what no other man in the shop was willing to do: talk to “her”.] I must have been around 3 feet away from all of the action.

“Hey” said the man.

“Hi.” the woman politely replied, with a smile.

“Ordering some coffee, huh?”

“No, I’m just waiting” said the woman

“Oh,” said the man, “Do you come here often?”

Do you come here often? DO YOU COME HERE OFTEN?!? He asked her one of those questions that just give it away! It’s like saying “How YOU doin’ . . .” At this point, I gave up all hope on the man. He pretty much flipped a coin and was either about to face rejection or success.

“Sorry. I’m actually waiting for my boyfriend.” the woman said, with an “I feel sorry for you” look on her face.

“Oh, cool. Your boyfriend.” –awkward.

“Yeah,” she said, pointing at the guy taking orders at Starbucks “that’s him.”

At this moment, I looked at the barista guy, and he just smiled at the man and started to shake his head a little. I felt embarrassed for the man. He just walked back to his chair without saying another word. I didn’t know how to pretend that I hadn’t just witnessed something like that. I was hoping for the moment to end when, suddenly..

“Edwin!”

I heard my name from the other side of the shop.

“Edwin! A tall coffee?”

Oh, right. My coffee. Those 10 seconds seemed way too long.

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