The Break Room (another TAT adventure)

Keeping in tune with my last Totally Awkward Tuesday post I am going to talk to you about another awkward moment from my days at the movie theater. Today is a two-for you lucky ducks you! I've decided that since I have TWO fantastical moments pertaining to the same room (read on, I'll get to explaining soon), I will go ahead and share them both with you today. This is actually more for me. I'd like to spare myself the agony of rehashing old memories that quite frankly, aren't looked upon fondly (I say that, but really, they do make me chuckle...now).

As you know, well you WOULD know if you read my blog regularly. ahem.

As I was saying, as you know I worked at one of Juneau's two movie theaters. From about the age of 15 until I was 18 (with a brief stint at 19 when I came home from college, but I digress. I do that often in case you haven't noticed.).

I started out working at the theater in the concession stand. Later I was promoted to usher duties and then I got to work the coveted box office. These were not monetary promotions, the only raise I got was in my pride. We hated working in concession, for obvious reasons (the smell of popcorn was permanently scorched into my nostrils, for one).

My first supervisor (I won't name names. You never know who'll come across this blog!) was rather creepy, OK maybe creepy isn't very nice. Well, yeah, creepy. There's no mincing words here. I'll explain: He was a dork, to put it bluntly. He was tall and lanky, had big square framed glasses and held his too tight black jeans up with big belt buckles while tucking in whatever polo shirt he was wearing for the day. On top of that his jeans were tapered...ew. He was older, maybe in his late 20s or early 30s. Think: D&D, Magic and trench coats. This supervisor tried desperately to fit in with his employees which only served to drive him further away from us.

To make a weird situation worse, he appeared to have a crush on each of the girls at one point in time. So occasionally we'd catch him staring. Once while I was washing the nacho cheese cooker in the back he rubbed up a little to close for my personal comfort as he passed behind me to get by. *shudder*

Eventually he was transferred out to the larger theater in the valley (we all had a huge sigh of relief!) and my buddy Sky became the new supe.

*Side note* I hear he married one of his employees from the valley theater. She is a girl I went to high school with. No joke!

None of us actually came into work already dressed for work. The uniform was black pants, button up white shirt and a maroon vest (later they added bow ties, THANK GOODNESS that was after I was outta there!). Most of my cohorts were like me, we kept our uniforms in our lockers upstairs in the break room and brought them home every couple days for a washing. We would lock the door and change there.

The break room was dingy and at the top of the stairs right next to the entrance of the 2nd story theater. The door to the break room had those hinges that automatically swing shut behind you, so if we weren't careful the door would slam loudly behind us (we were constantly being told never to forget this while a movie was showing in the upstairs theater, apparently movie goers found the loud BANG disturbing). The room consisted of decades old recliners, a wall of small lockers and an old desk. The walls were lined with old movie posters and the carpet hadn't been changed since the 1960s (my guess, but really it could have been longer). At one end of the room was the "cup room." A door that usually stayed locked until we needed to get more cups for the concession stand.

It was in this room that my two stories take place.

Awkward Story Number One:
I bounded up the stairs in my usual happy-go-lucky way. It was a great day to be alive, I was 15 and it was summer time. The fact that I had a crush on one of my co-workers made me LOVE coming to work, well at least on the days we worked together. Today was one of those days and I was on top of the world. I was humming some song to myself as I let myself into the break room. As usual I locked the door behind me and walked to my locker. I noticed the cup room door was open but didn't think anything of it because we'd been doing monthly inventory the night before.
I pulled out the usual pieces of clothing needed for a night on the job and tore off the summer frock I had on. I proceeded to sing to myself (it was roughly 1995, I'm guessing it was either a Salt N Peppa tune or maybe Boyz II Men, I really dunno, this is purely speculation at this point). I got dressed and headed back downstairs to flirt with my crush before the shift started.
I had just arrived at the bottom of the stairs when I realized I needed to talk to my supervisor about a shift swap but no one knew where he was. Oh well, I'll talk to him later I thought to myself. About 30 seconds later we hear the break room door slam shut and said supe starts walking down the stairs carrying a stack of....cups.
Wait wuh?
That's when it hit me. Crap! I'd just gotten dressed while creepy guy here was in the next room with the door wide open! He never admitted that he saw me. But I swear later on that night I heard him humming the same tune I'd been singing to myself earlier.

OK, so that was more "freaky deeky" than awkward. But my face was burning as my coworkers figured it out for themselves what had happened.


Awkward Story Number Two:
I had just opened the door to the break room to get dressed for my shift. When, what to my wondering eyes should appear, a moon of a guy which was really his rear!
"Holy crap!! Get outta here!" Is along the lines of what I heard.
It took only seconds to realize I'd walked in on my coworker (Dumb, from my previous TAT post. Look it up.) getting dressed. He had his pants down around his ankles and as he screamed (like a girl I might add) he yanked them back up.
I quickly made haste and retreated to the safety of the hallway. Shutting the door tightly behind me as I quickly burst into a fit of laughter.
Of course it was slightly embarrassing to walk in on him that way, but I was no where near as embarrASSed (couldn't resist) as he was at that moment. Being the teenager I was, I quickly ran down to share with my coworkers the f*n funny moment I'd just witnessed.
The one thing none of us could figure out was why did he have his underwear down too? Did he change those with each shift, or was there another reason? We decided we didn't need to know.

I've just decided that the latter of these two stories makes up for Dumb calling me Wrecking Ball. He got his in the end. hehe

I totally want a gnome like this!

My pal over at Secret Life of Tova Darling talked about one of her awkward school girl crushes this time, it's a hoot so you should check her out! If you would like to partake in this weeks installment of Totally Awkward Tuesday, leave me a comment with a link back to your post. I'll put it at the bottom of this one so everyone can see!

Until next time. Peace out yo!

Totally Awkward Tuesday!

Have you ever had an awkward moment? You are probably thinking who hasn't?... But how many of you take your awkward moments and then tell the world about them? Well, I'm about to do just that, I'm going to follow the lead of one of my really awesome friends out there in blogger-land. Tova has taken your average Tuesday and turned them into Totally Awkward Tuesdays, which is an idea that I really like because let's face it: I have many awkward moments. Many of them would probably create much amusement for you all, so consider yourselves lucky! If this works out well, I may just do it on a regular basis.

For the last couple of weeks Tova has actually gone back in time and talked about awkward moments of years past, specifically middle school crushes. And oh. my. gosh! Were they funny. But guess what Tova? I have one of those too! (and by the way, I had the same creepy stalker type crushes as you girl! But those stories are for another post)

A post or two ago I briefly mentioned a long time (my all time favorite!) crush I had on D.P (I will never forget him... You think I am still too obsessive about him don't you?). The crush developed in 6th grade when we reunited in middle school (we'd previously been in the same 2nd grade class, but I didn't have those feelings then).

D.P was the ultimate. He was popular, super cute (in my opinion) and totally unattainable (for me). He was going out with a girl named Gretchen (bane of my 6th grade existence).


Jeez! Hold on, the awkward moment comes soon, I'm just giving you the back story!


So a couple years go by and we're in 8th grade. Every couple of weeks the school threw what they called weekenders, which really were just after school dances with half the gym reserved for basketball and the other half for dancing...don't question it, that's just how it was. I religiously went to these weekenders hoping to score a dance or two with anyone willing...within reason (of course). I had this one fantasy about D.P that went something like this:

D.P walks up to me in the dry ice infused smokey air. At the same moment that D.P reaches out his hand to ask me for a dance, Brian Adams' Everything I Do starts playing (um hello? All time most romantic song! duh. oh BTW? This was roughly 1993/1994). D.P smiles as I take his hand in mine and we dance for a glorious 5 and a half minutes (if you haven't figured it out yet, I also chose this song for it's length...if you're unfamiliar with it, the song has the longest instrumental ever!). As the song comes to an end, D.P doesn't quite want to let me go. So he holds on to my fingers until the last possible second, lingering for just a few more seconds...

And (dramatic pause) end scene...

Okay, so this fantasy had pretty much been going on in similar form since 6th grade, and I'd given up hope of it ever happening.

Flash forward to the 8th grade prom. It's some kind of masquerade theme or mardi gras... some such thing, you can picture it can't you? I'm as decked out as my mom would let me get at that age, and I am going solo (well, with my best friend and her boyfriend...if being a 3rd wheel counts). So I'm sitting at a round table with a group of my girl friends, gawking at all the beautiful people. Scope out D.P and pretty much stalk him with my eyes all night.

A while into the dance I notice D.P walking toward our table.


I'm sitting next to a girl named Shelby, and I lean in to whisper loudly "Oh my gosh, D.P's heading this way! Hyuck!"


Yes, I used the Goofy laugh because that's how I imagine it sounded.


D.P stops at our table and says "Would you like to dance the next slow song with me?"


I stare at him for what seems like an eternity, waiting for Shelby to answer him. I hear nothing so I slowly turn to Shelby trying to figure out why the hell she's not answering him! I mean come on girl!


Only when I turn to face her, she's staring at ME like I'm the crazy one.


Then it hit me.


Oh. My. God. (did he mean me?!)


So I say it out loud... natch.


Did you mean me? Hyuck! (yes..I did)


D.P is probably not sure what he's gotten himself into at this point....but he nods his head.


"Oh sure! Yes. Great!" (Did I really just say Yes! Great!??? I might as well have said You Betcha! Okee dokey!)


So D.P says "ok, see you on the floor for the next song."


So at this point my girlfriends are like, "what are you WAITING for?" And I'm not sure, but I think they may have had to pry me out of my chair.


A minute passes like molasses, it's so slow. But finally. FINALLY. It's time.


So I walk out onto the floor feeling extremely out of place because I may have gone out a tad too early. Also, the thought of him ditching me on the floor isn't entirely far fetched as I picture him doing exactly that. What other reason would he have for asking me?? (to this day I still don't know why...just in case you are wondering)


But thankfully, there he is. He smiles and walks up to me, at the exact moment the song starts. (perfect timing!). And just what song do you think starts playing? Yup. You got it. Good ol' Bryan Adams.


So we start dancing (there IS a God!). And I find myself thinking 3 minutes into the song, that yes. This could very well be the best moment of my life. Look at all those people, his friends, staring at us. I am sure most were wondering why he was dancing with me, as was I.


*But he did, and here we are, so there! *


So the song ended and he said to me "thanks for the dance." And that was it.


*Sigh*

So you're probably wondering where the awkwardness comes in. I mean sure, there were some awkward moments, but where's the real awkward stuff?

Well. Being that this was the prom, it goes without saying that this was the end of the school year. Hence, yearbooks. So I get my yearbook and like most young girls I go through it with a pen and make notes on the pictures. Or maybe this is just me...


*Get to the point...*


If you were to look past all of the "have a fun summer, see you in high school" notes (and one that says Bologna tastes good with mustard...I kid you not) and find the P section of the 8th grade part of the book you would see D.P's head with a big pink heart around it. From this heart is an arrow pointing to the margin of the page. Now friends...this is a direct quote (yes I did go and find my 8th grade yearbook, just for this post you lucky readers!): "He asked me to dance at the prom 5/20/94. And I did!! It was awesome, I think I am in LOVE!"


Silly right? Harmless right?


Well, like most kids, I carried it around to all of my classes with me that week. Hoping to get as many signatures as I could.

So what do you think happened? I leave it in my English classroom. I don't even notice that it's missing till the next period. I quickly get permission to run back to the other room to get my misplaced book.

I knock on the classroom door as I enter the room, while I'm thinking to myself how lucky it is that I sit near the door so I won't have to walk into the middle of the class to get the yearbook. As soon as my eyes find the desk it should be on, I realize it's not there. In fact it is a few desks away, in the hands of several other students and they are reading the EXACT page I quoted from a minute earlier. The worst part? D.P was sitting in the same classroom I was standing in at that moment. And these kids were reading ALOUD... aloud! I about died as they started snickering when they saw me standing there... I calmly held out my shaky hand and asked for my book back. The girl that had it, said "why don't you ask D.P for it?" And she handed him the book. *Biatch* (oh yes I went there!)

He barely looked at me as he handed back the yearbook...silently I might add. And I got out of there as fast as I could.

Talk about your awkward moment! As I sit here thinking about it, I remember it fondly, even though that is only because of the near perfect dance scene! The embarrassing moments I could do without though.

Now it's your turn to shine! Or not to shine...that IS the question, isn't it? Talk about one of your awkward moments on your own blog, then link back to mine. THEN tell me about it with a link to your post in my comments section. I'll then post your link at the bottom of this post for all to see. It's one big awkward party folks! Sorry it's almost the end of Tuesday, for some of you it might already be.... I'll let it pass if you want to have Totally Awkward Wednesdays...

PS. I am TOTALLY going to scan some pics from the 8th grade prom tomorrow. Yes as a lot of you know, I keep everything. So I still have them. Woo Hoo! Stay tuned for those, you won't want to miss them!

*udpdate 7/13/2009*
Sorry for not actually posting any pictures folks. I found them, but my scanner at home leaves something to be desired. : ) But guess what? Someone participated! Check out my friend and her awkward moment!

Tiffiny