Peppercorns, Girlfriends, & Steve

Back to the strange things in life that happen to me. 2 extremely embarrassing stories and 1 heart-warming one:

I mentioned a few days ago that Taylor and I signed a lease for an apartment in Euless. What I didn’t mention was that we went to Wing Stop to eat lunch right before hand. That place is delicious and has the best fries…ever. We eat there and drive immediately to the apartments to meet with the manager so we can sign for our new home. This meeting is really scary for us, because we are legitimately afraid we will be denied. We have nothing to prove ourselves or the fact that we will pay rent every month and we have no idea what our credit looks like. I tried to overcompensate the we-just-graduated-and-aren’t-starting-jobs-but-I-promise-we-can-make-rent stigma we have by joking and smiling a lot with the staff. I figure even if our credit score sucks I will woo them with my personality. It takes a while for us to meet and sign all the papers – like 30-45 minutes but we finish and get back in the car. As soon as we leave after all this escapade, I smile at Taylor in a “yea – we did it” kind of way and he turns and says, “You have a little something in your teeth…like a piece of pepper or something”. Talk about the understatement of the century – I pull out my mirror and don’t find “a little something” but instead a whole stinkin peppercorn. No flakes were involved…just the whole shell and all. It was coal black and covered like 1/4 of my tooth. I sat across from those apartment people with a giant piece of food in my teeth. They are probably still talking about it. Taylor said, “Don’t worry, you can’t really see it unless you are smiling.”

Today at work the most awkward thing happened – of all time. I was sitting in this workroom where there are 4 computer stations. I was back there with a girl who started recently in the Welcome Center but has nothing to do with our office. I don’t really know why she was working back there so it was kind of awkward anyway and so quiet you could hear a pin drop. I heard her sometime during the morning on the phone saying, “Oh, you’re going to come see me? Great…ok. Love you, babe”. It was obviously some boy and I was not looking forward to his visit. A good 30 minutes later, I was working on my own computer when I feel a gentle massage/rub on my shoulder. I turn around to come about 3 inches from a man’s face as he lovingly says, “Hey”. Realizing I am not the person he is wanting to whisper sweet nothings to, he turns towards the other girl in the room, walks over, and says “Hey babe”. He didn’t laugh or apologize or anything. He pretended like he greeted every stranger with a gentle touch and a sexy hello. Sir, you have the wrong person and let’s be really clear about this – if you can’t tell your girlfriend apart in a room of 2 girls, you are in big trouble. Not to mention she has very brunette hair and we look absolutely nothing alike. Needless to say, I bolted out of that office and did work in Touchette’s. It was one of those situations where it wasn’t even funny embarrassing, it was mortifying embarrassing. At least he didn’t greet me with a butt pinch or a kiss…that might have been the only thing to make the situation worse. How do these things happen to me? Hilarious.

We had a weird group come in today. We had a 75 year old white grandma and an 18 year old black boy come together for a campus visit. Everywhere they went the grandma would say, “This is Steve (slight name change…protecting identities here) and he is with me”. After a while of being with them, I pulled their admissions counselor aside and asked about it. An old white woman and a black young dude…doesn’t make sense. Shay then told me this story:

One day Steve came to grandma’s door and asked if he could mow her lawn. She said, “No, I already have someone to do that.” Steve came back a second time and grandma said, “No, I still have someone to mow for me.” Steve came back 4 times and finally grandma said, “Alright, I’ll let you do it but be here at 8 a.m.” Steve came the next morning at 6:30 – an hour and a half early. Grandma told Shay that Steve had never been late but had always been an hour early everywhere she asked him to be. He has been her ‘right hand man’ and will come over to watch tv, hang out, do work, etc. Grandma has her doctorate from a completely different school but wanted to show Steve ACU. When she was going to school, she wanted to come ACU but didn’t have the finances. She said, “I have always wanted to come here and have loved this school. Now I want Steve to see it so he may be able to come here.” This little old lady adopted him and gave him a chance – now he may come to ACU. Isn’t that the greatest story ever? It really is like Gran Torino in real life.

Time for bed. Freddy Crocker not only made dinner tonight but is now putting away our laundry. He’s a keeper but maybe one day Taylor will come back.