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don't jump!
When I was a teenager, I really wanted to jump off the Orford-Fairlee Bridge into the river, but my mother talked me out of it. “It’s too high and you could break your neck,” she said. “Besides, there could be old bridge posts you could land on.” Shortly thereafter, I was just about to take a walk across the bridge when I saw about a dozen young (and handsome) guys standing on the other side of the rail, about to jump. Eager to save their lives, I began running as fast as I could, yelling: “Don’t jump! Don’t jump! You could die!” They politely refrained from jumping until I reached them. Grinning, one of them asked me why he shouldn’t jump. I repeated what my mother had said. Trying valiantly not to laugh, the guys told me they’d already jumped off the bridge several times and it was perfectly safe. A hot blush flooded my face, but I tried to play it cool. “Oh, carry on then,” I said. I was almost out of earshot when they burst into guffaws. The moral of this story is: Don’t listen to your mother. Rachel – NH
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napoleon who?
The first time I ever went trick-or-treating was the second year of our marriage. I was so excited. Beth dressed up in an Indian Sari and was beautiful. We also had a girl we babysat who was dressed as a very cute little pirate. I decided that I would be Napoleon Dynamite from the incredibly popular indie film. I thought it was popular. I put on tight tapered jeans, a baggy purple shirt with a neon dolphin, moon boots, a fanny pack, thick Coke-bottle glasses, a digital watch and had my hair gelled up into a curly fro. I looked like Napoleon Dynamite. We were happy and set to go. The three of us piled into our car and began going house to house. I realized after one house that some people hadn’t seen the movie. After two or three houses I began to understand that NO ONE in New Hampshire had seen the movie. Then I started to think about how creepy I must look – like the guy you’d never want to sit beside on a bus. I got weird look after weird look and didn’t even try to explain what I was. I just accepted the fact that people would be slightly disgusted and happy that my wife and our little pirate got smiles and candy. The night eventually ended. Micah the Admin
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an indian in a store
My friends and I love to do costume parties. Once for my Native American friend’s birthday party we dressed up as Indians (Native American not India). I went all out. Like crazy. I’m the one on the right standing up. I was most obviously costumed. On the way to the party we decided we needed to grab a disposable camera, so I decided to work up the courage to walk into a gas station and buy one. Beth refused to go in with me. It would be fun and probably cheer up the cashier. Nope! I walked in. No response. I found the camera and went to the cashier. I smiled. She raised apathetic eyes and told me the price. Is she a robot? She never smiled, raised an eyebrow, chuckled or anything. All she accomplished was making me feel a bit more awkward. Micah the Admin
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a dumb plan
Oh, haha. This was SO awkward but still funny, I have two sisters and two brothers and our family live really close, always phone each other, chat on-line etc. blah, blah, blah. I’m the only one who doesn’t have kids so *sometimes* when my sisters phone me I’ll just be in my house reading or doing some work or whatever and I have a pretty short attention span, well….SOMETIMES, actually quite often either they or my mum will phone me and get me on the phone and just talk and talk about something that I’d get quite bored with after a while, I’ve never been good at getting out of boring conversations, like I’d just be a ‘Yeah? Really? Wow? No way?’ type person but one day I hit on this amazing idea, I only have a mobile so I decided that if I was in the middle of a conversation I couldn’t pay attention to I would just hang up and pretend the reception went dead, I was so pleased with myself and I started doing this quite often, then one day my sister was talking and I knew I had to go out so I hung up the phone, but I actually didn’t, I only thought I had, she could still hear the radio in the background….so she phones me back two minutes later and she’s like ‘Tanya….’ in this really exasperated voice…..’Will you STOP hanging up on everyone ALL THE TIME!’ I was like ‘What no, no, no my reception just went dead O_O’ …and she’s like ‘No it didn’t! You hang up on us all the time! You’ve been doing it for ages, it’s because you can’t pay attention! Everybody knows and they laugh about it all the time but will you just stop doing it now……!’……I was like..’Uh…oh. Really? ReeeallllY??? Seriously? Noooo. Oh. Hmmmm.’ ……Plan = dumb. :O Tanya – Belfast
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i knew a hans once
I used to work at a group home for the mentally ill. I was helping a very sweet client in her late 50’s or early 60’s shop. From the way she dressed and carried herself, any observer could tell she was a little “off”. We were standing in line and I was a little ahead of her. She (let’s just call her “Lisa” struck up a conversation with a much younger man behind her. It went approximately like this: Lisa: Hi! What’s your name? Man: Hans. Lisa: I knew a “Hans” once, in the foothills of an Alpine village in Austria. –I haven’t been with a man in 13 years! Hans (taken aback, but seizing the opportunity): So… is anyone taking care of you now? Is there anyone who would mind if you came home with me? Lisa: Oh, no! But you see that tall girl in front of us? (I turn around and treat Hans to a knowing, sinister smile). She’d get REALLY mad if I went home with you. I look him up and down, sneer slightly, and turn away. Hans turns bright red and stares at his shoes, embarrassed to have just been caught trying to pick up and older mentally ill lady. I loved that job! Pamela – CA
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chili spill
Aargh :O …this was one of the long term awkward memories that really affected my life when I was a kid, when I was in first form(12) we had made one day in Home Economics Chili Con Carne…I’d never made it before so I was really excited and it all went great and my chili looked spectacular and we let it cool and I packed it up in a tupperware and headed for the bus home. So there was no room in my bag for the tupperware, it was like a litre sized tub full of chili and I had to bring home my lever arch folder as well which was also really heavy AND I had to get all the way home on the bus, so I survived the shove of everyone getting on the bus(no-one queued they just sardined in through the door, it was scary!)and the bus journey back home(our buses drop us in the middle of our town and then you walk home) so my town is quite small, like everyone in it knows what you’ve done five mins after you do it and on the way home is a big stationery/bookshop that I would always go into after school and read books in, instead of just trying to get home with this giant tub of chili I go into the bookshop and start reading the books, I settle for holding my folder flat against my hip like a tray and putting the tub of chili on top while I used my other hand to flick through the books…oh I know this is so predictable right!? So of course, in a split second I go to put back a book, the polyester of my jumper against the plastic of my folder makes the folder slide up against my body so the tub flips over spins once in the air, hits the GREY CARPET, the lid flies off and my chili splatters all over the floor. I was actually fully freaking out, like no no NO! The shop is full(4.30 in the afternoon) there are some girls from another school laughing their heads off(not literally ;)) and then I see the manager coming storming toward me with a look of thunder, I’m like ok it’s no big deal I’ll apologise, help clean it up…LOL!! My flight from flight or fight took over and in about five seconds I decide to just bolt out the door BUT instead of just running out and leaving the giant pile of chili(I am nearly crying laughing remembering this) I THROW my folder on the floor use my ARM to scrape the majority of the chili into the tupperware and then run past the hysterical girls as fast as I physically can, out the door and straight down the street with a giant lidless tub of chili until I get home and spend the next hour trying to scrub con carne off my blazer while gasping for breath, ok, then when I actually calm down and stop freaking I realise I’m going to have to go back for my folder with my name inside and the next day have to walk past the ruined grey carpet with a GIANT damp patch, some poor person had the scrub of their life on and apologise for dropping my chili and doing a bunk to a *really* hacked off manager and then spent the next year, possibly two avoiding the place. Huuuuuahmph. O_O Tanya – Belfast
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engagement!
Ok, auh this was a terrible night, my boyfriend had decided to go get me a ring so he could propose on Christmas Eve, so he knew I *hated* gold and I liked pearls, so that’s cool. He went to a little jewellery shop and ordered a ring in my size to arrive the week before Christmas Eve, it was platinum with a single pearl instead of a diamond. Lovely. Ok. So on Christmas Eve he takes a little bag out and passes it to me, I have no idea that it’s a ring or that he’s proposing until I open it, actually even after I open it I’m still not sure because he hasn’t said anything…and in the ring box is, ok – this is quite hard to explain unless you saw it but, it was a bright gold hoop, not shaped like a ring and not flat like you would put on, but rounded all around, like an earring hoop with a pearl fixed into it and instead of being set into the box how you would set a ring in it was in a box sitting on the velvet….so I was like, oh there’s only one here, where’s the other? *Smile* obviously he’s really confused and he starts getting really nervous and is like ‘Other what…?’ So I’m like…..’Hang on, what is this?’ and he’s like ‘Uh…it’s a ring’ ……THEN it clicks but it just felt weird because, I started thinking…wow – why has my boyfriend got me a gold ring when he knows I hate gold, doesn’t he know me at all?? So I’m kind of dismayed. He sees my face and THEN says ‘No, no, no it’s ok! Don’t worry I got you a platinum one but it didn’t arrive on time so the woman in the shop gave me this to propose with and said I could come back afterwrds and change it to the platinum one. A WOMAN TOLD HIM THIS! Ok. Moment pretty much ruined, that’s ok – no biggy, we’re engaged…yay!. Feeling really sorry for him because he’s totally down with how it all happened so it’s all good, I’m just annoyed that someone advised him even after they told him, no, no she won;t like it to do this! Argh, madness.. It turns out some woman in the jewellery shop told him that the ring would be in the week before Christmas Eve, he went in every day the whole week up until Christmas Eve and they put him off, again, again, again….until the day before when they said, oh it’s not going to be here until January the 10th but here, take this three sizes too big gold hoop and use it to propose with and you can change it when you come back!!!!!! So we took it back and when we went in the woman in the shop is looking really pleased with herself….the first thing he says when we walk in is ‘Umm, she didn’t like it’ so she looks at me and is like ‘You didn’t like it?’ as if this is shocking to her…and I’m like in a nice but serious way ‘Well it’s not so much that I didn’t like it, but you kind of way can’t be giving a guy a ring that he knows his girlfriend won’t like to propose with as a surprise, it’s not like he can forewarn me…’hey you know I’m going to use a ring you won’t like here but bear with me, we’ll change it in January…now will you be my wife??’ She is totally affronted by this, she’d totally convinced him this was an ace idea….(LoLz)and walks out to the back of the shop and leaves the other woman to refund the ring…….aaargh….I totally came away feeling like the baddie! :O Tanya – Belfast
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uh…ok…
Oh my goodness, this was actually the most awkward moment, ever, ever. ewwww. Ewww. I was going into work one day late and the place I was apprenticing at the time only had the owner there and two sections to the shop, an office section with a desk and computer and a work section for customers. So I texted emmm….we’ll call him Hubert and said I’d be late. I arrived at 10.30am and walked in, he was sitting with his head on his hand on the computer looking SO bored, I was like hi, hi, how’s it?? and walked on in. On the way past the computer which was angled at me as I walked into the customer section I glanced at the screen and saw that he was just…watching porn. Just sitting there impassively staring at the screen but was frantically clicking at the mouse to try and close the window. I was totally grossed out and thought ok, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that and stay here for a minute until he clicks that off an then I’m going to just pretend NOTHING happened. He clicks it off and gets up, but is really embarrassed and flustered and in his flustered-ness(word??) he goes ‘Oh, I was just watching porn there, so I was’ ……I was like…..’Uh……ok’ O_O Yeah, I didn’t stay there very long…… Tanya – Belfast
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in-laws
Oh, hahaha, oh my godness I can’t believe I forgot about this one, your shorts post made me remember it for some reason….! When my boyfriend and I started going out we used to stay in one another’s house alternate weekends but we worked different shifts so one Saturday morning he left for work and I stayed at home in bed, later I got up and got in the shower and was just showering away, la-de-da….bit of lemon shower gel, washing my hair, ho hum and I heard the front door open, ok, that’s cool, he’s home already or forgot something or some such thing. So I’m still showering away and I hear someone come up the stairs, potter around the hall a bit and then push the bathroom door open, next thing….(oh I wish so bad I could do the voice because that was the funniest thing about this) I hear HIS DAD going…..’Hulloo-ooh’…I was like…..’What the hell Brian, it’s Tanya….!'(It’s cool we had an opaque shower curtain) and he’s like ‘Oh, is that you dear'(his parents are quite old his dad was in his seventies at the time) …so I’m like ‘Uh…YEAH, IT IS ME… TANYA…. IN THE SHOWER’ …..’Oh, ok then dear’ and disappears…..flip sake, I get out, I can hear them downstairs, I get dried, dressed go downstairs and sitting on the sofa is a pile of the clothes I was wearing the night before I had left in the kitchen to put in the washing machine, all folded in a neat pile, like , my stockings, skirt, underwear etc. and his Mum is in the kitchen doing the dishes. Oh. My. Ground. Swallow. Me. Now. O_O Tanya – Belfast