Awkward

My topic for this weeks Creative Non-Fiction class is autobiography, so here we go:

My life has had many different threads and focuses. At any given moment I will be teaching myself French, working my way through the top 100 must-read literature, and religiously attending Bikram yoga. Before you start thinking I’m some kind of super-woman who does all of this AND has great hair, I’ll have you know that hardly any of these stick. The best sentence of French I know is ‘je ne comprends pas’, I don’t know what was so Great about those Expectations, and my hair is currently in an unwashed top-knot. However, there is one constant in my life, from being a twelve year old aspiring paediatrician, to now, aspiring to at least be a functioning human. That constant thread is awkwardness. Each and every day I get myself into an awkward conversation, and awkward situation, or will do something that will make my future self be in an awkward situation. On a good day, I manage to do all three. From the common, left-right-left-right oh sorry haha when walking towards another person, to being unable to stop the handyman here to fix the shower head from coming into my room, as I am ON THE TOILET!! Perhaps the words “no no no don’t come in just wait a second” have taken on a new meaning these days. 

It was inevitable that going travelling and studying in another country would create some fantastically cringeworthy situations for me, and, so far, I have not been let down. One, which I have re-told to my close friends (much to their glee), still makes my eye twitch when I think of it. For your reading pleasure, I will re-tell the tale here for you now:

My local, 24-aisle super-supermarket Asda had fooled me into thinking I needed a bathmat, my weeks groceries, two pillows, a frying pan, enough cutlery and crockery for three and a baking tray all at that exact moment. It was my first morning in London and I had already been walking from for twenty minutes.  By walking I mean sprinting for 3 seconds then dropping the bags. As the many people rushing to work ignored me as they strode past, I muttered under my breath about ‘selfish Londoners not helping me', and that ‘everyone was right, they are rude!’, a man’s voice rang clear through the blood rushing past my ears. I turned, the sun was shining above his head like a halo, and he offered his help. I graciously accepted, thanked him profusely, and tried to wipe the sweat moustache off my upper lip without him seeing, after all he wasn’t bad looking. I handed him the heaviest three bags  (you would have done the same) and we started chatting. It turned out he worked at a company that produced the cervical cancer vaccinations for the UK, known as Gardasil in Australia. He knew I would be familiar with them, being a young female from a country that gave out the vaccinations for free, and told me that the Australian style of vaccination was better than the English.

“Oh really, how come?” I innocently asked.

“Well the UK ones only protect against cervical cancer, whereas the Australian ones protect against both that and genital warts.”

Now honestly, I’m not sure why he chose to tell me this; to say those two words, whose syllables scrape your eardrums and make your head sink into your neck just a fraction.

Genital. Warts.

The response of silence was not going down too well, and not wanting to be rude to a man who had practically saved my life, I responded with my brightest smile.

“Well, all going well with me so far!” 

By the time we reached my gate, he dropped the bags, wished me luck in London, and turned on his heel faster than a businessman running for the 8.30 tube to Bank. I’m not sure why he didn’t ask for my number, but I put it down to him probably being in a relationship, or something...

For reasons like this, I can relate to the great Russell Brand once said, “my life is just a series of embarrassing incidents strung together by telling people about those embarrassing incidents.” 

I believe my mother would call it ‘character building’.