Awkward Moments With Parents

Nudity In Movies (Especially Male Nudity)
Nothing, and I mean nothing, has ever scarred me more than the time that I went to see Step Brothers with my mom and Will Farrell put his balls on the drum set (I apologize if you have never seen this movie and I just ruined part of it, but honestly where have you been all of your life?). The thing about this event was I was about thirteen or fourteen years old and this was the first time I had seen male genitalia that was not on a baby. I was not ready for it.

There is a kind of process that parents and children go through when there is either naked time or sexy time happening on screen. Let me set the stage: you are sitting next to your parent or guardian in the movie theatre or on the couch enjoying a nice movie and all of a sudden there are two people getting it on right in front of your face. On the outside, both parties just sit there and pretend like nothing is happening, everything is normal, and in some weird way sex scenes are not awkward to watch with your parents. But you know you are wrong and that just makes it worse. The whole time every single muscle in your body is tense and the child wonders if they should be looking at their shoes or maybe the popcorn or their hands. The parents don't have it any easier either.

Now I am just guessing since I am not a parent, but I have had my fair share of awkward incidents with my mom or dad where there is either nudity or sex on screen and this is what I imagine was going through my parents' heads, "Oh my god... this is awkward... I wonder if she knows what's going on... I hope she doesn't have any questions after this scene... that would suck... since when do people do that?... I hope this isn't giving her ideas... I hope this ends with the woman getting pregnant and dying and then she will never want to have sex ever."

I could be absolutely wrong about the thought process of the parent in this situation, but I know if I was watching a saucy scene with my child, I would have those thoughts going through my head. All I know is that afterward both me and my parents have always pretended it never happened. My mom and I only talked about the ball incident one month ago and I'm now nineteen.

The First Time You Say Fuck
I started what I call "petty swearing" when I was about ten. By petty swearing I mean crap, damn, ass, etc. However, by the time I was twelve I was well versed in the big boys of swear words. I honestly don't remember why I started swearing so young. Sure, now days kids tell their mom to fuck off at age three, but times were different when I was a kid.

I've noticed that every parent and child has a swear barrier that they need to break. I began breaking the one with my mom slowly around age fourteen after I interned at the camp I am now employed at (for some reason I really became a potty mouth working at a children's camp). She was pretty chill about it, but then again, I had never said fuck in front of her. The farthest I had gone was saying shit and that was a rare occasion.

I believe the first time I said fuck in front of my mom I was just about to turn fifteen and had recently had major knee surgery. My dog never understood that climbing on my knee wasn't good for it and one day he decided to climb on bed with me and I screamed "FUCK" as loud as I possibly could. My mom laughed. Even after breaking the barrier I was still cautious and find myself to be cautious to this day. If I get on a roll with my swearing my mom will tell me to cool it. After all, she is my mom.

Dad was a different story. As chill as my dad is, for some reason I was deathly afraid of swearing in front of him. I didn't break the "ass" barrier until I was maybe sixteen or seventeen. However, the very first time he heard me swear was just an unfortunate incident all around. I was sixteen and we were running late to go film Obama in Butte so I was speeding into town. Sure enough, a cop drove by and pulled me over to which I responded, "fuck me running." We both just pretended the fuck incident didn't happen.

To this day I still don't swear in copious amounts around my dad, mostly out of respect. But every once in a while it slips and now that I'm nineteen it hasn't been as big of a deal. The first time though I thought I was going to die.

I Need Tampons
The first time I told my mom I needed tampons she became overly excited and proud because I was becoming a woman and would someday give her grandchildren. Something about my mom being extremely happy about my period just made me super uncomfortable when I was twelve and thirteen. Now that I'm nineteen, I love saying to my mom, "I need tampons" because it means I save five dollars that month.

Most awkward for girls is when you have to ask dad for tampons. Luckily this only occurs a few times like when your step mom is out of town and you are too young to go to the store yourself. This moment sucks especially for dads because unlike moms, they don't think about grand babies, they think about gross boys and the horrible, horrible monsters they will be when they go through puberty. Also guys just hate buying tampons.

If This Is My Summer, I'm Joan Rivers.

Well, getting settled into Bozeman and my summer job has really taken it out of me. I literally did not think about this blog for eight days straight. I haven't even had the urge to draw a dinosaur... okay, well that's a lie. But, my mind has mostly been focused on camp, musicals, choreography, dogs, my severe lack of money until payday, and how I'm going to fulfill my dream of staring on broadway.

In order to give you all an idea of my life for the last eight or so days I'm going to tell you a few short stories in chronological order. 

Dogs

As you may recall from my last blog post, I brought my dog and cat with me to Bozeman for the summer. The cat wasn't too big of a deal because I've brought him before and he just likes to do what I want him to do. 

The dog was another story. My dog, Ralphy, is a 120 pound Rottweiler who has never lived with another dog in his life. For the two months I'm living in Bozeman I'm staying with my dad and step-mom who also have a dog named Chester. Chester is a half beagle, half blue healer and is about six years younger than Ralphy. 

I don't really know what I was expecting when I got the two dogs together... well actually no, that's a bold faced lie. I know exactly what I was expecting. I had this lovely image of rainbows and sunshine and my two dogs becoming best friends immediately. I had the image in my mind that it would be like a scene in a movie where two lovers are reunited in slow motion on a beach in the sunset. There were just some minor problems with this idea. Problem Number One: My house is made of wood, drywall and nails, not a beach. Problem Number Two: I arrived at eleven at night and the sunset was long gone. Problem Number Three: dogs don't like it when other dogs come into their home.

Chester and Ralphy growled, barked, snapped and basically had a shit in the living room. My dreams of my dogs being best friends fluttered away from me like something that flutters away quickly. 

I decided it was best to keep Ralphy in my room all night which meant that I didn't sleep because he's a guard dog who likes to sleep by the door and protect me from rapists and stalkers (I'll discuss my stalker and my badass mom and dog another day). 

The next day however went much better. We took the dogs to a dog park near my house and they played and ran and kind of became friends. More like frienemies (sp.?) but I'll take what I can get. They are still argumentative but they get along better every day and my dream of my dogs running in slow motion on a beach is slowly coming back to me. 

The Yucky Face Rape Incident

There really isn't much to this story except that while hanging out with one of my friends and two of her friends one of them decided he liked me and became uber creepy even with my "get the fuck away from me" body language. 

When I decided to leave he asked if he could walk me out to my car and I just said, "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...", which he took to mean yes. Then when we got to my car he asked if it would be inappropriate to kiss me to which I responded, "Ummmmmmmmmmmmmmmmmm...", which he took to mean no. NOTE TO ALL MALES: Long awkward "um" means no. Not rape my face with your gross face. Okay, thanks. 

After getting pulled over (yeah.. awesome), I went home and brushed my teeth ten times. Now that I look back over this last week, this incident put me in a bitchy mood for the rest of my eight days. Stupid boy. 

This is exactly how I feel about the yucky face rape incident. 

My Best Friend's Stomach Ache

A few days after arriving to Bozeman I picked up my best friend from the airport. As soon as we got in the car he was complaining about his stomach hurting, but we assumed it was due to the fact he hadn't eaten in a day and a half. After dropping off his things at his house we went to Perkins which just made the stomach ache worse. BTW: Perkins is not the place to go when you have a stomach ache.

Later in the day we met up with the other people we work with at a children's camp and discussed camp things and how to be a great employee blah, blah, blah. During our little meeting my friend looked like he was dying. When we were leaving he said he almost got sick. I just figured it was because he was sleep deprived and still recovering from his flight. However, the whole ride to his house he complained about his stomach ache. I believe at one point I said, "stop being such a drama queen." 

When I woke up the next morning I had a text from Best Friend's Mom saying that Best Friend had appendicitis and was going in for surgery and she would keep me posted. 

So basically I'm a dick... (I was happy to find out that his mom had the same reaction to his stomach ache and just told him to take antacids). 

I went to visit him at the hospital later in the day to say hello and I'm sorry for being a dick... and to eat his jell-o. That kind of counter acted "dick" didn't it? 

After a few days of vicodin induced bliss and almost two straight days of sleep, Best Friend joined the rest of the camp staff at orientation and didn't miss one day of camp! What a trooper. 

The FBI

Somewhere in the appendix craziness I went to hang out with one of the girls I work with and relax after a long day of orientation training. About an hour into hanging out one of her friends showed up all frazzled and upset and began telling us possibly the most insane story I've ever heard. 

Apparently her boss is some kind of con artist being sought out by the FBI and she was contacted earlier in the day by the feds to keep working for the crazy guy and put herself in danger. Awesome, right? (Also, the whole time she was telling the story this dubstep song called psychopath was playing and it just seemed very ironic... I felt like sharing that). 

Well, for the rest of the night I was convinced that I was going to be kidnapped by the FBI and tortured for answers about something I had no idea about and that there would be an FBI agent in my backseat when I got in my car. Any time the door opened, I died a little inside. I get paranoid about the government sometimes and this was definitely one of those times. However, I am happy to tell you that the FBI has not made any contact with me or anyone else at the house that night.

The Small Child Strikes Back

On the first day of camp I was greeted in the most odd way by none other than The Small Child. She refused to make eye contact with me and spent most of the morning hiding behind my butt. Within thirty minutes she attempted to steal my shoes three times. She also said my nose is big and I have a weird laugh. We need to work on a filter for The Small Child.

At this moment she still attempts to steal my shoes on a daily basis but doesn't hide behind my butt as much. We're making progress and that's what counts! 

The End

Well these are the highlights of my first eight days in Bozeman and now that I think about it, all of these events happened within the first four days of being here. I don't know why the first four days were so eventful, but it made for a semi-interesting blog post, right? 

Complicated Day

Well I got all moved over to Bozeman along with my dog, Ralphy, and my cat, Boris, and holy boats was it a struggle!  Let's start with the beginning of the day:

When I woke up in the morning I was about half way packed, but all I had left were my bathroom supplies, miscellaneous objects, and items for the animals left to pack.  I decided to make a list of all the things I needed because every single year I end up forgetting something and needing to either go buy a new one or have my mom send me whatever I forgot in a care package.  I started getting so meticulous about what was on my list that I was running out of time to take a shower and really wanted to make it to my friend's graduation party by five and be out of town by six.  This was the goal.

After I got out of the shower I still wasn't fully packed but I decided to start loading a few things into my car.  However, I discovered something that would ruin my day.... the back gate to my car would not open.  I tried all of the chick solutions: pulling, pulling harder, kicking, unlocking, but it wouldn't budge.   I decided to call my ex-boyfriend (we're still friends) to ask if I could drive by his house and see if he could get the door open.  At this point it was about 3:40PM, and it takes me about 20 minutes to drive into town from my house.

We spent another twenty minutes trying to get my back door open and still it would not budge.  I guess I didn't realize what time it was and we talked for another twenty minutes.  When I realized what time it was I quickly drove to my mom's store and began asking her what I should do since my car is a two door Rav-4 and my suitcase weighs more than I do and somehow I needed to fit it and a Rottweiler and a cat and lots of other stuff in there.  In the back of my head I wanted to just trade cars with her, but when I just remotely suggested it she laughed and said, "fat chance" (My mom drives a Pontiac Grand Am and doesn't really want to start driving my dorky little car for two months while I drive around looking like hot shit).  I decided to just go home and see what I could do.

When I got back in my car it was around 5:20, and I wanted to call my friend to tell her I would be late, but I forgot my phone at my house.  Of course.  I drove as fast as I could to my house and called my friend and let her know I would be late.  She said it was fine and she would see me later.  I began throwing things into bags and quickly realizing that I wouldn't be able to take as much as I thought I would.  I got everything in (including the dog who had about three square feet of room to sit in for the duration of the trip) and finally had to get my cat in his kennel. When he saw the kennel he flipped out, ran away, hid under my bed, ran out again, began shaking, and peed on my hamper.  After cleaning up that mess I put him in the kennel with a towel in case he decided to soil himself again and got him in the car.  It was about 6:45 at this point, and I wanted to at least swing by my friend's graduation party to congratulate her.

I drove the 20 minutes to her house and when I arrived not a single person was there.  I had assumed the party was at her house and didn't think to ask where it was and therefore didn't know where the party was.  When I called her she didn't answer, and I had to get on the road because it was well past 7:00.  I felt like such a bad friend.  The lesson I guess is to always ask where the location of a party is otherwise you will look and feel like a complete ass.  That is the Jewel's words of wisdom for the day.

Quick Update

001. Hey everyone, so I just wanted to let you all know that I won't be blogging for the next few days because I am moving my booty to Bozeman for the summer to go work at a children's theatre camp! This is my sixth year working at camp, and I'm very excited to be returning, however the next few days are going to be spent getting ready, packing and saying goodbye to everyone here in Zoo Town. I will probably have some fun stories to tell though after I get there because I am taking my dog, Ralphy, with me, which should  be interesting to say the least. I will also be taking my cat Boris. Not sure how I am going to fit a Rottweiler, a cat, my suitcase(s), my guitar and backpack of things that didn't fit in my suitcase(s) into my TINY car, but hopefully all goes well! Wish me luck!

002. I have been mulling over the idea of creating a Facebook page specifically for this blog so that 1) I'm not littering my personal Facebook page with updates of when I post and 2) it creates another way that is SUPER simple to communicate with me because everyone and their mother has a Facebook! Let me know if you guys think this would be a good idea in the comment section below por favor (that's please in spanish)!!!

003. I just wanted to take a quick moment to thank you all for reading my blog because right now I am at over 1000 page views in one month! HOLY BOATS! It is absolutely quite possible that this is not a lot at all, but it is WAY more than I ever expected this soon and I just wanted to say thank you for reading. Also, the reactions buttons have been going quite nicely and people have begun using them which is awesome! It is always helpful as a blogger to get a bit of feedback from her readers, whether it be from comments or from the reactions. So thank you for using those also! You guys are just fantastic.

004. I drew you guys a picture of a dinosaur to hold you over until I blog again in about four days.