Public Display of Yourself
- Thread starter Patricia A
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As a senior in high school I wanted to do something nice for the German exchange student who was a bit of a loner. So one Friday (the day we skipped school once a month to go to the NJ bars as the drinking age over there was 18 at the time, even though I was only 17) it was my turn to drive and I invited him to go along. When we came back into PA a couple of the group wanted to go back to school. I protested but was out-voted. I dropped them off at the bottom of the hill below the school property. Well, the German exchange student made an awful public display of himself and did something rather bad in his inebriated state, which caused his physical ejection from the school by the wrestling coach. His actions caused him to be expelled from high school and then sent back to Germany. I really felt bad about what happened. 
It was a nice summer night and my wife and I were in our second floor apartment enjoying being a young couple together with the perils of parenthood and growing old together still a mere speck on the horizon. In other words, we were still frisky and I don't mean the brand of cat food. Anyway, being the true gentleman even in those bygone days, I was going to cook up a nice dinner for my lovely. Out on the deck we had a small grill that was the implement that made me the master griller that I am today. That and it was cheap. Did I mention that we had no money? I proceeded to the fridge to get that evening's dinner ready to grill while my wife was in the living room with her legs up on the couch resting after the Out of Order Olympics shall we say? Yes, frisky has been mentioned. Did I mention that Kielbasa was going on the grill? No? Well, kielbasa was, so I took it out of the fridge and called and asked my wife to join in me in the kitchen for a moment. I wanted to show her something, you understand. Now, with the kielbasa ideally situated for maximum effect, my wife enters the kitchen and I start toward her to show her my funny trick. What we didn't see was the person standing at the screen door (it was summer so the solid main entry door was open). After her saying HA! you wish and telling me I was disgusting we heard the paperboy at the door tap gently and say, "collecting......."
We ate out that night.........
We ate out that night.........
This happened several years ago when I worked at the hospital in Texas.
My best friend Betty and I were at a staffing meeting, we were discussing the progress of some of our patients and their treatment plans. Betty has always been a firecracker. She's a bit of a force of nature. So anyhow, one of the team members got her riled up about her pet project, a gardening class for the patients.
I noticed she had a booger just on the outside of her nose. I kind of raised an eyebrow at her and pointed to my nose. She gave me the stink eye and stared talking up her classes and how it was cost effective and beneficial, so on and so forth.... But I don't think anyone heard a word she was saying because the whole time everyone is looking at her booger and I'm still trying to get her to check her nose.
She got ticked off, she was thinking I was trying to get her to stop talking so she stopped talking and looked at me. She said "Well, what? Do I have a booger or something?
We all said "Yes!" Everyone started cracking up.
Betty grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose. She wasn't one bit embarrassed. She just laughed and said "Well I'll be damned."
Moral of story, she got her gardening class.
My best friend Betty and I were at a staffing meeting, we were discussing the progress of some of our patients and their treatment plans. Betty has always been a firecracker. She's a bit of a force of nature. So anyhow, one of the team members got her riled up about her pet project, a gardening class for the patients.
I noticed she had a booger just on the outside of her nose. I kind of raised an eyebrow at her and pointed to my nose. She gave me the stink eye and stared talking up her classes and how it was cost effective and beneficial, so on and so forth.... But I don't think anyone heard a word she was saying because the whole time everyone is looking at her booger and I'm still trying to get her to check her nose.
She got ticked off, she was thinking I was trying to get her to stop talking so she stopped talking and looked at me. She said "Well, what? Do I have a booger or something?
We all said "Yes!" Everyone started cracking up.
Betty grabbed a tissue and wiped her nose. She wasn't one bit embarrassed. She just laughed and said "Well I'll be damned."
Moral of story, she got her gardening class.
I was 16 years old. The gang decided to go the river with canoes and beer. We ended up stopping at some kind of outcropping or island to drink beer. I quickly got hammered while the others complained of how much of the beer I was drinking. I probably hadn't eat anything by that time that day either, so I probably got sick, though I don't remember if I did. I do remember walking in the shallow water at the base of the island wearing only a t-shirt, and part of me swinging carefree as can be. My best friend held a grudge which I've only recently discovered wasn't due to my behavior but how well I swung.
I embarrassed myself one time when I peed in public and stayed outside wearing a stained pair of pants for a while.
This may seem like an over simplified response to your heartfelt post, but you are precious and you are special and you were meant to be here. Please don't let the broken hearts and spirits of others break yours. Don't let them steal your joy. They don't have the power to do that unless you give it to them.
Asperger's is not a curse, in many ways it's a blessing. Many people with Asperger's are creative and brilliant, some of the greatest people in history have been believed to have been challenged by Asperger's.
So far as your false hope goes. Never for a minute. Wayne Dyer said something that has proven itself true to me over and over in every way. "When you change the way you look at things, things change."
Expect good things Cori.
Obviously changing the way you look at things and having things change is exactly what happened in my case. Of course every child undergoes a change of perception when realizing they will be required to make a living. In my case each other change of perception depended on how possible I believed it to make a living in the way I had chosen. I had all these brief upswings of hope only to have them dashed--then I found the explanation of why my life went so horribly wrong almost from the first (that is, people treating me badly and then complaining that my "attitude" was the problem--as if "normal" people should rejoice in being badly treated--) was never the perpetrators' fault after all but because I had a defect all along! So it became not just a matter of not having proof that I belong in this world, but could at least hope to perhaps produce proof later. I am absolutely clueless as to how to begin on square one of coming up with any such proof even to myself let alone those in a position to judge!
You are here, that's proof enough that you belong.
If only! Being freed from this endless struggle to justify my existence would be a blessing, to say the least!
I admit I embarrass myself frequently in public or in private. It's part of my charm. Thing is, I'm always telling jokes and goofing around that most people think my follies are just planned jokes. That's kinda neat. Although some people don't always know I'm just joking and they legitimately think I'm a fool. A catch-22, I suppose.
Working in the fast food industry for close to four years, I've had plenty of chances to embarrass myself. I remember one night where everything just went to hell for me. I was getting killed through drive-thru and I was so short-handed it was ridiculous. It was just me and two other people and those two weren't very good. Wait times were insane and people were justifiably mad.
I started cussing like a sailor. I suppose one of the perks of working in a place that is closed off to customers on the inside is that a little verbal stress relief happens and customers don't hear it. I went to the back of the store for whatever reason, just going off with the metaphors, but by the time I went back to the drive-thru window I noticed something different about this particular customer compared to the others. She isn't angry or giving me a death stare. She was actually smiling a bit, as if something amused her. Considering her ten minute wait time, I'm quite perplexed.
She said, "I've worked in the fast food industry before. I know it can be incredibly frustrating. But you should know that we can hear every word you're saying."
...... uhhhh .... Well, this is awkward, isn't it????
It turns out that I had hit the wrong button on my drive-thru headset and my headset had turned into an intercom that was blasting my colorful verbiage to everyone in drive-thru and within earshot.
To this day, I am shocked there were no complaints and that I kept my job after that night. If anyone higher up the food chain heard anything about that, I never knew. Certainly, I dodged a bullet and I learned a very valuable lesson that night: No matter how bad things get never lose your cool. Ever. And push the right damn button on the headset!
I was quite a fool that night and for all the wrong reasons, but I learned from it.
Working in the fast food industry for close to four years, I've had plenty of chances to embarrass myself. I remember one night where everything just went to hell for me. I was getting killed through drive-thru and I was so short-handed it was ridiculous. It was just me and two other people and those two weren't very good. Wait times were insane and people were justifiably mad.
I started cussing like a sailor. I suppose one of the perks of working in a place that is closed off to customers on the inside is that a little verbal stress relief happens and customers don't hear it. I went to the back of the store for whatever reason, just going off with the metaphors, but by the time I went back to the drive-thru window I noticed something different about this particular customer compared to the others. She isn't angry or giving me a death stare. She was actually smiling a bit, as if something amused her. Considering her ten minute wait time, I'm quite perplexed.
She said, "I've worked in the fast food industry before. I know it can be incredibly frustrating. But you should know that we can hear every word you're saying."
...... uhhhh .... Well, this is awkward, isn't it????
It turns out that I had hit the wrong button on my drive-thru headset and my headset had turned into an intercom that was blasting my colorful verbiage to everyone in drive-thru and within earshot.
To this day, I am shocked there were no complaints and that I kept my job after that night. If anyone higher up the food chain heard anything about that, I never knew. Certainly, I dodged a bullet and I learned a very valuable lesson that night: No matter how bad things get never lose your cool. Ever. And push the right damn button on the headset!
I was quite a fool that night and for all the wrong reasons, but I learned from it.
Cori, it's true. You are Dorothy with the power to have gone home all along, you just didn't know it. Nobody who isn't supposed to be here is here. You are here because you were meant to be here. You have things to offer nobody else has. You don't have to show them to anyone, you just have to appreciate them. They will shine when you do. You have challenges and troubles but you have tools in your heart and mind to face and fix these things. Accept yourself, warts and all. Find all of the things you are grateful for and praise them. Love your gifts, and be grateful for everyday you are still here.
I love this story! I worked fast food back in the day, so I hear ya... and apparently so did a lot of other people.
I think if more people worked "service" jobs, they'd be a lot more understanding of why they don't get what they want exactly when and how they want it.
I've either been very lucky, or completely indifferent to my own embarrassments, because all the stories I can think of happened to other people, not me.
Once observed a woman of considerable size walking out of a public bathroom completely unaware that her static-cling skirt was still hiked up around her waist in the back, her panties and giant white thighs on display for all. Didn't she notice the cool draft? I was with a guy and he said "You should go tell her" and I said "You go tell her!" Before we could decide, another woman noticed and pulled it down for her without saying anything to her.
Once observed a woman of considerable size walking out of a public bathroom completely unaware that her static-cling skirt was still hiked up around her waist in the back, her panties and giant white thighs on display for all. Didn't she notice the cool draft? I was with a guy and he said "You should go tell her" and I said "You go tell her!" Before we could decide, another woman noticed and pulled it down for her without saying anything to her.
....what happened to the kielbasa?....dammit, don't leave me hangin'!......
I love this story! I worked fast food back in the day, so I hear ya... and apparently so did a lot of other people.
I think if more people worked "service" jobs, they'd be a lot more understanding of why they don't get what they want exactly when and how they want it.