Two for Tuesday: Stupid is as Stupid Does

Sometimes I have to laugh at my life, because things happen to me. Things that should only happen in a sitcom. Really.
People ask me if it's "too soon" to tease me about these things. In my opinion, it's rarely too soon to laugh at yourself. Because if you can't laugh, you're gonna cry. and laughing is ALWAYS the better option!

1. A couple weeks ago I was teaching my 1201 class. I had just split them up to do some group work and turned to go back to my desk.

FYI this is the floor in my office. So stylish, no? (sarcastafont engage!)

I happened to be wearing these shoes:
I love these shoes.
As I turned something happened that I could never ever duplicate. No matter how hard I tried.

I put the heel of the right shoe through the bow on the left shoe and BAM

crashed to the ground. Yes. Flat on my face in front of the class.

They all went dead silent and one of the boys jumped up to see if I was all right. I was fine, but the heel was still caught and it took me approximately 4 minutes to untangle it. Okay, probably more like 10 seconds, but it felt so much longer. I waved the student away and managed to stand back up.

But man was I totally self-conscious about my feet for the entire rest of the day.

As soon as I got back to the offices I had to tell my colleagues and we all laughed until our sides ached. I was glad to offer some levity to the day.


2. This Saturday I took the GRE Literature in English test. Talk about a brain implosion. 2 of my friends and I signed up to take it at the same location together so we could provide moral support for each other.

We finally found the room where we were supposed to take the test and the proctor, who was absolutely hilarious, started to get us into rows based on the test we were taking. Everyone was chatting as the proctor went around to check us in.

When she got to me my name wasn't on her list. So she checked her other list. Not there. So we looked at my ticket and I realised, to my horror, that whether I made a mistake or there was a computer glitch (a theory I strongly support as I swear I double and triple checked before signing up), I was registered to take the test at a different campus of the same school.

Yeah.

The proctor told me to take a deep breath and said she'd make a call to see what she could do for me. She pulls out her phone and the entire room goes deathly silent as she announce, "I've got a girl here who came to the wrong testing center. Can she take the test here?"

I am sure that my face went BRIGHT. RED. as everyone turned to look at me.

Fortunately I was able to take the test and it wasn't a problem. But after the proctor moved on I turned around and my 2 friends and I started cracking up as I threw up my hands and said, "Only me!"


How about you? Done anything hilariously stupid recently? Do tell, I could always use a good laugh!

A. A. Milne love-fest

Yesterday I came across this link (on the marvelous A. Victoria Mixon's site ... but she's a story for another day) and stayed up way too late reading off of it:

It's a collection of essays by A. A. Milne - a man who is fast becoming my favorite all time writer.

Half of you are thinking who is that?

And half of you are thinking, oh yeah, the Winnie-the-Pooh guy.

Please let me tell you, this man is brilliant.

I first discovered him through the Winnie-the-Pooh stories - Winnie-the-Pooh and The House at Pooh Corner - which are funny and sweet and not just kid's stories. If you haven't read them, do yourself a favor. I am a huge classic Pooh fan and I kind of collect what little classic Pooh paraphernalia I can find, but that is not the only reason I love Milne.




I moved on from the Pooh stories to his poetry - When We Were Very Young and Now We Are Six are his two collections. Again they are billed as children's poems, but they are rich and the rhyme schemes are brilliant and catchy.




Then, a few years ago, we got in at Borders a book called The Sunny Side, which is a collection of his essays. I devoured it and wished that I could be best friends with him and his family. He has a dry, quirky sense of humor and, even though most of them were written in the 20's they're still so pertinent to today. Some of them are almost precursors to Dave Barry with a wry look at every day life that will have you laughing because you've LIVED it - or at least can relate to it.

After that I set off on a mission to find other stuff that he had written and I stumbled across The Red House Mystery. It's a tongue in cheek Sherlock Holmesian type mystery story that is absolutely charming. It was recently re-released.


I also discovered Once On a Time, a hilarious parody on fairy tales that he wrote for his wife. (I found it in e-books. It hasn't been re-released recently, but there are used copies available) I also picked up a biography, which I haven't gotten to yet, but think I'm going to attack over break.

Go check out the site with some of his essays. They're all short (a lot of them were written for Punch) and it will be a great pick me up for your day.

Have you ever been in the quandary of how to sort and organize your personal library? Yeah, Milne too.

Get frustrated when other people move your things? Check out his essay, "The Old Order Changes."

Or read about the TRUE pleasure of writing!

If you love a good story with a wry sense of humor then please, do yourself a favor and pick up any of A. A. Milne's works. I guarantee you will enjoy it!