Cousin!

Several people asked me to post about embarrassing moments. Well, I'm sorry-but I just don't have any. I do ridiculous things on a regular basis so that embarrassing moments are all just blended into one big, fuzzy conglomeration of humiliation. I can tell you about two moments in my life that were particularly humiliating. They were both my cousin's fault. You remember the one I waited to get baptized with? We'll call her Sara. Cuz that's her name---except I just call her Cousin. Well, we did a lot of things together; wear matching outfits, play and coach soccer, take flute lessons, take ballet (actually, that could TOTALLY count as an embarrassing moment since we were kind of awful)...anyway, we spent lots of time together.

Well, way back in the day, she lived in a little town in Wyoming. We're talking 500 population little. I used to go up and stay with her family for a week or so during the summer. One day, we were riding bikes home from the post office and racing---and I got really far ahead and was totally winning. Well, she was jealous (I think). So, when it came time to turn onto her street (the one and only turn in the 30 second ride home) she turned and just let me go right on ahead. And get TOTALLY lost! In this little town. Now, maybe I should've been bright enough to not get lost---but I kind of have the worst sense of direction in the whole entire world. So there I am, 4 years old, totally lost. Maybe I cried a little bit. When I found my way back to her house----five minutes later---they hadn't even missed me! It was like it was no big deal that I got lost and almost disappeared. My pride was wounded sufficiently.

Then there was the time I was supposed to take the trash out at their house. It was Sara's job to tell me where the garbage can was. Well, her being so helpful and all, she took me outside and vaguely pointed in front of her and said, "It's behind that tree." There was a very tiny tree (as in 2 feet tall) right in front of where she pointed, and a nice little flower pot right behind it. So, I emptied all the garbages into that pot. And no, it was not nearly big enough to hold it all. However, about 50 feet away was a large pine tree and a big dumpster hidden behind it. Apparently that was where the trash went. Oops. My only consolation in this was that Sara got in trouble for not showing me where to go---and I was not blamed for being too dense to think a pot was not the garbage can. And also, my aunt cleaned it up instead of me. Maybe she felt bad that she didn't miss me when I got lost.

So, in an effort to get Sara back for humiliating me, I'm posting the picture we had taken together when we were 16. I'm not sure why this picture was taken, or why we weren't allowed to smile and be normal teenagers in it instead of trying to look "contemplative." We both kind of hate this picture---but she hates it worse. So this is to get her back.