Oh, haha. This was SO awkward but still funny, I have two sisters and two brothers and our family live really close, always phone each other, chat on-line etc. blah, blah, blah.
I’m the only one who doesn’t have kids so *sometimes* when my sisters phone me I’ll just be in my house reading or doing some work or whatever and I have a pretty short attention span, well….SOMETIMES, actually quite often either they or my mum will phone me and get me on the phone and just talk and talk about something that I’d get quite bored with after a while, I’ve never been good at getting out of boring conversations, like I’d just be a ‘Yeah? Really? Wow? No way?’ type person but one day I hit on this amazing idea, I only have a mobile so I decided that if I was in the middle of a conversation I couldn’t pay attention to I would just hang up and pretend the reception went dead, I was so pleased with myself and I started doing this quite often, then one day my sister was talking and I knew I had to go out so I hung up the phone, but I actually didn’t, I only thought I had, she could still hear the radio in the background….so she phones me back two minutes later and she’s like ‘Tanya….’ in this really exasperated voice…..’Will you STOP hanging up on everyone ALL THE TIME!’ I was like ‘What no, no, no my reception just went dead O_O’ …and she’s like ‘No it didn’t! You hang up on us all the time! You’ve been doing it for ages, it’s because you can’t pay attention! Everybody knows and they laugh about it all the time but will you just stop doing it now……!’……I was like..’Uh…oh. Really? ReeeallllY??? Seriously? Noooo. Oh. Hmmmm.’ ……Plan = dumb. :O

Tanya – Belfast

Aargh :O …this was one of the long term awkward memories that really affected my life when I was a kid, when I was in first form(12) we had made one day in Home Economics Chili Con Carne…I’d never made it before so I was really excited and it all went great and my chili looked spectacular and we let it cool and I packed it up in a tupperware and headed for the bus home. So there was no room in my bag for the tupperware, it was like a litre sized tub full of chili and I had to bring home my lever arch folder as well which was also really heavy AND I had to get all the way home on the bus, so I survived the shove of everyone getting on the bus(no-one queued they just sardined in through the door, it was scary!)and the bus journey back home(our buses drop us in the middle of our town and then you walk home) so my town is quite small, like everyone in it knows what you’ve done five mins after you do it and on the way home is a big stationery/bookshop that I would always go into after school and read books in, instead of just trying to get home with this giant tub of chili I go into the bookshop and start reading the books, I settle for holding my folder flat against my hip like a tray and putting the tub of chili on top while I used my other hand to flick through the books…oh I know this is so predictable right!? So of course, in a split second I go to put back a book, the polyester of my jumper against the plastic of my folder makes the folder slide up against my body so the tub flips over spins once in the air, hits the GREY CARPET, the lid flies off and my chili splatters all over the floor. I was actually fully freaking out, like no no NO! The shop is full(4.30 in the afternoon) there are some girls from another school laughing their heads off(not literally ) and then I see the manager coming storming toward me with a look of thunder, I’m like ok it’s no big deal I’ll apologise, help clean it up…LOL!! My flight from flight or fight took over and in about five seconds I decide to just bolt out the door BUT instead of just running out and leaving the giant pile of chili(I am nearly crying laughing remembering this) I THROW my folder on the floor use my ARM to scrape the majority of the chili into the tupperware and then run past the hysterical girls as fast as I physically can, out the door and straight down the street with a giant lidless tub of chili until I get home and spend the next hour trying to scrub con carne off my blazer while gasping for breath, ok, then when I actually calm down and stop freaking I realise I’m going to have to go back for my folder with my name inside and the next day have to walk past the ruined grey carpet with a GIANT damp patch, some poor person had the scrub of their life on and apologise for dropping my chili and doing a bunk to a *really* hacked off manager and then spent the next year, possibly two avoiding the place. Huuuuuahmph. O_O

Tanya – Belfast

Ok, auh this was a terrible night, my boyfriend had decided to go get me a ring so he could propose on Christmas Eve, so he knew I *hated* gold and I liked pearls, so that’s cool. He went to a little jewellery shop and ordered a ring in my size to arrive the week before Christmas Eve, it was platinum with a single pearl instead of a diamond. Lovely. Ok.
So on Christmas Eve he takes a little bag out and passes it to me, I have no idea that it’s a ring or that he’s proposing until I open it, actually even after I open it I’m still not sure because he hasn’t said anything…and in the ring box is, ok – this is quite hard to explain unless you saw it but, it was a bright gold hoop, not shaped like a ring and not flat like you would put on, but rounded all around, like an earring hoop with a pearl fixed into it and instead of being set into the box how you would set a ring in it was in a box sitting on the velvet….so I was like, oh there’s only one here, where’s the other? *Smile* obviously he’s really confused and he starts getting really nervous and is like ‘Other what…?’ So I’m like…..’Hang on, what is this?’ and he’s like ‘Uh…it’s a ring’ ……THEN it clicks but it just felt weird because, I started thinking…wow – why has my boyfriend got me a gold ring when he knows I hate gold, doesn’t he know me at all?? So I’m kind of dismayed. He sees my face and THEN says ‘No, no, no it’s ok! Don’t worry I got you a platinum one but it didn’t arrive on time so the woman in the shop gave me this to propose with and said I could come back afterwrds and change it to the platinum one. A WOMAN TOLD HIM THIS!
Ok. Moment pretty much ruined, that’s ok – no biggy, we’re engaged…yay!. Feeling really sorry for him because he’s totally down with how it all happened so it’s all good, I’m just annoyed that someone advised him even after they told him, no, no she won;t like it to do this! Argh, madness.. It turns out some woman in the jewellery shop told him that the ring would be in the week before Christmas Eve, he went in every day the whole week up until Christmas Eve and they put him off, again, again, again….until the day before when they said, oh it’s not going to be here until January the 10th but here, take this three sizes too big gold hoop and use it to propose with and you can change it when you come back!!!!!!
So we took it back and when we went in the woman in the shop is looking really pleased with herself….the first thing he says when we walk in is ‘Umm, she didn’t like it’ so she looks at me and is like ‘You didn’t like it?’ as if this is shocking to her…and I’m like in a nice but serious way ‘Well it’s not so much that I didn’t like it, but you kind of way can’t be giving a guy a ring that he knows his girlfriend won’t like to propose with as a surprise, it’s not like he can forewarn me…’hey you know I’m going to use a ring you won’t like here but bear with me, we’ll change it in January…now will you be my wife??’ She is totally affronted by this, she’d totally convinced him this was an ace idea….(LoLz)and walks out to the back of the shop and leaves the other woman to refund the ring…….aaargh….I totally came away feeling like the baddie! :O

Tanya – Belfast

Oh my goodness, this was actually the most awkward moment, ever, ever. ewwww. Ewww.
I was going into work one day late and the place I was apprenticing at the time only had the owner there and two sections to the shop, an office section with a desk and computer and a work section for customers. So I texted emmm….we’ll call him Hubert and said I’d be late. I arrived at 10.30am and walked in, he was sitting with his head on his hand on the computer looking SO bored, I was like hi, hi, how’s it?? and walked on in. On the way past the computer which was angled at me as I walked into the customer section I glanced at the screen and saw that he was just…watching porn. Just sitting there impassively staring at the screen but was frantically clicking at the mouse to try and close the window.
I was totally grossed out and thought ok, I’m going to pretend I didn’t see that and stay here for a minute until he clicks that off an then I’m going to just pretend NOTHING happened. He clicks it off and gets up, but is really embarrassed and flustered and in his flustered-ness(word??) he goes ‘Oh, I was just watching porn there, so I was’ ……I was like…..’Uh……ok’ O_O
Yeah, I didn’t stay there very long……

Tanya – Belfast

Oh, hahaha, oh my godness I can’t believe I forgot about this one, your shorts post made me remember it for some reason….!
When my boyfriend and I started going out we used to stay in one another’s house alternate weekends but we worked different shifts so one Saturday morning he left for work and I stayed at home in bed, later I got up and got in the shower and was just showering away, la-de-da….bit of lemon shower gel, washing my hair, ho hum and I heard the front door open, ok, that’s cool, he’s home already or forgot something or some such thing. So I’m still showering away and I hear someone come up the stairs, potter around the hall a bit and then push the bathroom door open, next thing….(oh I wish so bad I could do the voice because that was the funniest thing about this) I hear HIS DAD going…..’Hulloo-ooh’…I was like…..’What the hell Brian, it’s Tanya….!’(It’s cool we had an opaque shower curtain) and he’s like ‘Oh, is that you dear’(his parents are quite old his dad was in his seventies at the time) …so I’m like ‘Uh…YEAH, IT IS ME… TANYA…. IN THE SHOWER’ …..’Oh, ok then dear’ and disappears…..flip sake, I get out, I can hear them downstairs, I get dried, dressed go downstairs and sitting on the sofa is a pile of the clothes I was wearing the night before I had left in the kitchen to put in the washing machine, all folded in a neat pile, like , my stockings, skirt, underwear etc. and his Mum is in the kitchen doing the dishes. Oh. My. Ground. Swallow. Me. Now. O_O

Tanya – Belfast

My sister and I were walking through town one day and we bumped into our cousin, we don’t see her often and hadn’t seen for a few months so we were all ‘Hi! Hi! How are you?? What’s happening??’ ….she lives a bit away and is married with two kids, she says to us ‘Oh I’m pregnant again’….in a disastrous split second analysation of the situation, based on her tone of voice & body language somehow, SOMEHOW, I conclude that this is not a good thing and before my lovely sister can say congratulations….I go ‘Oh no, poor you’ with this real unfortunate face and then watch myself in an out of body experience, reach forward and rub her arm sympathetically!!!!!! Ah…hahaha….oh dear SO embarrassing, she sort of went with it and was like ‘Yeah, I know’ but what the hell…she was NOT unhappy about being pregnant or having her baby! I should not be allowed near people. O_O

Tanya – Belfast

When I was about six or seven I had a really good friend who lived across the street, he was the same age as me and had an older sister, about ten or eleven who really didn’t like me AT ALL. He was really sweet and always giving me flowers and gifts and things. One day we were playing in his back garden, his mum was there, his granny, a few family friends, his sister and us, he was like ‘I’m gonna get you something to eat’ it was a real sunny day and I wasn’t even hungry but he went into the kitchen and came back with a biscuit(they don’t make them anymore but they were called 5,4,3,2,1′s and they were like a wafer covered in chocolate with toffee inside. I didn’t even want it but he was pressing me to eat it so I scoffed it and was sitting there with melted chocolate on my fingers and the incriminating wrapper beside me on the grass when his sister came out of the kitchen, she let out this HUGE gasp, I mean like you would have thought someone had just sucker punched her and started hyperventilating, LITERALLY HYPERVENTILATING and started maniacally tearing at her hair, he and I were looking at her like, what the hell is wrong with her?! Then she started uncontrollably sobbing and screaming at the top of her voice….’She ate my 5,4,3,2,1,SHE ATE MY 5,4,3,2,1, SHE ATE MY 5,4,3,2,1!!!!!! AAAAAHHH MY 5,4,3,2,1!!!!!’ Her granny had to take her on her knee and rock her back and forth while she sobbed and screamed, while I was sitting there like some little scoff monster, with all the adults loudly whispering ‘What happened??’ ‘Oh she ate her 5,4,3,2,1′ and I didn’t even want the flipping 5,4,3,2,1 in the first place. Grrr. O_o

Tanya – Belfast

About four or five years ago my sister asked me to go swimming with her and my nephew, I wasn’t that keen I’m not big on swimming pools and I had no costume but he was so excited and he was only about one or two at the time so I agreed, I was thinking, ok I’ll get a costume the day before. Typical to form I didn’t get a costume and the next morning she came round, I thought I could make excuses and get out of it but she was adamant that I go with her, so we started hoking through my drawers and she pulled out this white patterned string bikini that I had bought for holiday and never worn, I was like NO WAY! but in the house, standing in my clothes somehow it seemed like it would be ok so I packed it up and we set off, it wasn’t until I actually got into the changing room, put it on and went out to the swimming pool that I actually realised how awful it was. Everyone else was in swimsuits and bodysuits and I was standing there ghostly white with a white string bikini on, like I mean across the cleavage was just two triangles so you could see all around each bosom and it was tied around the back with a string and the bottoms were just two small triangles tied at the hips with string….I actually could not have felt worse if I was nude, I mean this is ok if you live in Miami but this is Northern Ireland, people just don’t go to swimming pools in bikinis, but there was nothing to do so I just quickly got in the water, I’m not being paranoid when I say that people were staring, a couple were even embarassedly sniggering and I kept bobbing under the water trying to hide, eventually I was like, I have to get out of here, so I took a deep breath and started climbing out of the water, I had to walk the whole way round the pool to get back to the changing rooms covering my modesty because the bikini had gone a translucent grey colour in the water……to make it the ultimate cringefest there was a man there taking swimming lessons who was a regular in the coffee shop I worked in, he came in EVERY day, the next day I was working he sat at the bench beside my section and I all I could think about was….Oh my, this guy has practically seen me nude….cringe, CRINGE, CRINGE!!!!!

Tanya – Belfast

For as long as I can remember I have hated the word fiancee, so when my boyfriend and I got engaged I would never use it it just always sounded too frooffy or something and after we’d been going out so long I hated saying boyfriend because it made me feel like a little kid or something….so I got into the habit of calling him my partner which also felt weird so I eventually just started calling him my husband. I started driving lessons one day and as we were driving around I was chatting to the instructor, just small talk but I said something like ‘Oh yes my husband and I go there/went there…’ or some such thing, instead of the conversation moving on he becomes really interested in the fact I am “married” and asks me ‘oh when did you get wed?’ ….in a split second I weigh up the situation and instead of saying oh we’re not married yet I just call him that, I blurt out oh about seven noths ago(!!!!?????), does he drop it……NO. Oh where did you get married? I’m like oh emm….we got married in (aaaaahhhh what I am thinking!?) Spain, it was very small, intimate……(oh God please, PLEASE stop asking me about my imaginary wedding!!)…..then he says – What did you wear??!!! – What the hell…what did I wear!! Why is this fifty year old driving instructor asking me what I wore to my non-existant wedding??? It’s too late to go back now so I’m like oh just a lovely dress, a vintage lace dress, it was very nice….dah dah, dah. So ok, I’m rationalising this, it’s a bad situation but he’s just my driving instructor it’s not like he knows me or knows I’m a completely insane wedding fabricator!! …..but of course, what do you know….he then asks me what my boyfriend does, I tell him, he asks his name, I tell him!!!…..and LO AND BEHOLD….he says…’Oh yes, I know him, my friend So-andso goes ski-ing with him(WHY!!?? WHY!!??)….I’m fully freaking out now I’m like oh yeah? Really – wow….cool! The next week he comes and picks me up for the next lesson and starts talking about my boyfriend, his friend etc. I can’t hold out any longer with the fear of him finding out so I pull over the car and I’m like, listen William, I’ve got something to tell you….and I fess up to the whole ridiculous lie going way out of control….he is absolutely laughing his head off, he thinks this is hilarious and assures me that it’s no big deal….I on the other hand go home analysing my very psyche and tell my boyfriend who’s like….oh for God sake not again, you told the ambulance drivers when your scooter crashed(I had crashed my lovely purple vespa about five months prior) that I was your husband and when I arrived they asked me ‘Are you her husband?’ and I said ‘No I’m her boyfriend’………..people are going to start thinking you’re unstable!
Oh my goodness I swear – I *really* hope I’m not the only one who does crazy stuff like this….O_o

Tanya – Belfast

A couple of months ago I was took my little nephew to his swimming class(he’s 5), we did the hour swimming and then came out to the changing rooms, when I was getting him dried and dressed I noticed a quite long scratch on his shin, of course the changing room was full being the weekend and I made the mistake of asking him what happened….he said quite loudly ‘You did it’ in a really matter of fact voice, feeling a little embarassed I said ‘No I didn’t sweetie’ ….he must have been having a bad day because all of a sudden he stands up on the slatted bench and says REALLY loudly….’YES YOU DID! DON’T LIE, YOU DID IT FRUFRU(his petname for me) AND GOD KNOWS WHEN YOU’RE LYING SO DON’T LIE!!!’ ….EVERYONE in the changing rooms is just, kind of blankly staring at me like I’m the worst in the world and he’s sitting with his little ams folded and lip sticking out swinging his legs, I was positive it wasn’t me but I was so mortified I was just like…oh right ok, sorry, lets go…..it turns out that I had been wearing a pearl ring in the pool and the pearl had fallen off so the clasp had scratched his leg by accident, I felt so bad but totally worse with the berating he gave me!

Tanya – Belfast