The Creation

Life is awkward, and that's a fact. And so, in the name of awkward, Bree and I have created this blog. A place for awkward stories to be shared, in all their awkward glory. I think we can all agree that awkward isn't very fun at the time, but looking back, it's quite humorous. That's why this blog has come to be. Awkward happens, and honestly, you might as well share the hilarity of it. Am I right?

Now, allow me to share the story that sparked the blog. We shall call it, The Creation (because it sparked the creation of blog - see how that works?).

This story starts with a singles ward. Just as so many awkward stories do. I don't know about the rest of you, but to be quite honest, I think singles wards are just awkward in a can. And should be avoided, if at all possible. However, I am single. Hence, the singles ward. So tonight the singles ward activity consisted of a trip to the open house of the Brigham City Temple. Cool, right? Right. It was indeed very cool. The awkward didn't begin until after the open house. Just as Bree and I were about to board the bus back to the parking lot where our ride was parked, we were ambushed by Home Teacher #1 (we won't use names, just to avoid the extra-awkwardness of someone accidentally finding this blog and realizing we wrote about them). Home Teacher #1 is one of my home teachers. Really really nice kid, but he's weird. After the ambush, he asks Bree and I to join him, Home Teacher #2 (Bree's home teacher) and HT2's girlfriend for shakes. Just as the words, "Gee, I'd really like to but I can't, I need to hurry and get home," were prepared to escape my lips, I hear Bree say, "Sure, we'd love to!" Oh. Crap. You can practically smell the awkward that tonight is going to be.

We get onto the bus, and HT1 takes a seat right across from us. So we can talk. Goody. He asks us how we liked the temple (it was really really pretty), what our favorite part was (the Celestial room), and the usual chit chat. When Bree and I are left with a minute to ourselves, we immediately look for a way out of this one. Not that we don't love the idea of spending the night with a very coupley couple and a strange boy, but .... Well, we really don't love the idea of spending the night with a very coupley couple and strange boy. We get a plan in place, but we're hoping HT1 will just let it drop. He doesn't. As we exit the bus, he tells us we'll meet at the church parking lot when we get home. We agree (reluctantly) and head to our car. The whole ride home is spent plotting out escape. As soon as the car pulls into the church parking lot, Bree and I practically jump out, thank the girl for the ride, and run (yeah, we literally ran) to Bree's car.

This is our plan: I'm going to keep my phone off. That way, I can't read any texts and I can't get any calls. And since we never established a place to get the shakes, well, I guess we're just out of luck! Ah darn. If HT1 asks about it, I tell him I forgot to turn my phone back on after the temple, totally spaced the shakes, so sorry, blah blah blah. All a very good plan. Until I start feeling a wee bit guilty and turn on my phone. And see I have two missed calls. And listen to the voice mail. Curse this conscience of mine. And now I'm feeling really bad. After a while, Bree and I decide to just bite the bullet and go get shakes. I text HT1, and we leave to meet them at Burger Stop. By this time, we've been home from the temple a good hour.

When we get to Burger Stop, we sit in the car for a while, trying to decide if we really want to go in. We don't. But we're already here, and by golly, we're going in. However, we decide we'll just share a shake, and that way we can eat and get out of there twice as fast. We walk in, wave hello to the gang, and head over to the counter. Where a worker politely informs us they are now closed. The awkward level just went up. So we walk over, sit at a booth across from them, and watch them eat. Fun, yeah? We don't even talk to them that much, except to answer HT1's repeated questions about the temple (yes - still pretty, still like the Celestial room). And while we're sitting there, watching them eat, we can't help but notice how awkwardly coupley HT2 and his girlfriend are. They're sharing a shake, which isn't so bad in and of itself. However, they are also sharing a spoon. Which is bad. Honestly, that's just disgusting. For pity's sake, get two spoons! And I'm sitting here, wondering how we're going to get out of here. Before we had a food deadline - when the shake's gone, so are we. Now, we have nothing. We are stuck. Thankfully after about ten minutes the workers turn off the lights in the section where we're sitting, a not-so-subtle hint to get out of there. Bree and I are out and in her car pretty dang quick, because there was no way we were going to be fandangled into anything else that evening. We wave good-bye from the car and hit the road. Where we saw a guy on a unicycle. Which was just weird, in a totally unrelated way.

I guess the night could have been more awkward. It could have lasted longer than ten minutes. That would have been worse. But we made a few big mistakes that should be noted.

1. Bree said yes. I don't know what that was about. If she would've said no, or if I had started talking one second before her, this whole evening could've been avoided.

2. I turned my phone on. That led to the guilt. I should've left it off. I should've followed the plan. I am so weak.

3. We should've gone to get shakes on time, or not at all. The awkward be-there-for-ten-minutes things was just weird for everyone. And I don't think any of them were fooled. They all knew we were trying to get out of it, because they didn't even ask what took us so long. That didn't help things in the uncomfortable department.

All in all, it was an awkward night. Just awkward.