I ordered Philly Cheesesteak with a side of onion rings – nice, crunchy onion rings just the way I like ’em – and was lost in deep conversation with my writing buddy, author Karen Casey (who wrote the delightful book, Splash Joy), when the server placed the deliciously steamy plate in front of me.
In the middle of making some brilliant observation about book marketing (what authors usually talk about when they get together), I caught sight of the squat plastic ketchup bottle out of the corner of my eye. It was sitting directly beside my red tinted water glass, but I didn’t notice this at the time – only that the crimson tomatoey stuff I needed to douse my onion rings with was over there to the right of my plate. So without further thought (or any thought for that matter), and without averting my eyes from my friend, I grabbed what I thought was the ketchup bottle and in one fell swoop, turned it upside down over my plate and shook.
Oops.
Surprise!
It wasn’t ketchup that poured out but ice water that splashed out over my perfect hot, crunchy onion rings. And … no excuses. I had done it all by my lonesome.
Speechless, I sat there in disbelief, staring at my now ruined onion life preservers floating across the swimming pool that was my plate while Karen scrambled for more napkins to mop up my drenched lap and the server just mutely shook her head. She didn’t say it, but I heard her thoughts loud and clear:
WHAT’S WRONG WITH YOU, LADY? WHY WOULD YOU DROWN YOUR LUNCH????
I had no good answers – “I thought my water glass was ketchup” sounded more than a little lame.
In a sudden flashback, it reminded me of days past when our family kept our two cats in the garage at night with a pet door handy for outside missions. Seemed like a good idea. Only the neighborhood raccoons discovered this golden opportunity and began sneaking in to partake of the cat food we left for our hapless kitties. Raccoons like to wash their food, so the masked marauders would dip pawfuls of dry Friskies into the cat’s water pail, mush it all up, eat as much as they could, then walk across our car parked in the garage with their Friskies-goo-coated paws. The next morning we would discover two shellshocked cats, hardened cement pawprints parading across our car hood, and a mushy mess clogging the water pail.
All this ran through the flash drive of my mind in about three seconds.
Then without further explanation to the baffled restaurant server, I said, “Golly, I guess I’m just a human raccoon.”
Her eyes did a kind of popping/rolling combo thing and I realized that without knowing my train of thoughts about raccoon dining practices (perfectly reasonable and logical conclusion, right?), she must’ve thought my statement was w-a-y out of left field. I could hear her unspoken thoughts once again:
WHOA. JUST WAIT TILL I TELL THE COOK ABOUT THIS WHACK JOB!
Yes, the entire incident was embarrassing, but I managed to share a hearty laugh with Karen over it, despite having to sit there in soggy jeans for the next hour. Thankfully, the cook was nonjudgmental and sent out another plate of hot, crispy onion rings. Karen closely supervised my ketchup-squirting thereafter. Hey, everybody needs an editor.
So what about you, dearest BFF? When was your last embarrassing public episode of air-headedness? Were you mortified or finally able to laugh about it? Or maybe both?