Stuck in a Moment

Some days I feel somewhat intelligent. You know, like I have my moments. Someone will be talking about something I know about, say dachshund breeders or OPI nail polish colors, and I can sound—and I don’t mean to brag here—but pretty much like a genius.

But then there are the other moments. The moments that seem to come all too frequently. The moments where I do something that makes my entire face turn bright red and makes me bury my face in my pillow groaning when I recall them in those seconds before sleep at night.

The other day, such a moment occurred. It wasn’t necessarily a red face/bury head in pillow moment because I was with a close friend who has known me long enough to not exactly anticipate genius at all times, but it wasn’t my proudest time.

We were out doing some Christmas shopping, walking through the mall and she was sharing a story with me about an event she’d attended where kids had been singing holiday music. It had been multicultural, with all of the holidays of the season being celebrated.

“… so yeah, they sang Christmas carols and secular carols—“

I snorted. “Secular carols? What’s that? Like ‘We don’t believe in God, fa la la…bells…good cheer….’” (Imagine an extremely out of tune singing voice rambling on here)

“No. Like Jingle Bells. And Rudolph the Red Nose Reindeer.”

Oh. Right.

The thing is, this wouldn’t be all that bad, except that this morning, for some reason, as I sat at a stoplight alone in my car on my drive to work, I remembered the moment. And I started to laugh, alone in my car. And then I looked in the car next to me where staring at me as if I’d totally lost my mind was a guy from my condo complex. I snapped my mouth shut, but it was too late. The damage had been done. I looked like a crazy person.

This is the problem with these moments. They compound themselves. And that’s probably how crazy people happen. If I’m correct about that, then I’m well on my way to insane.