All Said and Done

In continuation of the How To series, I present How to Make an Ass of Yourself in One Easy Sentence. It's really extremely simple. It sounds all impressive and stuff. You're probably round-eyed with anticipation. How, but how will she manage to pull this rabbit out of the hat, you think. I'm not a magician for nothing, dear sirs (and you, ladies of course. Looking very fetching today, we are, huh? *winks charmingly, chattering-magician ishtyle*). So here it is. There is no 5-step technique that I can teach you, no flowchart or easy-to-understand manual. But what I can (and will, never fear) do is provide tried and trusted examples from my life and hard-won examples from the lives of my friends and family (as in I won them by dint of much effort and diligent bullying and blackmailing). The top 10 for your edification (I didn't dare do the top 50 list I'd originally planned, lack of space and your patience and all that). So ta-da. Behold and Wonder.

1. The technician in your lab comes up to you, looking wildeyed and breathing irregularly, and asks you, "Have you seen Buffer P3?". You look him in the eye calmly and collectedly and say, "No. Are you looking for it?"

2. The fire alarm goes off at 3 in the morning and everyone's huddled in their jammies in the fire escape. You walk towards them, rubbing the sleep out of your eyes and say, "Did the alarm wake you guys up too?"

3. Your best friend is crying in your arms about the boy who dumped her. You rub her back comfortingly and say, "There, there. I totally understand. He was so hot, wasn't he?"

4. That great aunt of yours who always terrifies you with her beady stare calls you to her chair and quavers "Happy B'day" at you. You reply with great aplomb (engendered by panic and petrification of the heart) "Umm. Thank you. You too." And then proceed to yell the same response verbatim 5 times (because she's completely deaf in both ears but will *not* wear a hearing aid) so that everyone in the room can know just what scales of idiocy they're dealing with.*

5. You want to get off the elevator at the 4th floor. You trip out of it lightly at the 5th floor itself (where it stops for some frazzled business man type guy to get on) and then smartly turn around, get back in and announce in the general direction of the upper atmosphere of the lift, "Wrong floor."

6. The guy at Subway has the weirdest Jamaican accent (or something!) and asks you "Chips and a drink?". You smile, nod knowingly and say "Debit."

7. You go to a Snow Patrol concert, sing along randomly with the opening act (cos you don't know the words and are just making them up as you go along) and then comment loudly to the guy standing next to you, "Wow! I did *not* know Snow Patrol was this good. They have so much energy."

8. Have a long winded conversation about Harry Potter, his hypothesized fate and that of Dumbledore while constantly referring to Snape as Snipe. With such conviction that the person you're talking to also refers to him as Snipe. Then realize half way through the conversation and descend into helpless giggling that is *not* relieved by the total bafflement on the face of the person you're talking to. (so I know this isn't a sentence but this ranks in my top 10 idiotic conversations-I've-had).

9. Try to break up with your bf and on the third attempt (cos you muffed the first two) end the phone call with "Love you" (Force of habit is a powerful thing *sigh*).

10. Your boss is walking towards you looking hassled and harried. She stubs her foot on the corner of your bench. Look at her sympathetically and say, "Awwww. That must have hurt."


Honorary Mention: You walk into Starbucks, stride purposefully towards the counter girl, look her in the eyes and say, "I want some coffee."

I tried to cover all commonly foreseeable situations in this comprehensive summary, ladies and gentlemen. For a more exhaustive survey (including the i-spilt-my-drink-all-over-my-date situation and the i-nearly-ran-over-you-because-of-my-horrendous-driving-but-if-i-keep-smiling-maniacally-maybe-we-can-pretend-it-never-happened-,-yes-? scenario) pliss to subscribe to my mailing list. And if you don't have natural idiotic-statement-making skills please don't subscribe. Cos it's a god-given gift and cannot be taught to all and sundry!

*This one makes sense only when I add that your great aunt and you do not share a birthday (or anything much else) in common