Oops!....I Did It Again!

Do you guys often make a fool of yourselves? Or say, make an ass of yourself? Yeah, I’m talking about those awkward and embarrassing moments which make us cringe... Oh man, I’ve been through so many of them that I shouldn’t feel humiliated anymore. I should get used to it by now, but I can’t. I guess nobody can. You just have to live with this stuff. Some of them are funny, and you can have a good laugh later about them…they’re the good ones!

Few months back my aunt came over our house. She’s in her late forties and is all preppy and all-you-people-I’m-perfect-and-don’t-you-dare-mess-with-me type (let’s call her Pixel?). Everything gets on her nerves (except her own children of whom she thinks a world of, but ‘they do’ get on ‘my’ nerves). Anyways, it was a hot-hot day, and when I say hot, I mean hot. The sun was being unusually cruel to us citizens of Karachi...and what’s with this load-shedding thing, it was awfully awful. So, there she was standing on our doorstep, her head held high and a little smug smile playing on her lips. Her hairs, which are always ‘perfect’, were not-so perfect that day. Her make-up was smeared and she'd dark circles…oh well; she was looking ‘Horrible!!!’ She must have seen my shocked expression, as she ran her fingers through her hair and dabbed a tissue on her face consciously.

‘Hello’ I said after a while and moved aside to let her in.

‘Where’s your mother,’ she smiled at me, came inside and went straight into our kitchen (which was quite messy that day)

‘She’s out. She’ll be back in about half an hour, I think’ I led her to the lounge and we sat on the sofa in awkward silent. Aunt Pixel eyed the room (which was also quite messy, my brothers’ toys, clothes, books strewn all over the place and hey, what was that! Oh, just ketchup dripping from the bottle). At times like these I wish I’d some magical powers, so with just a glance I could clean this place. I so wish!

‘Could you get me a glass of water, dear?’ she said in a way which meant ‘where are your manners, girly?’

‘Oh, yes, of course,’ I got up and went to the kitchen. Now, kitchen is one of those places in my home where you won’t find me often, actually almost never. I went through cabinets, cursing myself for not knowing where mum had put those ‘precious’ glasses of hers. After an hour (it was only 5 minutes, ok?) I found some of those oh-so-precious glasses. Took out one, filled the glass with ice-cold water, placed it on a tray and went back to the lounge.

I handed the glass to Aunt Pixel, she said thanks and in one big gulp she drank it all.

‘Err…would you like some more?’ I asked, wishing she’d say no.

‘Yes, dear,’ she smiled, for the first time she ‘really’ smiled. What I mean is, it also looked like a smile.

I took one quick look. Poor Aunt Pixel, she looked so tired. Why don’t you give her some lemonade? The angel on my shoulder whispered softly. God knows where the devil was, if it were here, it’d have tried to stop me. But no, at that time it was taking a nap or something. Yes, that would be nice, I told the angel. So, I made Aunt Pixel some lemonade.

I handed her the glass, smiling sweetly at her. I shouldn’t have smiled. When people say smiling is good, it is …but on other hand it could make some people suspicious.

‘I made some lemonade for you,’ I was pleased with myself. Aunt Pixel gave me that unique smile of hers and took a sip. I waited for her reaction, waiting for her to say something…like praising me? But instead of smiling she frowned.

‘Something isn’t right,’ she took another sip and frowned even deeper.

‘Umm…what’s wrong?’ my face fell as she put the glass aside.

‘It has a weird taste,’ she shrugged. Just then the bell rang. Saved by the bell, I thought, and went to open the door. Mum came in with hundreds of shopping bags. When she saw Aunt Pixel, she threw the bags on the floor and ran to hug her. It isn’t often you’ll find Aunt Pixel in our home. And mum simply dotes on her sister. I left them, the glass of poor lemonade in my hand and went back to kitchen. I was puzzled, why didn’t Aunt Pixel like this lovely cool refreshing lemonade, I wondered out aloud.

‘Because it wasn’t lemonade?’ the devil crackled loudly

‘What?’ I turned sharply to look at my shoulder. The devil pointed his pitchfork towards the chopping board where there were two yellow circular things, also known as lemons. Then it hit me, I forgot to add lemons. So the drink I served Aunt Pixel was just a mixture of water, sugar and salt. And yeah some ice-cubes. Now, how stupid you can get? So, that was my lemonade story, not so humiliating now (kinda hilarious)…but its true embarrassment when you feel embarrassed by your own self, and that was exactly what I felt at that time.

There’re too many of them, but I can’t tell you all, of course!

Does it happen to you too? When you’re about to laugh but you let out that ugly cough making it ‘coughter’ from the ‘laughter’. I hate it when it happens to me! Not that it happens to me often, just once or twice in all my years.