So one of the most awkward category of human encounters I can think of is when someone is touching you without realizing it.
You know what I’m talking about: When you’re grabbing lunch with a client and somehow someone plants their foot right on top of yours without realizing it. And you either respond quickly and slide your foot away, or – more commonly – freeze, hoping they’ll adjust their foot and you can reposition yours without them noticing. But then they DON’T move theirs, and you sit there, unable to fully engage in conversation, because you are so fixated on holding that foot PERFECTLY STILL. Because now a decent period of time has passed, enough that if you DO move your foot, they are going to think you a freak for not having just pulled it away when they first stepped on it.
Right? This has happened to you, too, right?
Well, tonight at yoga, it happened in perhaps the most awkward way yet. We were in our final pose for the class, savasana, which is also called “corpse pose” because we lie there on the floor with eyes closed, not moving, barely breathing, and letting tranquility flood over us. I was obediently dead-like, but the girl next to me was struggling so the teacher came over to help her.
The thing is, her way of helping was to crouch beside her and do some rather extensive hands-on adjustments. That would’ve been fine, but when she crouched, she essentially sat on my right hand, which was palm up, facing the ceiling.
And yes, I missed my window to pull my hand out because I thought she was just squatting for a second. But no. She was there for the long-haul. Instead of being a model of tranquility, I lay there, trying to will my hand into NOT MOVING WHATSOEVER, because really, I can’t imagine much that’s more embarrassing than establishing a reputation for grabbing your yoga teacher’s ass.
Once she finally stood, relief flooded me in an odd way: I got the giggles. During the minutes where she was crouched in my palm, I was thinking of other awkward moments, and I recalled one that my sister had witnessed in high school.
If I’m remembering it correctly, she and our friend Margaret were walking to school together in the road, when a rather cool kid pulled up in a car next to them to chat for a minute. Alicia leaned down to the window and had a brief exchange, while Margaret remained someone what upright and aloof. When the car finally pulled away, Margaret cried uncle: apparently the kid had parked his tire on her foot, but because he was cool she just bit her tongue and stood there until he drove away and removed the weight from her foot.
As I write it now, it doesn’t seem that funny. But during yoga, in the wake of having my hand flatted by a butt cheek, it was downright hilarious. I shook silently with laughter, doing my best not to let loose with an audible snicker.
While I might not have achieved a state of tranquil bliss, I did experience a realization of sorts: I will never be so serious that I can actually be a convincing corpse. Until I actually am one, that is.
Tears running down my face. Okay your car story reminded me:
When I was in my early 20s I had a piece of crap car (duh) that someone once tried to break into it (for what? my stock stereo?), and broke the lock on the driver’s side so I had to unlock the door from the passenger side and crawl across the seat to the driver’s side.
One day after working out I parked in my spot at my apartment complex in full view of about 45 apartments, grabbed my stuff, locked the door and with my hands full I closed the door with my hip. Unfortunately my shorts got stuck in the door. Predicament, because now I’m essentially stuck to my car, and I am assuming that every one of the inhabitants in those 45 apartments has seen me pull up and stick myself to my car. I started pulling as hard as I could to no avail. Then I started giggling, my back to the 45 people and their spouses standing at their windows with popcorn and beer (I assumed), waiting to see how I would break free. With tears streaming down my face and my shoulders bouncing up and down with laughter, I eventually decided I would have to step out of my shorts, stuck high up in the door, which isn’t an easy task because I’m tall. Now I’m sure that the 45 people and their spouses and children have called the people in the apartments across from them to witness me stepping out of my shorts while standing on my tiptoes then running around the car in my underwear to unlock the passenger side, crawl across the seat to the driver’s side, unlock THAT door, grab my shorts and put them back on with the steering wheel making it all the more difficult.
I just wrote a post in the comments section of your post.
LOL! Good thinking to just get OUT of them. I think I would’ve kept fighting it for a while, trying to figure out how to get untangled. And that would’ve looked reedonkulous.