My Foible

So, um...yeah, I should probably not be allowed to leave the house anymore. You see, the problem with being really good at math is that, in order to have balance in this universe, there must exist an equivalent ineptness that is just as blatantly obvious as my phenomenal Calculus skills. It can not be helped.

As much as I try to hide my weaknesses, sometimes my diligence wavers and, well, I guess the best way to explain this is by describing my yesterday. So, yesterday...yes, yesterday....well, we were invited to go to a friend's farm. We didn't know these people well (or really at all), but they made it out to be a fun family day and they have a tree house and there will be food and the boys will love it and we should just definitely show up. I'm not usually one to go to people's houses if I don't know them, but since my proverbial job as the wet blanket of the family was being a little overplayed this week, I decided to just go and pamper myself later for the effort. After all, I had a cold Dr. Pepper and a night of Olympics waiting for me when I got home.

So, we arrived at the farm. It all looked a little chaotic. The kids let us in, but there didn't seem to be an adult in sight. There were no father-like people around, and the only female over age ten, was very quiet and appeared to be about sixteen. She hadn't said a word to us and I figured that she was playing the annoyed teenager role. After about ten minutes, it seemed that a parent of some sorts had been located, but was busy feeding the animals. So, since I was fairly sure that we, the company, had not been announced, we made our way outside.

The heat was blistering. I was very uncomfortable both physically and psychologically. So, I found a chair under a tree and watched as the kids taunted the cows and tripped through the watermelon patch. By this time, Brigham had successfully located the person who had invited us over and had started to make small talk. They do scouts together and our sons have had classes in school together. So, some of the tension in the air was starting to fade - for them, at least. I still didn't know anyone and I'm not exactly a blaring extrovert.

Finally, the "only female over age ten" that I spoke of before, came over and sat by me. She didn't say anything for a while...and I started to calculate exactly how long this afternoon was going to last since we had already accepted their invitation to dinner. When I realized that we still had, on the low side, another 3 hours before dinner would even be a reasonable proposition, I decided that my only chance at enjoying myself even a little was to try some small talk with this girl. After all, I'm pretty good with teenagers. Hey, I might have underestimated her. She might even be college age and I teach college kids and a lot of of them think that I am a pretty neat person. This could work. I could talk to this person.

So, I thought about small talk. Let's see. What do people say. Brigham was over there chatting away with the father of Conner, the boy who had invited us over. He looked like he easily had 10 to 15 years on Brigham and they seemed to be getting along like best friends. So, age shouldn't matter. I'm sure I'd have something in common with this girl. Maybe she was in school. We could talk about what subjects she liked. So, I turned to her. And this is when it happened. I never should have opened my mouth, but I did, and I said, "So, you must be Conner's older sister." Then she replied, "No, I'm his dad's girlfriend." And my jaw dropped. There was no recovery after that.

Yeah, it's true, I really shouldn't be allowed to leave the house.