Tova's Totally Awkward Tuesdays

Welcome, one and all, to another Totally Awkward Tuesday, courtesy of yours truly. You'd think that, having done this since December of last year, I would've run out of awkward stories to tell about myself, but so far, I haven't. I'm not sure if that's a good thing or a bad thing...


Like always, you - yes you! - are invited to share an awkward story on your own blog, link back to my blog from your own, and then share the link to your awkward post. Then, we can all read each other's most awkward moments and laugh, and laugh, and laugh.


This week, my awkward moment took place when I was in high school, which as far as I can tell, is pretty much a universally awkward time for everyone.


When I was in high school, I attended a very fantastic church youth group. Every year, the youth group competed in a nation-wide talent competition-type-thing. There was singing, instrument playing, acting, writing, art, and all sorts of other fun stuff. I always participated in the drama portion of the competition (because in high school, I was nothing if not dramatic) and also various singing competitions (solo, duet, group, praise band, etc). Vocal solos were one of the favorite categories for all of the girls, and any female who could carry a tune (and many who couldn't) would agonize for months over the perfect song to choose for her vocal solo in the annual competition. It was a pretty big deal for us at the time (which indicates that we didn't yet have many real issues to worry about.) You could either sing a capella, with live musical accompaniment (ie, a friend who could play piano), or to a recorded accompaniment on cassette or CD. Recorded background music was typically the way to go, since it was easiest, and you didn't have to ask your accompanist to practice with you thousands of times until they eventually grew to hate both you and the sound of your voice.

There was a Christian bookstore in my town that had a great selection of backup tapes, so every year, I would go to the store to pick out my song. The backup tapes were in a corner of the store, and set up next to them were several cd/cassette players with headphones where you could listen to the music in peace and quiet, and decide which song you wanted to buy. The headphones were something like this -

- designed to keep noise out and the music in so that everyone else didn't have to listen to all of the songs you were playing 14 times in a row to decide whether or not you liked them.

So, this particular year, I went to the store like I'd done for two or three years before, picked out a few tapes, and then sat down at one of the cassette players to pick a song. I popped the first cassette into the player and slipped the headphones on, and the music started to play very, very quietly. I turned the volume up, but the music was still too quiet to hear, so I turned it up a little more. I kept turning it up, but it was still much too quiet, so I finally cranked the volume knob ALL the way up, as high as it would go. I could finally hear the music, but not nearly as well as I should've been able to, so I made a mental note to tell a store employee that the headphones were defective. As luck would have it, though, the employee approached me first - I'd been sitting there with my headphones on, listening to the music for about a minute, when a salesperson tapped me on the shoulder and said, "Excuse me, you have to turn your music down - you're disturbing all of the other customers."

I took off the headphones to hear her better, and that's when I heard the music blaring from the player I was listening to. My headphones were not plugged in. I'd been sitting there, wearing noise-canceling headphones and wondering why I couldn't hear anything, while everyone else in the store wondered why on Earth I thought it was appropriate to blast music at uncomfortably high volumes while everyone else was trying to shop. Needless to say, I made my decision on which song to buy very quickly that year.


Ok, so what's your awkward moment? Blog about it, make sure to link back to my blog from yours, then include a link directly to your Totally Awkward Tuesday post in the exciting new MckLinky box below!