#chispas storytime

[chispas-and-broken-bindings]

Chispas does an embarrasment, Part I

For miss @librarian-witchling, who is feeling down today, I am willing to share my most embarrassing story (and let’s be real, I have plenty of others, but this one takes the cake due to sheer absurdity). 

Under the cut due to length, and so all sensible people can easily avoid the following content: recreational drug use, blood, urine, unsolicited make out sessions, solicited make out sessions, graveyards, and tzatziki sauce

You’ve been warned.

Now when I say embarrassing, I mean objectively embarrassing. Though to be quite honest, I have little sense of the feeling. Like, if there is a part of the brain where shame lives, I’m missing it. It’s probably why I was such a bad Catholic (or maybe that’s because my mother dressed me in a black dress for my first communion. Who knows?) 

Let me take you back to a summer, long long ago, right after I graduated college. The world was new and full of possibilities. I had a few pennies in my pocket and time to kill before I had to make any real grown-up decisions. I was still living in the city and I had just started dating a guy I really liked (and by ‘just’ I mean we’d hooked up the weekend before). At this point he was still under the impression that I was cool and chill and attractive..so what could go wrong? 

Well, let me just say that I struggle with something called impulse control and one night the right mix of temptations crossed my path to create quite the molotov cocktail. 

It all started out innocently enough. The new beau and I both had the night off work, and our mutual friend was having a little backyard grill-out. So few people in the city have backyards that if someone who has one invites you for a grill-out, you obviously say yes. 

We were just chilling, drinking some beer, shooting the shit...again, innocent stuff...when the host of the party pulled out a little bag of psilocybin mushrooms. And while I’ve never been much of a drug-seeker, I also never really said no to them either. I had just had my first experience with mushrooms a few weeks earlier while watching the children’s film Up, and that was exceedingly pleasant. 

So of course I said, “why not?”

Once again, the trip was delightful. All those giddy, happy feelings of a new relationship were amplified, and suddenly everyone and everything was gorgeous. We stayed at the party long enough to miss the last bus back to my apartment, and while I had enough money to waste on concert tickets, nights out drinking, and a very ill-advised, very large back tattoo (which will be relevant to the story in Part II), I did not have money to waste for a cab ride home. 

On a beautiful summer night, this was no problem. The beau and I decided to stroll back to my place and maybe work off the buzz from the alcohol, the mushrooms, and the weed that inevitably made the rounds. 

At the time, I lived very close to a large cemetery, and as one is wont to do when holding hands with a new flame in the dead of night… I decided we should cut through it on the way back to my apartment. It was but a quick hop, skip, and jump and before we were over the fence and making out against a mausoleum wall. Mary Shelley would have been so proud. 

(At this point, you may be wondering where the embarrassing part comes in. While the above is cringey and annoying in the stereotypical way young adults in love are cringey and annoying...the embarrassment is coming soon, and when it comes, it comes like an avalanche.) 

No, where were we? 

Ah, yes. The cemetery. We strolled around, rated the tombstones, made out some more, before eventually realizing that we were starving. There was a 24-hour gyro place not too far away, so it was back over the fence we went... except I got distracted at the top by the moon (such a cliche, I know). After just sitting on top of the fence for a minute while the beau humored my witchy act, when I finally made to hop down, I forgot to let go of the barbed wire, or whatever was at the top of the fence...and I slice my palm wide open. 

It wasn’t a big deal, but it was messy, though not messy enough to forgo the gyros. 

Thirty minutes later, our stomachs were full and I was busy wiping tzatziki sauce from my face and blood from my hand and fervently hoping the beau wasn’t totally turned off by how well the late night crew at the gyro shop seemed to know me and my favorite order. It was probably one in the morning by this point, and we both had to work in the next eight hours, so back to my apartment we went, at last. 

At the time, I did not know a crucial fact about myself, but I was about to find out in the most mortifying way possible. 

I am very susceptible to vasovagal syncope. Vasovagal syncope occurs when you faint because your body overreacts to certain triggers, such as the sight of blood. The trigger causes your heart rate and blood pressure to drop suddenly. 

I should have known this. I fainted multiple times in high school and I knew I had low blood pressure… but I didn’t know blood was a trigger, or more significantly, that cleaning a cut under running water was my trigger.

When we arrived at my apartment, the beau became quite stern about properly cleaning up my hand. Apparently wadded up paper napkins and tzatziki sauce does not pass Eagle Scout/former lifeguard muster. While he rummaged through drawers looking for better dressings, I stood at the sink in my bathroom and began rinsing out the blood. 

 As soon as I saw him pull hydrogen peroxide out, I got a wee bit woozy. 

The last thing I remember was that I walked to the kitchen and sat down at the table. The beau told me quite emphatically to "stay seated.”

Always a bit of a rebel, I must have ignored this very sound advice, because the next thing I knew, I was cuddled up in bed in brand new clothes, being shaken awake by the beau as he muttered something about a taxi waiting downstairs. 

I tried to push him off, as I was quite comfortable, and again, who pays for a taxi in the summertime? 

Finally, after much gentle effort on his part, he explained to me that I did not stay seated and instead  I had stood up...and promptly fainted, cracking the back of my skull on the hardwood floor, before immediately peeing my pants. 

I wish I could say that this is the most embarrassing part of the story, but alas….

While the poor beau of only a week was on his knees, trying to assess the situation, I "came to" and followed up my sexy first act with an attempt to make out with him, all while still lying in a puddle of my own urine.

Again, you must be thinking this is surely where the mortification ends, but again, it is not. Still, I will leave you here, so as not to overburden anyone with too much second-hand embarrassment at one time. I promise to follow up with the conclusion of this sordid affair in Part II. It features: Segways, police officers, hot doctors, and a 3 am phone call to my parents. 

Cheers @librarian-witchling. I hope my silly past can bring you a little enjoyment on this night.