If it wasn’t apparent before, I am a klutz. Not only do I manage to occasionally trip over nothing, but my klutziness affects others within my vicinity. And unlucky for me, there is no government assistance for this bout of overall awkwardness that is not only a danger to myself, but others as well. In my mid-teens, I started dating. One of my first boyfriends’ bore witness to how destructive I managed to be when I accidentally slammed open the microwave door against his head. Later that week I also managed to trip and slam his head onto the arm of the couch. Thankfully he was concussion-free the 2 years we dated, though I question if I managed to damage quite a few brain cells during this time period.

Fast forward three years and nothing has changed. Before Petco and I started dating, I asked him to help tutor me in math before one of my exams. Hair curled? Check. Makeup? Check. Cute outfit? Check. Sure, I needed the tutoring since I was god awful at integrals, but why not look cute for the tutor I was crushing on? Not even ten minutes in our tutoring session, I opened a bottle of coke. The details are fuzzy as I don’t remember banging the coke around or vigorously shaking it up before consumption, HOWEVER the coke practically exploded the moment the carbon dioxide was released. My entire shirt – why did I wear white – was soaked through. The ends of my hair were damp as the curls fell apart. I was mortified. I quickly left the room to change as Petco said NOTHING about the incident and moved on tutoring me on the next topic when I came back with a new shirt. I brought up this incident to Petco a year later and he swears this never happened. He also swears he didn’t notice when my business skirt, with a slit on the back, hitched up while I was cooking, exposing an entire ass cheek. Whatever. 

Is this the worst of it? Oh no.

This past year of my life has heightened in awkwardness as I tried dating outside of college. The last Tinder date I went on – I went on a total of three, calm down – was the epitome of how I’m also a terrible driver. I had parked my car in the parking garage next to a column. Over the course of the later afternoon, the parking lot filled up fast and by the time I was leaving, my car was tightly wedged between the column and a minivan that was crossing its boundary. Like the sweet person I am, I offered to drive my date back to his car since he walked me to mine and it was cold out. He accepted and hopped in the passenger seat. While I slowly backed out of my parking spot, my date asked a question. I began muttering a response while also trying to avoid the car parked directly behind me when he yelled, “WATCH OUT!”

I looked too late, the left side of my vehicle had hit the column. The side mirror folded inward and a loud crack reverberated throughout the parking garage. Shit. I played off the incident like my car was fine and as soon as I dropped him off, I never talked to him again. My car door was slightly dented and a friend was able to screw the floppy side mirror back in place. But no one could fix my damaged ego.

At the beginning of this past July, I had a week break between jobs and optimized my time by doing absolutely nothing at my parents’ house. I spent about every day that week hanging out with an old high school friend, Sunny. During our time together, he revealed he still had harbored feelings towards me and asked if I would give him a chance. I struggled to see Sunny… romantically. He was just a childhood friend in my eyes. After stargazing one night, I climbed up a set of stairs and Sunny grabbed my hand. I spun around to look at his face and saw his intentions. 

Instead of pulling away or passing off the awkwardness, I made a face of disgust and stepped back. Only to miss a step. Stumbling several steps down, Sunny yanked me back up before I ate shit. A quick thank you and I walked ahead to my car, desperate to end this night. In the car Sunny turned to kiss me again and the moment our lips met, I died laughing. I was so tense and the kiss felt more like kissing a Muppet. Not that I’ve kissed a Muppet. Though in that moment, that was what I kept thinking. I was so uncomfortable I spent a good minute laughing about how weird the situation was. Later that week we stopped talking. Obviously. 

My most recent blunder is an on-going issue I face. When it comes to hot objects, whether it be a curling iron or open flame, I somehow end up burning myself. My hands and arms are littered with small burn marks from every day occurrences. Several weeks ago, I had just gotten back from a date from a guy I was briefly seeing. I noticed his roommate had a Cactus Blossom candle burning on the counter-top so I walked over to get a good whiff. As I bent down, I got a whiff of a weird burning smell rather than the floral hints of Cactus Blossom. Put off, I stood back up to see pieces of my hair fall in the candle. The weird burning smell turned out to be my hair burning while I stupidly assumed the candle wick just sucked. It also didn’t help that I started laughing and when my date asked what was funny, I told him what happened and he walked back into the bathroom. He had nothing to say. Flustered, I was left fishing out burnt bits of my hair from the melted candle wax before leaving.