The Rolodex

Guest Blogger: Christi Harrison

Let me say from the very beginning that I am not as talented a writer as my brother. I will not be incorporating imagery into this blog entry and I am pretty certain that the word onomatopoeia will not be used either. Who uses that word except college English professors who read War and Peace for fun on the weekends and have pictures of Emily Bronte taped to the inside of their briefcases? But I digress.

My name is Christi Harrison. I am Greg’s older sister, although, many people have thought that he is the oldest. This tickles me. For those of you long-time readers, I am married to the West Virginian, who is the love and joy of my life! We have four beautiful, precocious little girls. Yes, all girls! My husband has told them that they can either go to college or have a wedding, we can not afford to do both. In addition to spending time trying to look younger than my brother, I also spend a great deal of energy trying to blend into the woodwork. So it is rather ironic that my claim to fame is that I have the most embarrassing moments on record-bar none!
We have all been there; the Sunday school social, the office or dinner party where someone stands up and says the dreaded word "ice breaker". Then he or she goes one step further and suggests that everyone tells their most embarrassing moment. Why is it socially acceptable to emotionally strip ourselves bare in order to make it easier for people to talk to us? Why not just get naked and complete the nightmare. But that isn’t the part that stresses me out, because while everyone else is trying to come up with one embarrassing moment, I am mentally pulling out my rolodex of embarrassing moments and trying to decide when the host was wanting said incident from. You have to be more specific. Do you want it from elementary school? A holiday? From September of ‘84? Or maybe you want a specific genre; dancing with a midget (actually happened), passing out naked, or peeing in front of an audience. You have to narrow the scope of your search people. So, for the interest of time, I have narrowed the field to my top four.

The first one occurred my freshman year of college. It was a Saturday night and I was going on a group date to the football game. The cute sophomore who sat beside me in my Western Civilizations class finally asked me out and I was so nervous. All of us girls who were going, lived in a high-rise dorm with a lobby that you had to walk down about five stairs to get to the couches and T.V. This was where we were meeting our dates and because it was football night the place was packed! When the guys got there we exchanged small talk and decided to head out. My date and I were the first ones to the stairs. On the very last step, I tripped. As if that were not bad enough, I had enough momentum going to fall and actually slide 10 feet and hit my head on the lobby desk. As you can probably imagine, I never saw that guy again.

The next one also took place in college, although it was a different school. This happened during my junior year at Cedarville College. It was finals week and I was stressed out trying to maintain my place on the Dean’s list. It was the only time I had even come close to being on a Dean’s list, thus, my stress. I admit that I had not been sleeping and eating properly, if at all, and it had started to get to me. The morning of a particularly hairy final, I woke after a minimal night’s sleep and went to the showers. In this dorm there was just one large community bathroom and shower area for roughly 25 girls and all of us were there that morning. Upon getting into the shower and starting the bathing process, I began to feel light-headed and the room started to spin. About the time I figured it might be a good idea to sit down, I went down like a tree in the forest! Once again, it was not enough to fall down. No, I fell out of the shower and onto the floor in front of 24 girls. Luckily, I came to about the time that they said the word "squad". The "squad" was composed of the male nursing and pre-med students there on campus. I was panicked! I managed with some help to make it to the side of the bathroom and cover up with a robe in time for Cedarville’s finest ( and most handsome) to come and check me out. Needless to say, I didn’t date much in college. One small blessing was that my future betrothed was also a nursing student, but luckily was not on the squad.

This next story is my sister’s favorite. So, Shelbi, this is for you. Fast forward a few years after college and I was working as an assistant-manager in the fragrance shop at Victoria’s Secret. It was the last Saturday before Christmas and the store was beyond packed! As my dad would say, we were stacked in there like cord wood! I was there dressed to the nines in my beautiful, black suit and perfectly coifed, when a very handsome man comes and asks for help finding a gift. I tell him I have the perfect item and as I am telling him to take a whiff of the scent I have just sprayed on the card, the loudest fart you have ever heard comes ripping out of me from nowhere. I can honestly tell you that you have never heard a room get so quite so fast! To this day I have no idea where it came from. You can ask anyone who knows me, I am not one to actively participate in this kind of behavior. My own husband has only heard me fart twice in the 12 years that he has known me. I was beyond embarrassed and managed a very meek, "I am so terribly sorry". What happened after that is a blur.

This final incident took place at the rehearsal dinner the night before my wedding. Whenever I bring this story up to my husband, he gets a very nervous look on his face and tells me I had to have dreamed this some night because it never happened. Unfortunately for him I have MULTIPLE eyewitnesses, most of whom are dear loved ones. My husband’s best friend was a ventriloquist. After telling said spouse that Nathan absolutely could not perform at the wedding reception, I decide to compromise and let Nathan perform at the rehearsal dinner. BIG MISTAKE!! Everything was going quite smoothly and Nathan was doing very well until he asks Aaron (my husband) and I to come up and stand with him. My sister says that what happened next was the most painful thing she has ever had to watch. Nathan tells Aaron and I that he is going to put his hand on our backs and we have to be his dummies! We have to move our mouths and arms in time to him. He then proceeds to sing , but I can’t tell you what the song was because I was trying to decide how to give Aaron the ring back. The West Virginians that were there look back and describe it as a delightful memory. My mother, on the other hand, still can’t talk about it.

Well, that is me in a nutshell, a shy, quiet wife and mother with a past that is anything but. Maybe sometime I can tell about the time I danced with the midget.

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