My Life Is a Sitcom (III)

My life is a sitcom.

In the past couple of weeks, I’ve had a mini-series of events that further affirm my starring role on the boob tube. I now share them with you all.

Episode 1: Car Wash? ‘Tis Futile

My car was filthy. Absolutely disgusting. The thick layer of collected dirt, avian feces, bits of forestry, and unmentionables clung onto the metallic skin of my new Honda Accord. Oh yeah, on top of that, someone decided to egg my car. My baby was in dire need of a wash.

During this time, my entire family (paternal) was gathered in Rosemead. Yes, all 30+ of us for my grandma’s 80th birthday. It was the first time my family was together in ages and it was the best chaos ever. Hu family fun topped off with some epic drama. Yum.

The family was ridiculing my car, and even my students decided to write messages that communicated the obvious need of my car to be cleaned during one of the many retreats we just had that month. So it was time, and my wonderful Aunt Shirley gave me a free ticket to a car wash near her house in Whittier–right in La Puente. Bless her soul.

So I took advantage of this and got lost for a good 20 minutes until I found the place. I got the “Premium Gold Package,” which meant for a fancy wash with all sorts of waxing and scents. I decided on Pina Colada.

After the wash and about 20 minutes of Luxor on my iTouch, my baby was shining in all its glory in the parking lot. But as I approached the car, I noticed something wasn’t right. One of employees of this fine establishment approached me and apologized (in Spanish too) they couldn’t get the stained and imprinted splatter of egg off my car. I should have gotten the Platinum Package. Apparently that includes major detailing and removal of huevos.

But I brushed it off and decided my car, despite the works of college douchebags, looked significantly better than before and was screaming cleanliness.

The next morning, I woke up at 10am to move my car as usual only to find my car was attacked by the sprinklers and my car was completely stained once again by the filthy water of Westwood.

I drove almost 30 miles to get my car washed and spent two hours doing so. I was patient with the egg stains, but this was ridiculous. I just got it washed and my baby looked like a machine with measles.

So I say, a fancy car wash for those who park their car in Westwood seems counterintuitive now.

Episode 2: Of Course It Hit My Head
After two hours in LA traffic and arriving at our pre-fall conference for InterVarsity, I strolled into the park to join in on the fun festivities. As we were lazing about after some fun group games, I suddenly heard someone yell “Watch out!” I sometimes forget that is a warning to everyone to be on high alert and probably engage in some movement. It was one of those times.

Surely enough, I was struck in the head by a football going at impossible speeds and I blacked out for two seconds. Just two.

Stars flooded the summer sky and I grabbed my head hoping to push down the throbbing, sharp pain. One of our students ran over and apologized for a bad throw. But the key is in what he said in his apology:

“Amy! I’m so sorry! I threw the ball as hard as I could to Mike and I missed.”

Yup, you definitely missed. And you admitted to throwing it as hard as you could. No wonder. This is my life.

After the incident, everyone laughed and affirmed that of course it happened to me. Who else?

Episode 3: My Fatal Dance Moves Strike Again
I was furiously creating fliers in my room for InterVarsity on my spiffy new Microsoft Publisher and just having a ball. I was grooving to some music as I clicked, dragged, cut and pasted. But you see, my dance moves have a history of being quite self-destructive, and that moment was a case-in-point.

**Side story about my fatal dance moves: I once danced out of my bathroom in my college dorm room (for entertainment purposes) and almost got stabbed doing so. I somehow “danced into the knife” as my sister held it out while cutting an apple. I was saved by the fact the knife was facing me at its dull end.

I somehow elbowed my wonderful water dispenser that lies on the left corner of my desk, and it tumbled down and knocked over the white paint that was being used to bring life in Me and Jess’s bedroom.

Everything was in slo-mo as I watched the paint spread furiously across our industrial blue carpet. I then proceeded to scream to the heavens and yell things that affirmed my stupidity and the high probability of unfortunate situations happening in my life.

I quickly put on an old pair of jeans and scooped the paint furiously and had to pick out all the wonderful hair along with it. I looked at the paint that covered the power strip and the things plugged into it and prioritized the cleaning of those things. I looked like a 5-year old not knowing any better than to stick her hands into a mess and find fun and enjoyment out of it. I found no fun or enjoyment during those three hours of cleaning.

My hands were burning and sore after I scooped and scraped with them until most of liquid was gone. But after two hours of that, the carpet looked like I vomited yogurt.

Praise the Lord because Jared, Jess’s boyfriend, came over and assisted in the cleanup. He provided much joy in a stressful situation, and pwned the spots on the ground. Furthermore, he had a job interview and work afterward and still decided to take on the cleaning. Bless his heart.

I eventually gave up and finished up what I was doing and later that day, Janice came over and also assisted me. We were on the spatula phase and so we worked out a system of scraping and towel blotting. I love that girl to death, and she was indeed heaven-sent.

I put in my last efforts to clean late that night, while putting on my Carpenters and Beatles records. I had paint everywhere on me for days, and it was actually quite hilarious. It looked like I got french tips and highlights. Sexy.

Yup, the carpet still looks pretty bad but thanks to Jess’s patience and understanding, we decided to leave the carpet as it was. Now it just kinda smells funny. Whoops.

Episode 4: Guitar (Hero) Solo
My attempts to get to know people in leaving Jon and David’s door open was failing, as I banked on people passing me by and being attracted to the popular game I knew people loved. And after three songs, I realized how much of a loser I must look like if anyone actually did walk by. Possible awkard conversation:

Student: “Oh hi, looks like you’re having fun playing Guitar Hero here by yourself.”
Me: “Oh by myself? No I would love it someone could join me. Would you like to?”
Student: “Sure, that sounds fun. Hey, like how you decorated your room.”
Me: “Oh yeah, this, um…isn’t my room. It’s actually Jon and David’s room. Have you met them?”
Student: “No actually…so you’re in their room playing Guitar Hero alone while they’re not here?”
Me: “Yeah…but you know, they’ll be back soon and I’m just hanging out and seeing if anyone was around.”
Student: “Oh cool. So do you live on this floor then?”
Me: “No actually…I live in the apartments.”
Student: “Oh, are you an upperclassmen or something?”
Me: “I graduated this past summer actually…”
Student: “So you don’t go here anymore and you’re in in Jon and David’s room alone playing Guitar Hero hoping someone would walk by? That’s weird…What are you doing here?”
Me: “I actually am friends with them and some other people on the floor and am starting a Bible Study soon. You’ll see me around here haha.”
Student: “Oh…interesting. Hey, you only have one guitar controller for your Guitar Hero, and it looks like you were really into it. I’ll let you go. It was nice meeting you. Bye.”
Me: “Well if you ever want to hang out, we should! Crap what’s your name and what room are you in! No, I mean I’ll see you around! Frick…”

Disaster. Absolute disaster. I am an idiot. Ryland, Amanda Lee and Lai, and Anna affirmed that I didn’t look too good at that point. Agreed.

Episode 5: Time for New Shoes
But because of the duct tape, it has also made it so the bottom of my shoes lack in grip. This was apparent when I strolled to the Activities Fair at UCLA and fell in front of everyone at the entrance.

The worst part of it all was that it wasn’t a full-on slip and fall, and then a big thud on the ground. There was a slight grade and I stepped in a slippery spot and my foot just simply slid in front of me slowly. So very slowly that it looked like a weird dance move.  I got plenty of unwanted attention and it was terrible.

My life is a sitcom, and the September mini-series provides such further evidence. I want a larger variety of laugh tracks please.

This is Amy Hu signing off for September 22, 2009.