08 June 2008

open mouth...insert foot

So, the "glamorous" day I mentioned I was going to have yesterday – it got progressively less and less glamorous as the day went on, culminating in a less than stellar and actually most embarrassing personal performance in a riotous, very fun game of “Bowl Full of Nouns” at the girls’ house last night. Grammar has never been my strong suit and this game was no exception but it sure was fun, and I think I laughed more last night than I have since I got here (save the night Pat and I starting laughing hysterically like junior high girls after a table full of dinner guests left and we couldn’t stop). The fact that I just said that grammar has never been my strong suit only makes the story to come that much more ironic…It might be that kind of story where “you just had to be there” or else it doesn’t quite make sense or seem at all funny, but I’m gonna give it a whirl.

So, this game (which, from the title, sounds way more nerdy than it actually is) consists of three rounds, the first one is like a mix between Taboo and Catch Phrase where you describe nouns with other words trying to get your team to guess as many as they can in one minute. The next round you use the same words but this time you only get to say one word to describe the noun you’re trying to get your team to guess, and again do as many as you can in one minute. The third round is charades with again the same “bowl full of nouns.” Now, I’ve never been good at charades…but I love taboo and catch phrase. It’s much easier for me to use words to describe things than it is for me to use my body to describe a word…It’s the same reason for which dancing has never been a skill I’ve obtained or really even tried to obtain. So, keeping this in mind, here’s the rest of the story. As we’re counting up points for each team after round two, Ashley was saying that she was more hopeful for her performance in the last round as compared to the first two, that she was better at acting things out than describing them. I was trying to express that my experience was in fact the opposite, and I opened my mouth and out came “I’m better with words than with my body.” Gasp! As soon as it came out I thought, “yeah that didn’t really come out the way I intended” as I realized just how much it could be misconstrued from my original intention. Shoot.

One of the guys looked over at me with a kind of puzzled/surprised look on his face that had “did you just say what I think you said?” written all over it! He says with a smirk – “Heidi, what if I said I’m better with my body than with words? As Ashley and Jesse are laughing in a “I can’t believe you just said that?!” fashion…I immediately said, between my own hysterical laughs, something like “okay okay, so that didn’t quite come out the way I intended it to…I’m better at describing things words than I am at acting, okay?!” Which is, of course, so very IRONIC considering how my words had come out so wrong in trying to say how much better I feel about my use of words…oh Heidi…open mouth insert foot…

Okay, so the thing is, that’s not the only ironic thing that happened during the game that caused those in the room, especially myself to laugh…I think it will be enough to say that my name became synonymous with Interpretive Dance! I don’t think you can get much more antithetical than Heidi and Interpretive Dance! Let’s just say I’m way better with words than I am with my body ☺

4 comments:

Anonymous said...

You are definitely related to me.
m.

JLC said...

Oh, Heidi... we love you!

Loren and John

Anonymous said...

Ha! Sounds like we have a new game option for a future Lutjens/Havens girls' night! :)
Love ya, Becca

Anonymous said...

Speaking of games, Erik and I were playing Upwords tonight (very much like Scrabble in case you're not familiar with it), and I couldn't quit thinking of you. My letters just looked like they wanted to spell out Bundibugiyo, Uganda (correct spelling of Bundi? Hmm... maybe not). Anyhow that's all my mind could come up with since I had tiles with B, N, D, G, U (and a few of some of those). Miss you, Heidi!
Love,
H