House Tour.

House tours are not for everyone; some however enjoy them more then others. There are the individuals who keep the place they call “home” in a presentable fashion, or there are the attendee’s of the dazzling home. These individuals are the ones that aspire to keep their house at least one tenth of the cleanliness of the so called “dream home”. My Grandmother, along with her friends is one of the many attendees of this – what they believed would be – a fun, summer house tour.

Here’s the story:

The day was planned; my Grandma along with a couple girlfriends had bought tickets for a Home Tour. They were given a list of homes they had the opportunity to explore, much like an open house. Arriving at the first house on the list the ladies stepped out of the car to a gorgeous limestone home. The landscape is that of a film; beautiful gardens surrounding both the house and the small rustic shed in the back yard. Following the front path to the house they enter and began their self-tour starting in the kitchen. It’s not soon after they noticed a rather untidy sink, dishes were piled up possibly from dinner the night before. Although this struck them as a little strange they continued the tour upstairs. They found a large master bedroom, with a master bath. Much like the untidy kitchen, the bathroom had toothbrushes and toothpaste in the sink. The ladies were in disbelief that the owner didn’t tidy up knowing their home was on the house tour. The house was, after all listed on the House Tour List. After checking out all the rooms they left the home, still slightly shocked. As more cars arrived they noticed instead of going into the house, the guests walked along the small path towards the rustic shed in the back yard where a blacksmith was bending iron into statuesque shapes. 

Turns out the tickets they bought had been for an Artisan’s Studio Tour not a House Tour.  

Laugh.

Laugh: to express mirth, pleasure, derision, or nervousness with an audible, vocal expulsion of air from the lungs that can range from a loud burst of sound to a series of quiet chuckles and is usually accompanied by characteristic facial and bodily movements (Dictionary.com, 2014). This is what one must do when faced with a situation that is, as some would say, rather embarrassing.

Here’s the story:

Traveling to school can take a toll, as my sister discovered one early fall morning. Like any other day of commuting, the air was dry and the bus was full, holding conversation was just something done regularly. Feeling parched, she grabs her Hoops for Heart water bottle and takes a sip. The bottle, as if in slow motion slips from her grasp and lands directly on her lap leaving a vast area that, to the uninformed eye, makes it look like she had peed herself. As the bus pulls into the school, she is prepared to make a beeline for the bathroom to dry off her jeans. Standing in the washroom, drying off her pants a fellow student enters the restroom. While trying not to make direct eye contact the student slips into the first stall available. My sister remains standing, drying off her pants, only to wait and see what happens when the student exits the stall. Minutes later, she hears the toilet flush and even though she's trying to avoid any awkward encounters looks in the general direction of the stall, the student exits and makes immediate eye contact. As the girl standing in her underwear, with pants in hand under an automatic hand dryer my sister feels it’s only appropriate to say something to her fellow student.

“You think this is awkward for you, I’m the one not wearing any pants.”

Reference:

Laugh. (n.d.). Dictionary.com Unabridged. Retrueved January 14 2014, from Dictionary.com website: http://dictionary.reference.com/browse/laugh

Text me.

The easiest way to stay in communication with friends, family, loved ones. You can text anyone, the person sitting next to you, or someone half way around the word all you need is a simple phone number and a plan that won't charge you through the roof. It's the norm, why question it, or even think to use another way to get a hold of another person? Going a day without texting seems nearly impossible, especially in this day and age. But what happened to a good "old fashioned" phone call, when did ringing someone become something that no longer comes to mind? Calling someone just isn't something we think of doing anymore.

There have been a number of times I've been talking to an individual who, in order to make a decision, has texted someone to receive an answer, to no avail. This leaves this individual unable to complete the task at hand or move forward. When bringing up the seemingly simple, what should be common sense question "Why don't you just call them?" the typical response I have received is "Oh. I didn't even think of that". What follows is dialling the number and obtaining the answer they had been waiting for, within minutes. To me this seems so much simpler then shooting out a text and waiting for a response, texting can leave you with unanswered questions and the possibility of miscommunication, not only because you can only say so much through text, but also the scarcity of tone of voice for the message content. Something as simple as saying hello can be perceived as being too “saucy”. Not to mention the sheer lack of true free flowing conversation. With text you have time to think of something to say, you can morph yourself into someone entirely different then who you are in person, all becasue of this invisible shield that you don’t have over the phone or face to face.

My opinion in regards to texting: the miscommunication possibilities are endless, so why not every now and then throw each other a bone, pick up the phone, and make the effort to carry a real conversation.