A good friend of mine and I were recounting the other day a funny experience I had while I was at VCU. It was one of those embarrassingly hilarious moments that has lived on, despite the fact that it still kinda makes me want to crawl under a table when I think about it.
I was sitting outside on a gorgeous spring day (probably skipping class) and had taken the opportunity to grab a hummus wrap from one of the local cafe's for lunch. My friend Reggie walked over and plopped down beside me and we started chatting about the weather, music, random stuff. While we were talking (and quite unbeknownst to me) a fly had landed on my wrap. I had just finished telling Reggie about how I was planning to go out and catch some music later that night. He nodded his head and then said, without any change of inflection, "..fly on your wrap."
Not, "hey- there's a..." to preface the last part, or even so much as a motion to swat it away. I've always reasoned that maybe if he had done either of those two things, I would have realized that what he was saying should be taken in the most literal sense. But Reggie is black. He's also an awesome musician {little bitty plug for Bon Iver here} ;-). I say that, not because it really matters (especially the race thing) but because it at least gives a bit of context.
Always one to try and keep up with the trends, in that moment, I just assumed that this was some new phrase akin to "that's cool," or "I dig" or whatever else jazz guys said. So, without breaking eye contact with him, I nodded my head and said, "yeah," in agreement. There was silence for about 5 seconds. By this point, I can only assume that the fly had had enough time to not only walk the entire surface area of my sandwich, but also barf on it a half-dosen times. Reggie shook his head, and repeated himself- this time overly-enunciating each word. "Kristin, THERE IS AN ACTUAL FLY ON YOUR WRAP." I looked down just in time to see it buzzing away.
Ohhh.
He burst out laughing, then playfully busted my chops for trying to be "down" as I frantically thought of a way to recover. But there wasn't any graceful way out of that one. It was out there. I was not only white, but white trying not to be white. As the day progressed, several of my other friends got wind of my new catch-phrase. Even months later, I would randomly find it scribbled on notepads around my apartment, and a few of my favorite people still like to give me a hard time about it.
Where am I going with this? I'm not really sure. I just like to laugh. Sometimes when things feel a little too heavy or serious, I look for levity where I can get it. I don't even mind others having a good laugh at my expense every once in a while- or at least, not in this instance. It's kinda funny to me too, that of all of the random memories of what feels like the lifetime ago I spent at VCU, this particular one consistently comes to the surface and never fails to make me giggle just a bit.
Some days, those giggles are what gets me through the day. ;-)
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