Awkward Moments Define My Life:Junior High Edition: A.K.A. Puppy Love

Way back a million years ago, when I was home schooled (7-9 grade), my family had a farm and my father ran a Maple syrup business. Every March we would make our rounds to all of the large Maple trees we could find and tap them, collect the sap, and boil it away until it became the most beautiful, delicious, golden maple syrup.



This maple syrup was so delicious it has ruined me for life! Aunt Jemima makes me gag (literally) and even the "real" maple syrup you find in the store doesn't compare in the least to the beautiful syrup my father made. Maple syrup is graded on a scale from light amber to dark amber and what you see in the store is the dark amber stuff--but at the beginning of the season the first sap (for some reason that I can't remember) turns into the lightest, almost clear syrup and it is delicious and like nothing you've ever tasted. One thing I really admire about my father is that even though he doesn't stick with a "passion" for long (card, stamp, coin, bottle collecting, bike racing, kayaking, mountain climbing, and more) he ALWAYS does EVERYTHING with the utmost attention to detail, and with an approach based on hours of research and study. But, I digress...



So, this maple syrup was more than enough for one family to use so we sold it at a local farmer's market. My mother and I would get up at the crack of dawn to drive the hour to Syracuse to set up our booth of Pure NY Maple Syrup for sale. We always did really well since (and I can say this without bias) our syrup was the best at the market. It was fun to go to the Farmer's Market and see all of the crafters selling their wares and the Amish selling their food and the farmer's selling their produce--it was a veritable melting pot of all types of people from all walks of life and I'll have you know we even saw a few celebrities (local newspeople) there.



It was a big deal.



It was also real boring sometimes. We would get there sooooooo early and it was soooooo cold and it was quiet and a little lonely until the big crowds came later in the day so I would bring things to occupy myself with.



My favorite thing to occupy myself with was my puppy Q.T. He made his first appearance at the farmer's market not long after we purchased him (the most beautiful little shih tzu in the land) and he was my pride and joy. Along with Q.T. I brought my friend Trudy from church. After I helped my mom set up the syrup table Trudy and I took a walk around the market with Q.T. and talked girl stuff and giggled and did all those things that 12 year olds do. And then, I spotted them. Two of the cutest, tallest, oldest boys at my Christian School. (I was home schooled but attending a Christian school once a week for gym class/friends/etc). They were selling apples and saw us walking by!



It was terribly exciting.



We looked their way, squealed and hightailed it out of there (in that order). We spent the rest of the morning talking about how dreamy they were and hoping they would "find" our table so we could exchange glances (you know, the way 12 year olds flirt). The boys eventually did walk by our table once and smile and wave and keep walking (ahhhh). That was enough for a little while but then we decided we would go look for them again. We took Q.T. and headed off to find them and once we did we smiled and they were laughing at us and we weren't sure why. Well, all I had to do was look down to where they pointed and see that Q.T. was doing a doggy number 2 all over the front of their vending area. AHHHHHHh! Angst Alert! It was so embarrassing and we even had to high-tail it to the ladies room, procure paper towels, come BACK to their stand and clean up all the poop. It was like totally gross.



Humbled and degraded my friend and I walked back to the maple syrup table--determined not to show our faces in public again. Lo and behold those boys came back to our table to *blush* talk to us. We were so excited. Until, they started to look at us funny. And laugh. Again. And all I had to do was look where they were pointing. Again. And I saw that Q.T. had just barfed all over my sweatshirt. Seriously. All over it AND in front of the boys. It was horrible.



Luckily it was time to clean up and head back home and not surprisingly Q.T.'s first appearance at the farmer's market was most definitely his last. I never saw the boys there again either. Life just has a way of putting all of the most remarkably embarrassing events together all at once. I think it's what keeps us humble.