Showing posts with label Fajita Moment. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Fajita Moment. Show all posts

Tuesday, April 7, 2015

F Is For Fajita Moment #AToZChallenge


 Have you heard the expression "She had a 'Fajita Moment'"? It's basically a very embarrassing event, something that usually happens in front of a lot of people. It became an expression when observers noticed shy people ordering fajitas in a restaurant. They become embarrassed when the waiter brings them in. The fajitas generally come with lots of steam emanating from them, lots of plates with extra add-ons, which attracts lots of attention. Shy people don't like attention.
 A Fajita Moment isn't necessarily humorous. It can actually be mortifying at the time. I can think of one such fajita moment. It wasn't so much fun!

As I have stated before, I work at a remedial high school in a self-contained classroom. I was on a field trip with my gang of high school, SpecEd, Mild-Moderate, Self-Contained boys and my 2 other male co-workers. It was toward the end of the school year, in May. The weather was starting to warm up very nicely and fashion diva that I am (not), was wearing knee-length peddle pushers, my first foray into summer attire. My legs are neon white until they get a bit of sun and so I thought I'd be considerate and put a little self-tanner on that morning. I was in a rush, as usual, but thought I had done a fairly thorough job applying it.

Apparently not! As we were walking back to our bus after the activity, I noticed that the tanner hadn't soaked in very well in some spots and was a bit blotchy. I mentioned, casually, that my tanner was rather blotchy to one of my co-workers. He started inspecting my legs and blurted out, "Wow, Helena's blotchy!" I couldn't believe he threw me under the bus like that. Now I had  8 males checking out my less-than-perfect self-tanned legs. Definitely nothing I wanted attention drawn to! Sure enough, they all start making comments like, "Orange you glad it's Friday?" "She may be blotchy, good thing she isn't b*tchy too!" It was humiliating, but I lived through it!

So with that experience and several others in mind, here are my suggestions for getting through a Fajita Moment:

1) Now that everyone's attention is on you, make the most of it. Laugh and smile as if it is the least of your concerns.

2) Is there something you'd like to bring to everyone's attention? Now that you have everyone's attention, it's the perfect time to have the floor. Request a General Pay Raise, more food in the break room, reminder that it's your birthday next week, request your favorite meal, etc. Always have something ready to pull out of your pocket for opportune moments such as this!

3) Create some fun conversation. Divert people's attention from yourself by asking about others' Fajita Moments. Everyone has had one or two and they could prove to be very entertaining!

4) Acknowledge that this was indeed a Fajita Moment and store it in your 'Fajita Moment Story-telling Bank' to draw out for future re-hashing. It may not seem funny now, but later on, it may prove fun to reminisce on. You just need to have it ready to serve up - like a steaming, hot, plate of fajitas!
What Fajita moment comes to mind for you? Care to share?