Dead Skin

Most embarrassing moment of the week, ready? Along with a promised mission trip story! (Yes, it's long, but it's two stories for the price of one).

On Tuesday, after worship I went to get some snacks. Every week I get whales (goldfish but better); in fact, the snacks folks always know I get whales. Some days I have to ask, but they always have whales even if they're just for me. I'm waiting for the day when there's a cup of whales on the table waiting for me. :-) Last week, they were out of whales and it made me very sad. This week, I was a little over-excited about getting whales...

I galloped to the snacks table, and when I reached across if for an empty cup, I accidental hit some cookies onto the floor. Three valuable cookies fell to their death on the nasty concourse floor. I picked them up right away, and held them in my greasy hand while I talked for a few seconds. Neal picked up the now-empty package and put it under my hand with broken cookies. I took the broken cookies and empty wrappers to the garbage.

"What are you doing with those cookies?" Neal shouted across the concourse to me.
"Throwing them away. Why? You want them?" I asked, realizing that was a dumb question. He's a guy; he's probably going to eat them. I was not going to give him cookies off the floor. Even if the answer was yes, they were going in the garbage.
"Not after they've been mushed in your sweaty hand," he snickered and I pitched them.
"My hand is cleaner than that floor," I informed him.
"Would you bet your salvation on it?" Is my campus minister asking me to bet my salvation on germs?
"No, but God and I both know how often I wash my hands."

Every conversation I have with Neal involves skin cells... I don't talk to anyone else about skin cells, but every time I talk to Neal they come up and he doesn't even know I'm a germophobe. How weird is that? Of course, this conversation morphed to talk about germs, Neal's nurse-wife whose hands bleed every winter because of how often their washed (mine, too), Neal's germophobe son (me, too), and how I once took a shower in Neal dead skin cells.

On our mission trip, Neal sat down next to me and said, "My face is peeling." How do you respond to that? What a great conversation starter!
I said the only logical thing, "Yucky."
"It's not yucky!"
"Well, I don't want your peely skin on me," I told him. What does he proceed to do? Rub his hands over my leg and taunt me with the number of skin cells falling onto me. When he's finished with that, he scoops them up and throws them in my face. Dead Neal cells in my eyes! Yucky!

On Tuesday, he rubbed some more dead skin cells on me, and I told him how hard that was for germophobe me not to freak out. I excepted this confession to result in laughter and more dead skin cells on me.

"I'm sorry. I didn't know it bothered you," he said. Wow. I wasn't expecting that.

Throw someone a curve ball today. Apology when they expect you to laugh.

<>< Katie