Subtlety

Sometimes I feel sorry for my friends, because they have to put up with me. My biggest problem is my lack of subtly... meaning that I have none. I am the least subtle person you will ever meet. My ex-boyfriend used to complain about it when we went out to bars... he'd point someone out, either a super slutty looking girl or some drunk ass, and I'd whip my head around and stare directly at them. "God, would you stop that?!" he'd exclaim, and I'd whip my head back around and stare at him instead.

I have countless experiences like this, and I have to focus on being subtle, aka moving my head slower, or filtering my thoughts before they come out of my mouth. I have tried to convince my friends that I have no aversion to dogs, but Claire and Julie both make fun of me because apparently there is an "Ashley is confronted by an animal" face, in which I cannot keep my disgust at their wet tongues to myself. My face betrays all. I have even tried to pet dogs in front of them so that they see that I don't mind dogs, I just don't like drool. But finally, when we were camping and Claire's dog Monty went swimming and then shook himself out all over me, I was so disgusted that I finally yelled, "OKAY. YOU ARE RIGHT. I DON'T LIKE DOGS." They smiled in satisfaction. Subtlety denied.

Recently we were at my friend Peter's houseboat, and he said something like, "The water just gets warmer as summer goes on."
And I replied, "Well, I guess we will just have to come back then!" Inviting myself back over in the first half-hour we were there.
Claire stared at me. "Subtle as a freight train, as always."


That same day, we were sitting at Peter's kitchen table with a bunch of our friends. One of the girls had a baby. Now, I've dealt with babies before. I have a little brother, he was born before my senior year of high school so I really have experience with them. I know they spit up and shit and pee and drool... I also know how much a mother loves their baby, so really I should have been more prepared for this situation. Claire will never let me live it down.


The baby was a few months old, and it was sitting on its mother's lap across the table from me. I looked up from our conversation and there was some white spit-up on the baby's lip. What was going through my head was, "Oh no that baby has spit up on its lip it needs to be cleaned up, someone do something." But instead of saying that, I pointed at the baby and said:


"Eww."

Claire glanced at me, barely concealing her horror, then said to everyone, "Oh Ashley, I've seen you do that before." And everyone laughed and I realized what I had just said. I stared at Claire with disbelief, and she shook her head incredulously and rolled her eyes at me. I couldn't believe I just said "Eww" to a baby, and her mom was sitting right there. And I POINTED. So rude. I believe the mother was extremely insulted and she left soon afterwards, I'm not sure if it was because of me or because she was the only one there with a baby and Claire was no longer trying to listen to her talk about her nipples and her kindle. Either way, she took off, saying that the baby was fussy.

I could go on about this lack of subtly, but you know what? Enough embarrassing stories for one day.