It's a Boy ... It's a Girl ... Excuse Me While I Crawl Under a Rock: LJ Idol, Week 4

[dogriver]

When I was in my early teens, I used to attend a summer program for blind students put on by our Department of Education (my current employer, as it happens). This program would run two days per week. Because I lived in a rural part of the province, I would take the bus two days a week to Winnipeg, where I would be met by one of the university students hired to run this program.

It was the beginning of a new summer, and I got to the city for the first time that year. As I stepped off the bus, I met the university student responsible for meeting me. "Hi Bruce," he said, "Meet Tracy, a new student. Tracy is partially sighted, and will be leading you around today." It wasn't unusual for a partially-sighted student to lead a totally-blind student around, and it made things easier on the limited number of university students.

Up until then, all the Tracies I'd met had been female. Up until then. This Tracy was younger than I, and his voice hadn't changed yet. So I took Tracy's elbow and he began to lead me to the car. Among other things, I was idly wondering if this girl was worth pursuing. Thankfully, oh so thankfully, I kept my mouth shut.

The destination of the day was Fun Mountain Water Park, one of two major water parks in the Winnipeg area at the time. So we all piled into the car and went out to the park.

We got out, Tracy was still leading me. We went into a building, the university student paid our tuition, and tracy took me into a change room and brought me to a bench. "Okay," he said, "you can change here."

At this point in the proceedings, my mind was racing, since I still thought Tracy was a girl. I understood that I came from a rural, non-progressive part of civilization. But had things progressed to the point of no differentiating between change rooms according to gender? So, not wanting to look more like a hick than i no doubt already did, I shrugged inwardly, changed, and had a great time on the water slides ... enjoying the company of the decidedly female university student with whom I was eventually paired.

I did find out later that afternoon that Tracy was not a girl. Thankfully I found this out in a non-embarrassing way. Tracy and I are friends to this day, and the story always gets a laugh out of both of us.

Comments

[jenandbronze.livejournal.com]

Oh ouch! LOL! At least someone told you in a non-embarrassing moment... as long as you laugh at it now, that is what counts, ... we all have those funny moments!

[kittenboo.livejournal.com]

oh my, too funny!

[baxaphobia.livejournal.com]

Hahahahahah! It could have been oh so much worse! Glad you didn't take your bye! This was good!

[boxsofrain.livejournal.com]

How did you find out? :)

[masterofmusings.livejournal.com]

LOL Fair question. I just heard someone talking, they must have said"he" when refering to Tracy, or "his" or something, that clued me in.

[shadowwolf13]

Oh wow! That could have been awkward!

Great entry!

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

That's a good story. You might want to delete the comment on the topic post that says you're taking a bye.

[masterofmusings.livejournal.com]

Thanks. I'll do that. I wasn't sure what the procedure was for changing one's mind about taking a bye.

[kathrynrose.livejournal.com]

Really easy, particularly this early. Just delete the first comment and it never happened. :)

[masterofmusings.livejournal.com]

Thank you very much, it's done.

[libra-dragon.livejournal.com]

Funny story!

[dabhug.livejournal.com]

Yes, I'm also glad you didn't take your bye. Good story and a good job with the telling.

[brightflashes.livejournal.com]

heh. That's a great story! Thanks for sharing it. :)

[walkertxkitty.livejournal.com]

Whoops! I'll bet you're glad now you didn't say anything.

That's one of the reasons why I'm not fond of gender-ambiguous names. I have a hard enough time with facial recognition and associating the correct person with the correct name; when it's generic like that and common, I'm not likely to remember who is what.

For me it depends on the name. Whether it's gender-ambiguous or not isn't a big thing with me, but s

[masterofmusings.livejournal.com]

For me it depends on the name. Some names I quite like, while others I don't. A lot of gender-ambiguous names, to me, either sound male or female, so when I hear of someone with that name I make assumptions ... and you know the definition of assume.

[sleepwalkdance.livejournal.com]

Such a funny story. In my mind I keep thinking about all the hilarious ways it could have come about that you find out Tracy is a guy. It's like a sitcom episode!

Also, I'm a female Traci :)

[masterofmusings.livejournal.com]

Especially one of the sit-coms like Three's Company, which was built around mistakes and misunderstanding.

[lilmissmagic71.livejournal.com]

*laugh* That is priceless! Great story!

[johnmill79.livejournal.com]

Oh man! I've done that twice. It was especially difficult in the early teen years, when boys still sound kinda like girls. lol I was so close to asking a couple of them out! And no, I didn't just admit that. Embarrassing.

[caersidi.livejournal.com]

Great story - glad you shared it.

[strobelights.livejournal.com]

It's so good you didn't try to flirt with "her"!

[sydb42.livejournal.com]

Haha, very funny, I'm glad you didn't end up taking a bye this week. :)

[alycewilson.livejournal.com]

That is funny!

[elderwoodpixie.livejournal.com]

Now that's funny! I'm so glad that it didn't create any real embarrassment for anyone.

[darkprism.livejournal.com]

Oh dear...*laughs*

At least you managed not to say anything too incriminating!

~*~

[masterofmusings.livejournal.com]

LOL I'd never've lived it down.