You guys, I have been so overwhelmed with good stuff lately, and I’m trying to do the extra bit of work it takes to make the good luck snowball. You know? I’m growing my snowy ball of goodness, as they say. (Well, no one says that. But you know.)

Twitter Changes You

So…

I’ll admit it now. I’ve been cheating on y’all with Twitter.com. That means that, instead of taking time to write a thoughtful, or at least thought-filled blog entry, I fill up my Twitter page with 140-character blurbs that only a few select people can see. And now that I’m in the habit of doing that, it seems like there’s nothing that can’t be expressed in 140 characters, and therefore I have no right to blog anymore. Kind of like people used to feel about haikus, back in the day, in feudal Japan. Maybe. Maybe, right? People started talking to each other in haiku only, and quit having so much to talk about, outside of the falling of the leaves and the koi fish in the water? No? Okay, pretend I didn’t say that, then.

The other thing, though, is that I’ve gotten into the habit of repressing the details of my Real Life here. And then, on Twitter, I’m lulled into this sense of safety, wherein I can post stuff like, “I just put a blue sock on my foot and thought about murdering my coworker.” For example, I mean. Not that I actually thought that, because I love all my coworkers to death. But you get what I’m saying, right?

I have to go now, but

here is something I started to write for y’all the other day, real quick, about Gong Li, before I opened up the Internet and realized that Gong Li is a world unto herself and doesn’t need the likes of me trying to encapsulate any one facet of her life into blog words, whether 140 characters or more or less:

The Curse of Gong Li

Every time I see a movie with Gong Li in it, no matter how awesome Gong Li’s character looks or how well her life starts out, she ends up dying and/or going crazy and/or being miserable in the end.

And then it makes me think about how, even though she’s freaking awesome, Gong Li has only gotten crappy roles in US movies. Miami Vice. Hannibal Rising. Second banana (who ends up crazy/miserable) in Memoirs of a Geisha. She admits it’s because she can’t speak English well enough. I feel bad for her. I mean, I’d be sad as hell if I had to learn Chinese in order to further my career.

I looked her up online today and found out that famed director Zhang Yimou was sleeping with her when he cast her in her most famous role. Cheating on his wife with her, actually. She broke up with him and then he didn’t put her in his movies anymore.

Sad. Old-Hollywood-glamor-style sad, right?

I have a long to-do list in my purse. Its primary purpose is as a focal point — it gives me something to look at while I say, “How in the hell am I going to get everything done?”

My tooth hurts but I don’t want to tell my dentist yet, because his wife just had a baby, so I don’t want to give him bad news while he’s still functioning on a half-tank of sleep. It’s bad news because my teeth have become notoriously difficult to work on. I used to be the kind of person who wasn’t afraid of dental appointments. Now I kind of dread them. It’s a race for time — catching and saving each tooth before it rots out of my head. I keep saying “Just give me full dentures now,” but he won’t. We are in the middle of excavating the left side of my mouth. I’m so used to blood and gore and drilling and needles now, it almost doesn’t bother me anymore. Almost. I used to have nightmares about my teeth falling out. Now I think that would be a happy dream — all my teeth picking up and leaving, just leaving me alone.

Oops. I didn’t mean to talk about my teeth for so long. Oh well. Don’t read that part.

We managed to have some good times over the weekend, though. Don’t think it’s all bad and I’m just going to complain at you. We went to the movies and cleaned our house and killed silverfish as a family, again. We all yelled at each other to stop being so effing negative. We opened the kids’ Christmas gift last week (Guitar Hero III) and unlocked every song with our family-style fake-guitar-playing prowess. (I realized that I’m meant to be a bass player, not a lead guitarist. And that’s just fine with me.) I told the kids that when I get my next book advance check, we’re going to buy an XBox 360 and the Rock Band game. And then we will take over the world. I’m designing our band’s logo right now, so we can stencil it on the bass drum. We don’t have a band name yet, though. We toured Guitar Hero under the name Frostbight, but that was just for practice. Of course we will need something better than that for the XBox 360 stadium tour. The Partridge Family is already taken, and The Zepeda Family doesn’t have the same ring. I don’t know. I’ll get back to y’all on that one.

leaves

The other day I gathered leaves from the cemetary by my work. I had to make up a practical excuse, so I said I would use them in a collage. I have two 16″ x 20″ canvases at home that I’ve painted very red. I said I’d put the leaves on those canvases, instead of painting yellow and orange gourds on them, like I’d planned. The leaves we gathered were burnt umber, gold, light olive, and a little bit of cinnabar red. My boyfriend didn’t gather any, he just observed and checked my picks for insects. We walked around the graves, because I don’t like stepping on the dead people. It makes me extremely uncomfortable to do so, because I suspect that they don’t like it, either. But there were a lot of leaves on the edges of the plots, so everybody stayed tranquil. And I noted, for the zillionth time in my life, how very beautiful birch trees can be. Or maybe it isn’t a birch, the one I always look at. It has white bark now and colorful leaves, but it also drops those balls that you step on to smash and unlock the downy, densely packed seeds. You know which ones I mean? The seed balls that look kind of like big, acorn-brown cherries? That’s not a birch tree, is it? Or is it? I don’t know, but I love that tree.

So I put the leaves in a plastic bag that I had in a desk drawer, and I took them home, and I hope they’re not moldy now. Because I haven’t had time to make the collage yet, of course. But, in the meantime, I’ve been thinking that I need to repaint the red canvases and make them blue like the sky, plus gray/white like the tree bark. Then I’ll put on the leaves. Then the collages will clash with the colors of my living room. But that’s okay. I’m okay with that. If they don’t look right, I just won’t put them in the living room. I do still want to make them, though.

I said I was going to make a bunch of gifts for Christmas. Made gifts only. But then I realized that I don’t have a lot of people to trade gifts with (thank godfully, sigh, ha), and the ones I do trade with, I’m now worried that they won’t like the gifts I have in mind to make. But really, what does it matter? How could they like it less than a plastic thing from Wal-Mart? And I’ve had this argument with myself, in my mind, 9,000 times now over the last 35 Christmases of my life. So I’ll stop now. Move forward!

Here’s some stuff about parenting teens now. (I wrote a subtitle about venting. Then I vented all this stuff, then realized it was mostly about parenting teenagers. So I came back here and changed the subtitle. Ta da.)

My children (oldest child, mostly) have finally reached the age where they’ve realized that I’m incredibly ignorant and have no business trying to raise them or even running my own household. And I’m supposed to argue my case — prove that I am the smartest one, and therefore they have to listen to me and do what I say, always no matter what. Right? I mean, isn’t that what you think, when you don’t have kids or when your kids are still too young to question your authority?

You say, “I’m not going to let my kid talk to me like that. I will slap my kid across the mouth, and then she will know that I’m the boss.”

Or whatever. You say all this stuff to yourself and your friends, about how awesome and fear-inspiring you’re going to be, and how your children will be meek subjects who keep their noses clean and still get good grades. You see older parents at the mall with their teenagers, and their teenagers say, “No, Mom, that’s stupid!” and you think back to the one time your mom finally lost her temper with you and slapped you across the mouth, or took away your Atari. Or the one time you eavesdropped and overheard someone tell your mom that you were a spoiled fucking brat, and your mom maybe reluctantly agreed, but still defended you because she loved you…

And you bleep over those painful memories and retroactively remove all the spoiled brattery from your own past, and raise your standards for the youth of today and for their parents. And you say… you say…

Whatever. It doesn’t matter what you say, or what you said. Because you grow up and your kids grow up. And then they talk back to you, because they’re smart and you’re dumb, or because they’re spoiled and you love them. And sometimes you do get mad, but sometimes you just let them, because you know by now that’s what has to happen. Let the kids talk back sometimes. That’s what they’re supposed to do. Give them their chance. Maybe they really are smarter than you. You hope they are, anyway.

I say, “You’re free to disagree with me or express your anger, but you need to do it respectfully. I gave birth to you, and for that alone, you need to respect me. Because, hello, that shit hurt. Y’all were big babies.”

It used to upset me when they got angry. But now I’m okay with it. That’s their job — to be little fireballs of anger. Teenagers have to burn off a certain amount of anger, or else they won’t grow, right? Anger is the byproduct of adolescence’s chemical reactions, right? Seems that way. I kind of enjoy it now, seeing my oldest son get so pissed off. Even when he’s mad at me. You go, little boy, I think. (Big boy. Little giant man, actually.) You get mad. It’s your time to get angry now. I’m so proud of you for growing!

I listen to my kids argue and complain, and they’re now reaching the hardest issues — the ones it seems like I’ve only recently overcome, myself.

The first issue is boundaries/control/what you can expect from the people you love. “I helped you level-up your orc but you never help me level-up my druid,” in their minds, sometimes equals “You don’t love me. I love you too much. You aren’t living up to your contract as my brother/friend/guild member.” And I have to talk to them about what we owe each other versus what we do for each other out of love, and I try to teach them to set their own boundaries and take care of themselves. And I have to make sure I’m practicing what I preach in my own relationships. Do they see me treat my boyfriend, my friends, my family, the way I tell them to treat each other?

The second issue is wanting approval from others, and caring what others think, and meeting social contracts. One of my kids is so concerned with what his classmates think of him, it stresses him out all night and all weekend. And that one is so hard, because I remember the pain of worrying about that, but I don’t remember what finally made me snap out of it. (Time? Exhaustion?) So I just repeat to him what my family said to me, and of course it works just as well, which is not at all. And then he trips me up with logic. He says, “You said I shouldn’t worry about what other people think. Then how come I can’t wear shorts and flip flops to the party? I don’t care if people don’t like it.”

And y’all know how that goes. Y’all remember, either because your own kids have done it to you, or because you did it to your parents. Right?

I feel like I have to hurry and mature faster, myself. I have to stay several steps ahead of my kids, in terms of maturation and personal development, or else I’ll become worthless to them. So I’m doing it. I’m growing.

Cliched syndicated columnist lesson: Watching the kids go through this crap is part of what makes me grow. Duh. Y’all know this already. I don’t have to tell you. I’m just venting.

Next

I’ve been wanting to write something here about reader mail. I got a really angry email from a reader recently, and I wanted to post it and dissect it here, and talk about the patterns that occur in the hate mail that gets sent to me. How it’s usually Christian fanatics who feel compelled to scold me, or older women who think I’m making some big mistake in my life, usually related to either dieting or sex. (I used to get a lot of mail from politically conservative men who wanted to lecture me, then assure me that I was still smart and pretty enough to be worth converting. But that’s dropped off a lot. I guess I finally turned them off somehow. Darn.)

Then I felt bad about that, and thought that I should instead (or first, at least) talk about the nice mail I get, and how very, very nice it is. I wanted to tell y’all that some of your emails are so kind that I have a hard time responding to them, because I can’t figure out what to say because “thank you” doesn’t seem like enough. Some of y’all’s emails, I put away in my Save box to read again another day.

And I thought that I’d tell y’all that I myself am very, very bad at writing emails to people I admire and whose art I enjoy. I think I’m the absolute master of overthinking my fan mail — trying to make it sound flattering but not fawning, interested but not stalker-y. And so, instead, I manage to come off as weird, rude, or pointless. This is usually in emails to musicians or artists or other writers. So, after all that, I appreciate y’all’s nice emails even more, and it always makes me smile when y’all express fear that you’re coming off as stalker-y or crazy.

(You aren’t. The general pattern I see is that, if you worry you sound crazy, then you aren’t. Because the few crazy, stalker-y people who do write me on a regular basis? Never worry at all about how they sound. They just pour out the crazy with all the confidence in the world, then hit Send and move on their merry, crazy way.)

So, yeah. I wanted to tell y’all all that stuff, and now it looks like I did. Want to see the hate email now? It’s the most messed-up one I’ve received in a while, and I’m going to post it with the sender’s full name, and this is why:
1. It’s a beautiful exercise in hypocrisy and nonsense, almost to the point that it has to be fictional, in which case the fiction is art and should be shared. Or…
2. If this person, Melissa Mahoney, is as mentally ill as she seems, then maybe someone who knows her will read this and get her some help. Or…
3. If this Melissa Mahoney is just incredibly immature, then maybe someone who knows her will see this and ridicule her in real life, and she’ll then learn a valuable lesson about communicating with people on the Internet. Also…
4. If I get murdered any time soon, y’all can give the police Melissa’s name, and, most of all…
5. This email does double-duty as advance promotion for my next book!

And now, here it is. My hate mail, by Christian tamale-maker (and aspiring author?) Melissa Mahoney, uncensored and unabridged:

fucking stupid ass bitch. Me and my family make tamales too by Gods grace. FUCK your ‘petty judgemental evil thoughts’ you fucking antiChrist bitch. dont say ‘Jesus Christ’! about some book you like. dont take my Lord and Saviour Jesus Christ’s Name in vain. He is Almighty God, and He saves. God gives me deep, merciful, non-judgemental thoughts by His grace. you shouldnt have judgemental evil thoughts. judge not, lest ye be judged. when you judge others with your evil thoughts, God will judge you. God has mercy upon us, and we should have mercy upon all by Gods grace, and not judge one another but LOVE one another by His grace. who the fuck would want to buy a childrens book for their children from you. Jesus Christ saves.

Thanks, Melissa, for reminding everyone that I have a children’s book coming out in May, and it is called Growing Up with Tamales, it’s in English and also in Spanish, and it is suitable for young readers, as well as for reading aloud to children who are too small or lazy to read it themselves. Email me your mailing address if you are an educator, librarian, reviewer, or book blogger and you’d like an advance copy to review.

I was at a Goodwill in another town, eavesdropping on strangers.

Mom: How about this one?
Daughter: Na-a-a-ah…
Mom: Well, I know it’s kind of boring, but it also looks professional. You have to look professional.
Daughter: Ye-e-eah…
Mom: Okay, so you have your black skirts… How about, instead of a jacket, you try something like this? Because it still looks professional, but
it’s not as formal as a jacket. Cute, huh?
Daughter: Kind of, yeah.

At this point, I can’t resist peeking at them. Both 30-something mom and teen daughter are tall and thin, in t-shirts and very short shorts, with long, long, very blonde hair. They’re talking loud and I can’t help but form the impression that the mom wants everyone around to hear what a good parent she’s being. I look to see what professional item of clothing the mom is holding. It’s a black vest with shiny black lining-fabric back.

Mom: See? That looks real professional. Trust me, I know these things.
Daughter: You know my friend Melissa? The other day, she found a pair of Hollister jeans here.
Mom: Really?
Daughter: Yeah. And she wore them to school!
Mom: Really? Wow.

Thrift Store Story 2: Little Girl Free to Good (or Any) Home

I’m shuffling through the sweaters at my second-favorite mega segunda. A little girl, maybe 2 or 3 years old, ambles near in a pink dress, with two filthy baby dolls cradled in one arm, and with green snot hovering above her lip.

Girl: Mami…
My heart: [Crack!]
Girl: Mami!!
Me: [approaching little girl] Are you lost? Do you know your mom’s name?
Girl: [Incomprehension.]
Me: [in Spanish] Let’s find your mom. What is your mom’s name?
Girl: [pause, then] Mami.
Me: What color is your mom’s hair? What color is your mom’s hair?
Girl: [Points to her own hair, her own dress, her baby doll’s dress.]

I lead the little girl around the store, pointing at each oblivious woman we see and asking in Spanish and English if this is her mother. The little girl shakes her head no at each one. For a while, a pre-teen girl helps us out, but then returns to her own mother’s side. I start to worry. The little girl has stopped worrying by now and seems content to follow me around like a stray cat. My boyfriend comes over.

Tad: Did you find a kid?
Me: Yes, and I’m starting to totally freak out. This one can’t even talk, and we’ve looked at, like, every single woman here, and she says none of them are her mom. What if her mom left? What if…

The little girl stands at my side, unconcerned, chewing on her hair. A little boy, about 4 or 5, walks up. His runny nose serves as family resemblance as he grabs the little girl by the arm.

Boy: There you are. Come on.
Me: Are you her brother? Do you know where y’all’s mom is?
Boy: Yeah. My mom told me to find her.

He hauls the little girl away. Curious, my boyfriend and I follow at a polite distance. The kids’ mother is younger than I expected. She stands over a shopping cart, with a companion, in the middle of an aisle. She and her companion wear tight jeans, sleeveless tops, and tattoos. The mother is talking to her companion and into a cell phone, simultaneously.

Mother: That’s what I’m saying. I told that stupid fucking bitch!
Her friend: Hell, yeah!
Mother: Fuck that stupid bitch! I’ll beat her ass down! [Looking down, noticing her children. To boy:] Now you watch her. Don’t let her run off!

Tad and I exchange looks. The little girl looks over at me and waves happily. I wave back and Tad and I resume minding our own business in another aisle. I look through racks and racks of sweaters, skirts, suits, shoes. Every time the little girl crosses our path with her family, she waves and says, “Hi!” or “Bye!”

Me: Bleh. That makes me sad. I should have just stolen her.
Tad: That’s probably why she wasn’t looking for her mom too hard. She was probably hoping her mom would leave her and she could go home with you.
Me: Maybe. I would have had to give her a bath first thing, though. And some antibiotics.
Tad: Right. But, you know… you already have the cat.

Thrift Store Story 3: I Am Rich and Famous. Dammit.

I’m at the same thrift store as the one in the story above. As usual, I’m combing through the pink sweaters, looking for one that doesn’t have holes or scuff marks or a Faded Glory tag.

Random chick passing by: Excuse me. Do you shop here often?
Me: Uh… I shop here. [Thinking she’s doing a survey or something.] Why?
Chick: Oh, um. Because… do they have tank tops here? I mean, this is my first time here, and I’m kind of looking for a tank top. But, like, none of these tops are tank tops. Do they not sell tank tops? Do you know where they are? Do they have them in a special section or something?
Me: They’re in the next aisle. See that rack of sleeveless tops, under the sign that says Sleeveless Tops?
Chick: Oh, okay. Cool. Thanks!

She walks away and joins a friend, who is over by the tank tops. I flip through the pink sweaters and try not to feel self-conscious. My boyfriend Tad walks up.

Tad: There’s nothing here.
Me: You always say that. You’re not looking hard enough.
Tad: I don’t feel like looking hard. I’m not in the mood.
Me: Whatever. Okay, listen. This chick just walked up to me and started a random conversation, and I think she knew who I was.
Tad: Someone from your work?
Me: No, I mean someone who reads my blog, or who read about me in the Chronicle or something. You know, because I just talked on my blog about thrift-store shopping, and I mentioned this store? Or because the Chronicle just did that article and they said where I lived?
Tad: Hmm. I guess.
Me: No, seriously. I’m starting to be able to tell now. Because they always start completely random conversations. Like that chick who talked to me in the bra section of Ross? Or that other chick who started talking to me about fountains at Home Depot that day? I mean, I know it sounds conceited as hell, but I really think they’re talking to me because they recognize me from the blog.
Tad: How, though? You only have that one picture of yourself on your blog, and it doesn’t even look like you.
Me: Because, like, I don’t know. I mean, how many Caucasian chicks in Houston have Asian boyfriends and three kids?
Tad: Yeah… I think you’re just being paranoid, though. I think they’re just being friendly.
Me: I’m not being paranoid. I’m not saying they’re stalking me or that it’s bad or anything. I’m just saying that I think they recognize me and, if they do, why don’t they just say so? You know? Because, otherwise, I’m wondering why I’m such a magnet for chicks starting completely random conversations.
Tad: People do that, though. They start random conversations. People do it to me all the time.
Me: Oh, okay. So you think I’m just being paranoid. Or narcissistic.
Tad: No, no, no. Of course not. Baby, if you say people recognize you, then of course they recognize you.
Me: Okay, don’t patronize me.
Tad: No, sure… Why wouldn’t they recognize you? You’re famous. You’re like, a famous writer and blogger and whatnot. You’re my famous baby.
Me: [Turning away, sighing.] I am famous, dammit. You just can’t handle the truth. You’re jealous. You can’t hang with being the boy-toy of a celebrity. I always knew it would come down to this — that my immense blogging fame and writing success would tear us apart. I didn’t want to believe that our love was so flimsy, so susceptible to petty envy. But I should have known better. That’s why they say it’s lonely at the top. It is. I see that now. This thing with my fans seeking me out at thrift stores, it’s tearing us apart. That’s the price I’m paying for my high-flying lifestyle…
Tad: What’s that, bunny? What’d you say?
Me: I said, let’s go get some gelato now.
Tad: Okay.

As I mentioned the other day, I’ve been losing weight, via the magic process of burning more calories than I take in (TM physics).

My boyfriend Tad hasn’t said much about my weight loss, either because he wants to maintain the illusion that he’s just as happy when I’m fatter, or else because he’s actually a little happier when I’m fatter. Either way, he’s been sending me little Yahoo news articles about weight loss lately. The last one was about how reducing stress and anger helps you burn more calories. Reading that finally got on my last nerve, and I wrote to Tad thusly:

I feel like, now that I’m losing weight, you’re sending me all this information on how to lose weight. Or telling me to exercise more. Hello – I have been exercising more. That’s why I’m losing weight!

Also, I’ve been trying to reduce my stress/temper a lot in the last couple of years, but you don’t seem to notice that, either. I know you’re telling me this stuff because you care, but when you give me “advice” or “reminders” on stuff I’m already trying to do, it just makes it seem like you don’t notice my accomplishments.
[Omitted: Three paragraphs of analogies and examples illustrating my point.]

Do you want me to nag you to run at the park more? Maybe you feel like I don’t care, since I don’t tell you stuff like you tell me?

Jesus – diarrhea again…

What can we learn from this?
One: All the stuff I said to Tad — that is what he’s been doing lately.
Two: If you ever become my significant other, this is how you can expect that I will argue with you: via email, with many, many, many words. (But then, there will usually be makeup sex, provided you pass the pop quiz that proves you actually read the email.)
Three: If you ever become my significant other, I can promise that you will be continually updated on the state of my digestive system, as well as the latest theories on what causes me to be ill. (Very latest theory: My job itself turns my bowels to water.)

So… back to Tad and his transgressions.

“Yes,” he eventually said, when we revisited this subject post-makeup-sex. “I would like it if you nagged me to run more.”

“Why?” I said. “Why do you want to be nagged? I don’t want to be nagged!”

“Because…” he said. Then, his cell phone rang. “Hello?” he said. Then, he started speaking the Chinese dialect of his people, which happens to sound almost exactly like when grown-ups talk on Charlie Brown. “Haw bwa, wa bwa,” he said. “Bwa haw… Okay, Dad! Okay!” Then he hung up, then turned back to me. “Because if you nag me to run, it lets me know that you care. That’s the only reason I sent you that weight-loss article, baby. Because I care about you.”

“What did your dad want?”

“Oh, nothing. He just asked if I ate any fruit today.”

“???”

“He’s been nagging me lately about eating fruit. He says I don’t eat enough. He bought a melon and wanted to see if I felt like coming over to get some.”

And that’s when I remembered that my boyfriend and his dad are crazy, and that they really do prove their love by nagging the shit out of people about their health.

(The next day, we were in the car, and Tad’s dad called and just said one sentence. “Bwa haw baw wah BWA HAW BAW!” Tad said “okay Dad” and hung up. Translation: “Don’t forget to EXERCISE!”)

OMFG, my bloggi-freaking-versary!

Tomorrow this web site turns ten years old. Here is your proof.

Incidentally, this is the first time in that ten years that I’ve remembered to mark my blog’s anniversary.

The ten-year gift is paper, btw. Feel free to send your surplus notebooks and cute Japanese stationery my way.

The Daily Quest

Every day at my job, in my department, some time after lunch, someone starts looking for a file.

Do you do this at your job? Do you have old-school paper files? If you do, you know how they go missing, right? And then someone will look for them and, depending on the standing of the person searching (hierarchical and social, both), one or more coworkers will aid in the search.

Usually when people look for files, I just check my desk and then yell, “Nope,” across the department.

Sometimes, however, I’m in the mood to be helpful, so I get up and walk around, searching other people’s desks and file cabinets, too. Whenever I do this, I like to get into the real spirit of it. I’ll say, “Didn’t Thomas Johnson come downstairs last week and ask us for that file?” or “I thought I heard Sharon asking Rhonda about that one.” And people will say, “Yeah, that’s right. I remember that,” even if I was just lying and remembered no such thing.

I like to see how far I can take it. “Jim Smith came downstairs yesterday, right after you left, Joanna. He looked really pissed off, and he was sort of sweating, and he twirled his mustache and said, ‘Is Joanna here?’ I said no and thought nothing of it, and went back to working really hard at my desk. I heard a bunch of scratching noises coming from the file room, and then I smelled smoke. You don’t think he…”

Then someone says, “Oh my gosh. Jim’s assistant, Brianna, was down here Monday. She looked really sneaky and had blood on her jacket!”

I say, “I’ve always hated Brianna. I told y’all she slept with my ex-boyfriend, right? Plus, I think she’s secretly bald.”

Then, right about then, someone will say, “Here it is. Found it. Here’s the file.”

Most embarrassing? Is when they find it on my desk.