Betrayed by the blush

My cheeks have a flair for the dramatics.

No, no, not those cheeks. I mean the ones that everyone sees, right on my face. The ones that are always a bright, rosy red from my constant blushing.  

You see, I blush really, really easily. Normal people usually just blush when in the presence of a cute guy or when giving a speech in school. Lucky ducks. I blush when my boss asks me a question, when my Pilates instructor corrects my form, when the guy working at Panera calls my name to give me my sandwich, when someone asks me for directions on the street, when the bus driver asks me to re-swipe my bus card...the list goes on and on. 

And if that's not bad enough, when I realize I'm blushing, I only get more embarrassed. Which of course, leads to a more intense blush. So by the time the interaction is finished, my face is beet red. No, worse than that. It's like the color of an embarrassed, sunburnt tomato suffering from scarlet fever and dressed head to toe in a beet red Snuggie. 

And of course, with my mix of German, Irish and Norwegian ancestry, I'm about as pale as they come. Oh wait, sorry, I'm porcelain. That sounds much prettier...like a little doll that sits on a shelf for years collecting dust and secretly scaring the children of the house. Or not. But anyway, my nice white skin provides the perfect blushing canvas. So there's really no escaping it. 

It's amazing to me that they sell blush as make up. People actually want to look like they're constantly blushing? Hmm, yeah okay, I own some. And I wear it, too, but you probably couldn't tell. My natural blush tends to override the effect of the make up blush. Sad.

Oh and in the latest installment of "Pam Says the Darndest Things", I had a bit of an awkward and very blush-worthy moment today. 

My boss (who is very sarcastic, which always makes me nervous because I don't get sarcasm very easily) is going on vacation tomorrow so today was his last day at work for awhile. On my way out tonight, I stuck my head in his office to tell him to have a nice trip. He made some comment about how he can't wait to get sun because he's so pale. I was about to say, "Oh no you're not, your skin looks good," but then caught myself because that would sound borderline creepy. So instead, I giggled awkwardly, tripped over a couple of words and said way too excitedly (and with a kind of Popeye arm-swinging motion), "Oh you just gotta love that Vitamin D!" His response? A pity laugh. My response? A nice scarlet blush. 

And I'm supposed to be a witty copywriter. Yikes. Thank goodness for erasers and backspace buttons, that's all I can say.