Okay, I have my pile of free hardbound copies of Faith Versus Fact (it’s part of my contract), and I’ll offer a few to readers over the next few weeks.
But they’re not free, for you have to win a contest. The single winner of this contest will get an autographed copy of the book with a cat drawn in it (to your specification). This week’s contest is easy. Just put in the comments of this post the answer to the following question:
Recount the funniest or most embarrassing thing that ever happened to you. (Note: it doesn’t have to be embarrassing if it’s just funny, or it can be both.)
Remember, the quality of writing counts: your anecdote should be written as a very short tale.
The deadline is a week from today: Sunday, May 10, 2015 at 1 p.m. Only one entry per person, please, and late entries will not be considered.
The winner decided by our secret crack panel of judges, and the book will be sent out shortly after the issue date (May 19).
There will be at least one more contest after this.
I am a Teacher Librarian at a Middle School. Like most school librarians, I do not allow food in the library. A sixth grade class came in finishing off there packages of snacks. After class had started I could tell some students had not finished their snacks or thrown them away so I said to them “I smell someone’s nuts.” For a stunned second we all stared at each other then burst out laughing. Later that day the Assistant Principal asked me why we were all cracking up in the library. Fortunately she thought it was funny too.
LOL!
I do have a second entry. I do not consider this to be terribly embarrassing, but it is rather funny.
When I was in the 3rd grade I had by then earned the reputation as being a complete nut for invertebrates. Insects and spiders were my main obsession, but all invertebrates had my attention. This was a fact that was well known to my teachers and to other teachers who needed help capturing a bee or wasp that was in any class room.
One day I was walking to school in the rain. The sidewalk had large numbers of night crawlers, so naturally I stopped to pick up a very large number of them – probably a couple dozen – and placed them in my coat pockets.
At our school we would always hang our coats in the hallway. School began, and we set ourselves to learning whatever. After a few hours another teacher poked her head into our classroom and got our teachers’ attention. We could hear that she was inquiring about a large number of worms that were crawling along the entire hallway, but that it was pretty clear they were most concentrated outside of our class room.
My teacher immediately whipped her head around, and said very sternly, “MARK??” There was of course no doubt about the most likely suspect.
I was sent into the hallway with a cup to collect the worms and to set them lose outside. No one was angry, actually and in fact I recall that everyone was very amused. And my teacher had another story to tell my parents at the next parent-teacher conference.
I belatedly see above that we get 1 story / person. So I withdraw this one. Sorry.
This reminds me of the first time I tried to make a worm bin for composting. There’s a right way to do it, of course; like any other creature, red wigglers prefer their ecosystem to be just so. Unfortunately I had neither done my research thoroughly nor managed to exercise common sense, and thus ended up with a tub of densely packed wood chips, dry hay scraps, and desiccant pumice dust (I kept a chinchilla at the time). So I dumped a big handful of worms onto the pile, set the cover loosely on top, and then went to sleep. Since it was very small room, I didn’t have a bed, instead preferring a foam mat on the floor, which could be rolled up as needed to clear space. I awoke to a desperate mass exodus of worms oozing out of the tub and spreading all over the floor and underneath the bedroll.
I venture that’s a unique experience. 🙂
I don’t know if this is all that funny, but it was terribly embarrassing at the time, and I still cringe when I think about it.
In the Summer of 1974, when I was sixteen years old, a friend took me to see Van Cliburn and the Chicago Symphony Orchestra perform Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto at the outdoor Ravinia Festival. My friend’s father was a big mucky muck financier who was instrumental in raising the funds to build Ravinia’s pavilion, so not only did we have choice seats, but we had backstage access to an after-party where we could meet Van Cliburn.
Now, I was a fairly uncultured adolescent middle class kid and certainly wasn’t used to hobnobbing with society people and patrons of the arts, but I had heard of Rachmaninov’s Piano Concerto No. 2 and knew that it was a Big Deal™.
What I didn’t know was that that was a point in Cliburn’s career where the critics were saying, “Yeah, we know he can play Rachmaninov and Tchaikovsky, but what else can he do?”, so he was under some pressure to expand his repertoire, and the 2nd piano–his signature piece–was considered a popular, but safe choice.
Well, a few bars into the second movement of that popular, but safe choice he screwed up; he hit some sour notes and then, without seeming to signal the conductor, he started the passage over. James Levine and the CSO were quick on their feet and kept up with him and even though he messed up the same passage on the second go-round, things went smoothly until shortly before the end when–PLOINK!!%!#!!–another bad note! These weren’t subtle mistakes either; even a musical illiterate–which is pretty much what I was at the time–could tell something was wrong.
The mood in the reception line to meet Mr. Cliburn was polite but strained. Nobody, but NOBODY, said a word about the night’s performance; instead, they all offered flattering generalities, such as, “I’m sooooo pleased to meet you; you’ve always been one of my favorites!”, or “I’ve always admired your work sooooo much!”. I was as awed by the opulence of everyone in the room as I was by meeting a Famous Person™ (even though he had never been famous to me ‘till that night) and I must have looked pretty slack-jawed because my friend kept elbowing me and quietly admonishing me not to say a word about the night’s performance and how bad it was. The more he “reminded” me, the more nervous I got, so as my turn to meet Van The Man approached I kept telling myself, “don’t say it was bad, don’t say it was bad, don’t say it was bad…”. When my moment finally came I clasped Van Cliburn’s hand, looked into his already uncomfortable eyes, and after a moment’s nervous hesitation my brain went blank and my mouth blurted out, “You were perfect!”. He flashed the angriest look I’ve ever seen directed my way and threw my hand from his with such force that, had it not been attached to my wrist, it would have sailed across the room and left a good sized hole in the wall! Instantly, he spun on his heels and headed straight for the Green Room, not to emerge for the rest of the evening. You could’a heard a pin drop, and every head in the room swiveled first to the spot where Clyburn had just been standing, and then to me. There was a moment of excruciating silence, and then the room filled with a low murmur consisting of phrases like, “What did he say?”, “What just happened?”, and, “Who let him in here?” My friend squeezed my elbow and hissed, “Come on, Liza Doolittle, you’re getting out of here”! As he hustled me off as quickly as he could it seemed like the room grew quiet again and I made my exit thru a gauntlet of piercing, angry and accusing eyes, each one focusing all the ill-will in the world directly at me. I had the uncomfortable and contradictory feeling of being both a half inch tall nobody and an oversized oaf who couldn’t move without breaking something nice. I felt like a BAD DOG!!!
I read the review in the next day’s paper half expecting to learn that Cliburn had blown his brains out after the show, but it just mentioned that his performance was less than perfect and that he’d had a cold, or jet lag, or something. I’d note, however, that that performance was his twelfth appearance with the Chicago Symphony Orchestra in fourteen years, but that it would be thirty one more years before he would return!
The poor guy must have felt like crap having to stand in a reception line after a performance like that, and then to be completely insulted by some dumb kid…..it still makes me blush.
Anyway, that’s my moment of embarrassment for you. I haven’t read the rest of the postings before submitting this one, so I apologize in advance if this tale has already been told. (<—That there’s a joke; the story is real!)
A perfect story. 😎
Oh, poor Van – and you! I probably heard him play 5 or 6 times back in the day, and he never screwed up. He did some magnificent Chopin polonaises, among other things. I seem to remember that the poor guy had a nervous breakdown ( not because of you!) but continued to do great things for young musicians, including The Van Cliburn Piano Competitio.
Wow, that takes some skill in the how-to-embarrass-oneself-most-obviously department! Congrats!
It was the beginning my last year of undergrad and it was time to start my thesis project in microbiology. I was very excited. My first actual research lab experience with my own project. Stained lab bench, the smell of media , Bunsen burners and all.
Another student and I came in one early morning before lectures and had a meet and greet with the lab’s graduate students (As they do all the actual lab work). Seeming very casual, we stood around exchanging formalities. I placed my book bag down and leaned against the bench.
Down to business, the MSc student asked if were both familiar with general lab safety.
‘Oh yes’ I said, in my most confident and authoritative voice. We had just completed our 45 min department training session.
Before the MSc student could continue with his spiel, my fellow undergrad yelled ‘Dylan, You’re on fire!’.
After a brief scuffle, the pilot light from a Bunsen burner had created a baseball sized hole in my sweater. And in my ego.
Needless to say, every weekly lab meeting that year ended with a variation on ‘please don’t set your self on fire’.
I feel much better, now. I once rested an elbow on a lab bench where acetone had been spilled and melted the sleeve off my acetate blouse…
I somehow had a quarter-sized hole “burn” through my lab coat and my very short mini-dress farther up my thigh than was decent. Whatever it was – some kind of acid, I presume- didn’t actually burn my skin, but I had to walk a fair distance to my car with this very obvious hole in my dress. But it was the 70s, so anything went:-)
With enough exposure it might have become a thing.
🙂
Yeah, surprised you didn’t start a fad…
While working at a large organisation in England I went to a meeting, together with some colleagues, to plan something I have now completely forgotten about. Also invited was a young woman from another department who was known to us all, some better than others.
While we waited for the chairman to arrive we were chatting about someone who had converted in order to marry a Jewish woman. The general view among the women was that sacrifices must be made but the men were not so keen on some of the minor details. Well one minor detail actually.
I carelessly said it didn’t seem that big a deal to me if you were not religious anyway. At this our visitor, who was Jewish herself, suddenly piped up “you’re only saying that because you wouldn’t need the snip”. There was a short, but significant silence as everyone suddenly found the agenda unexpectedly interesting.
On the way back to the office our manager remarked that for once he had learned something interesting at a meeting and now understood what inter-departmental liaison really meant.
Oh, classic! 🙂
About eight years ago I was attending an Atheist Alliance International conference at which Richard Dawkins was speaking. Before leaving home I grabbed about six of his books off my shelf and packed them in my suitcase. After he spoke at the conference, Richard Dawkins signed autographs. My turn came and I sheepishly plopped my pile of books in front of him (none of which was his latest book that he had spoken about). But the real embarrassment came when, about halfway through the stack, he opened a book cover and saw, to my chagrin, that he had already signed it on a previous occasion. I must have looked like an autograph hound who never actually read his books. (But I do!)
Ha ha! I could see that happening to me because I often forget things like that.
That is pretty cool. I have several signed books, but I do not have a ‘Dawkins’.
Now that *IS* embarrassing! Really, how could you?
I bet you money he was happy to see you double dipping. He knows how strongly you feel about his books.
When my son was 2 or 3 years old he used to address himself as “you”. Some examples of his speech included, “pick you up!”, or “you want macaroni and cheese”.
I figured this misunderstanding of the subject of a sentence would get corrected as he got older and so I decided not to correct him by informing him that he actually was an “I” or a “me” and not a “you”.
So one day we were at a small bagel shop filled with lots of customers. He yelled out
“mommy, you had gas!” He meant himself. I was totally embarrassed and at that point told him he was either “me or I”, but not “you.”
This is the story of how I became the official bigot of my company.
An Indian friend and colleague of mine introduced me to a new Chinese colleague who I already knew, but my Indian friend was not aware of this.
So for a laugh I said something like “Oh, I don’t real care for Asian people”, and then after just a little pause (and the timing was perfect) continued: “And I don’t care for Latin Americans or Africans, or North Americans, or Southern Europeans people either – Actually I don’t care for people at all”
I wouldn’t have dared this with people I didn’t know, but it was priceless to watch their faces, as they realized I was joking, but not sure if the other had go it too.
So fare so good, but the embarrassing part was that for a long time after they would both introduce me to others with the words “Meet Knud, he hates Asians”, but leave out the rest. And of cause people didn’t find that funny at all.
But I learned nothing from that. I’m still very non-PC.
It was a typical Saturday night in Madison, Wisconsin. Throngs of students were out boozing and causing commotion. My friend and I were lowly freshmen, underage and distressingly still sober at this late hour. We were pacing Mifflin street in search of a house party we could drop in on. Having circumnavigated the street several times with no success we were nearly resigned to returning to the dorms when we spotted a tipsy upperclassman emerge from the front door of a nearby house. The raucous party sounds of bad pop music and laughter emanated from the low-lit room behind him.
My friend and I looked at each other, this was it. This was our last chance to score some beer for the weekend. But to simply walk up the steps and enter through the front door? This was a daunting task as were more accustomed to filing into larger parties anonymously amongst crowds of other freshmen. After a long hesitation I nervously made my way up the steps and pulled the door open.
The music seemed to stop and the several dozen people in the room all turned their heads to the freshman frozen with fright standing stupidly in the doorway. An attractive brunette, presumably the hostess, blurted out, “umm, do I know you?”
I stood there mouth agape searching for something to say when a hearty slurred bellow came from the back corner, “I can vouch for this guyyy! Unicycle man!” It was an overweight sweaty reveler standing next to the keg whom I had never seen before in my life. As soon as his enthusiastic roar had broken the silence everyone turned away from me, including the hostess, and resumed to their socializing.
I called my buddy up from the walkway outside and we commenced consumption of cheap frothy beer with my new friend who had saved the night. I guess it paid off being the only dude in the city that both rides to class on a unicycle and has dreadlocks.
It was the early 2000s and there was an exhibit of Chinese dinosaurs on at the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) in Toronto. My parents and a family friend decided to go on a train and subway trip with me in the evening so that we would only have to pay for the exhibit and not entry into the museum (which we didn’t want to see that evening) plus the exhibit (the ROM, at that time had free Fridays or some such deal).
My parents and our friend were at this time only in their early 60s so not in the throes of age-related dementia, however there were two incidents in which this may have seemed the case.
The first was when we reached Union Station in Toronto and had to get on the subway. I knew the way but the family friend wandered off in the opposite direction, which meant we had to run after him and get him pointed in the right direction to catch the subway. This was only mildly amusing to the person manning the gate.
The next occurred after we attended the event (in which I bought a book named Trilobite! purely for the exclamation point in the title) and managed to get back to Union Station via the subway and on to our train home without incident.
There are strips above the windows on the train that when pressed alert security that there is a problem. For some reason, our family friend, who had wandered off in the wrong direction in the subway, was absent mindedly touching those strips. I actually didn’t think they were that sensitive and figured you’d have to press them hard to activate them.
In no time, a guard entered our car and asked if everyone was okay. Immediately, we all put together that the strips above the window had triggered the alert. I remember wanting to slink down in the seat in shame and because I was sitting in seats across from all of them, I could easily pretend not to know them, which I sort of did. Those guards have powers of arrest so I was impressed that when asked if he pushed the emergency strip, our family friend just innocently and meekly replied, “no”. I suspect the wiley guard somehow knew it had been him.
There was also a group of teenagers in the same car and the security guard asked them the same question but he was a bit gruffer in his tone. I think he decided to blame the emergency strip pressing incident on them because even though his instinct told him it was the guy in the back of the car, the man’s innocent expression and meek response had persuaded him to think otherwise (these aren’t the droids you’re looking for).
Not a completely amusing or embarrassing story but at least a somewhat entertaining one. With all the construction at Union Station lately, I now find myself as lost as our family friend that day and I’m constantly asking strangers if I’m going the right way or where I can find “such and such” a place. They’ve all been very nice to me.
We take the train into Toronto every couple of weeks and every time Union Station looks completely different, though, unfortunately not better – especially the train – subway interface. Not sure how they’ll be ready for the Pan Am Games in July.
“I have always depended on the kindness of strangers.”
I’m the anti Blanche Dubois. I assume all strangers are hostile and I’m always pleasantly surprised when they aren’t. 😀
LOL, me too!
And I tend to trust most strangers, though don’t count on relying on them…
Just as I’d have expected, Mer. 🙂
Me too! 😍
I went to a Halloween party in Picabo dressed as Jesse from Breaking Bad — scruffy stubble beard, black watch cap, dirty sweatshirt with cutoff sleeves, motorcycle boots, inappropriate sunglasses — the whole enchilada. I bought a miniature Blue Ice vodka and cut the blue plastic bottle into pieces, put them in a baggie, to ask people, “Yo, bitch, wanna score some blue ice?” with a leering grin. To my embarrassment, no one else was in costume. Not only that, no one had seen Breaking Bad. But the most embarrassing thing was that no one realized I was in costume.
Hahaha! You will appreciate how I want this cup.
https://img1.etsystatic.com/045/0/10054081/il_570xN.677439217_g82l.jpg
That WOULD be embarrassing – LOL. Did you say Have an A-1 day??
We had a difference of opinion so there was a change of management. — Todd
Todd??
Todd was a character in the last season. He was an amiable, ambitious, remorseless killer who spoke in euthemistic Bizspeak. Jesse killed him.
http://breakingbad.wikia.com/wiki/Todd_Alquist
Oh, man, how could I have forgotten TOdd? Love The name Vamanos Pest:-)
Walter & Co had a brilliant idea to cook meth in vacant Albuqueque houses that were tented for termite control. (They had to wear hazmat suits anyway.) That’s how Todd of Vamonos Pest got involved in the plot. He was IMHO the most disturbing character of the show, at least of the last season.
I can’t wait for the next season of Better Call Saul.
I want to buy the whole set of BB and watch it all the way through again. My only minor quibble with the show is that I didn’t find the characters of Skyler and Marie terribly well-developed compared to the men.
Yes, Better Call Saul is brilliant, and so glad they brought Mike along for the ride!
Wasn’t Todd also involved earlier on when they were stealing chemicals out of the tank car on the train?
Yes, it’s where we realize that Todd is a dangerous sociopath. He shoots the kid on the bike who discovers what they are up to – it really freaks out Jesse & Jesse hates Todd forever after that.
And Jesse rides flat flat flat on top of the train as it goes through the tunnel, iirc.
That is really funny! 😀
23rd April, 1980, an amazing day: not only my birthday, but also in the evening I was playing Rachmaninov’s 2nd Piano Concerto with my school orchestra at the Town Hall. It was a triumph, the future was mine. If only the day had ended there.
The novelty of being able to drink in pubs legally went to my head- as did a pint of lager and eleven runs and blackcurrant ( I know, but I was young and someone told me it was a good drink). By the time I realised I was seriously drunk (after a couple of hours of smug celebratory obnoxiousness) it was too late. Someone was found to drive me home, and while he and his friend were chatting in the front of the car on the way back, I threw up very silently onto the floor in the back. I said nothing, and was dropped off, managed to crawl through the back door and spent the night throwing up purple vomit into the toilet, which, along with the rest of the room wouldn’t keep still, making aiming very difficult.
I never saw my chauffeur after that night, but gather my little present wasn’t discovered until the next day and made the car stink for weeks. thirty-five years later, I still can’t abide the sight of black currant juice.
I had the same experience on gin and Stones Original Green Ginger Wine(!). Spent two hours lying on my hosts’ garden path with my head in the garden, then crawled back onto the balcony and spent the rest of the night on hands and knees with my head in a passionfruit vine (by then I was harmless since there was nothing left inside) while the party went on around me. I think it was quite a good party (from a normal person’s point of view).
But you know you’re really drunk when you have to hang on to the floor…
Aargh, my roommate did something similar in our dorm room after a night of imbibing sloe gin.
A few years ago, at a ballet fundraising event, I won the right to appear on stage with the company as guest Grandfather in the Nutcracker party scene. I don’t dance, and my last acting gig was in high school (circa 1970), so I was a bit apprehensive. But it’s not a demanding part, and the stage would be full of friends to talk me through it. The day of the show, I reported to the theater an hour and a half early for makeup, and came out looking like this.
My biggest challenge would come near the end of the scene, in the so-called Grandfather Dance, in which all the party guests participate. Dr. Stahlbaum moved to center stage and clapped his hands, and immediately, despite several rehearsals, the steps went right out of my head. My five-year-old partner, the littlest girl in the entire show, knew the dance much better than I did, but was too polite to correct my errors. So we fumbled our way through it, and I told myself that a certain amount of grandfatherly ineptitude was not out of character.
After the dance, my remaining duties were to deliver my tiny partner back to her nurse on the other side of the stage and then to bid goodbye to our hosts before exiting. Unfortunately I got lost in the commotion and took longer to find the nurse than I should have; during the goodbyes, Frau Stahlbaum hissed at me, “You need to get off stage right now because Drosselmeier is about to make his exit.” So I hurried off, and sure enough, just about got run down by Drosselmeier in the wings.
That was the end of my short career as a ballet extra. But a couple of months later, Tom Skerritt performed with the company as the title character in Don Quixote, and as a side-effect lowered my Bacon number to 4.
This is a lovely thing you did.
AND you in character, too, Mr Kusnick, as Billy C ‘d exclaim, “wook mahvewous, Dawhlingk” — actually !
To heck with the Frau’s opinion. You participated; and even Mr Bacon would concur, .that. matters, … … especially to the wee ones in the troup.
And as to your tiny partner? She may also have been thinking thusly http://www.pinterest.com/pin/506655026805230964 anyhow ! This pix, every time, always just cracks me up! — cuz it reminds me of .me. during just about any [even rehearsed and although I love it … …] dance number!
Blue
A few years ago, while working at a neighborhood market, a foreign man came in and asked if we have oranges. I answered in the affirmative and pointed him to our produce section, which had a basket of oranges on clear display. The man looked at them, paused a moment, turned back to me and asked “which one is the orange?”. This flabbergasted me to the point that the only response I could think of was to say “the orange one.”
I’ve gotten a lot of dumb and ignorant questions over my years in the service industry, but that one still takes the cake.
I had a really hard time choosing only one story, but this was a recent one that is relevant. Enjoy!
I come from a very christian family with an inept grasp on evolution. Last spring in Ohio, I somehow managed to convince the parents to come along to meet Richard Dawkins and Lawrence Krauss for a date on their “Unbelievers” tour. It was a magnificent time! They screened the film, did a Q&A, and a book signing. Surprisingly, I think my parents actually enjoyed themselves.
We stood in line for the book signing, when my father came up with a brilliant, complete refutation of the entire theory of evolution. “How can something go from nonlife, to a life that is equipped for reproduction, food intake and an ability to deposit waste after gaining nutrients i.e. a digestive system”. On the surface, it seems way too complex of machinery for a primitive microbe. Those are a lot of seemingly necessary functions. He was, of course, talking about abiogenesis.
I was now in the awkward position of wanting to be close enough to hear this dialogue but far enough away so as to not look as though I was with them.
The big moment finally came, and I remembered my father is not the best speaker under pressure. I don’t know if he was intimidated, but he babbled on incoherently for about a minute or two as Dawkins was signing an overwhelming amount of books. My father didn’t word it in a proper way at all and said something like “How can something go from nothing to being able to eat, poop, have sex….” I’ll never forget Dawkins’ face, sitting there at his table, only half listening to what anyone was saying to him (it turned into a later night than expected) and then all of a sudden stopping everything and looking up at him with a surprised and shocked look on his face and repeated in the brilliant English accent, “Does it pewp?!”.
My father tried to reword his thought but Dawkins stopped him saying something like “I’m sorry sir, but there is just not enough time for me to explain it thoroughly in a way you would understand”.
At one point, Krauss briefly interrupted with a joke (presumably about radiometric dating?) saying in a sardonic way, “Maybe it doesn’t go from non-life to life, maybe there is a half-life in there”.
It was a brief moment to inquire one of the leading spokesman on evolution a question, and in this rare chance, my father asked him how we’ve come to poop.
Since then, I’ve convinced my mother of the truth of evolution. But my father is still stubbornly waiting for an answer about abiogenesis that he is able to digest.
I love the part about how you wanted to be close enough to hear the conversation but far enough away that people wouldn’t think you were with him.
Ha, ha, yes, that rings so true! 🙂
OK here goes.
When I was 5 I lived (with family) in Perth, West Australia. I was an extremly shy kid (for example I would never let anyone, under any circumstaces, see my willie). Also I hated injections.
One day I was playing in the yard and stood on a small plank, and when I lifted my foot the plank came with it. Horror! I clumped off to Mum in tears and my father pulled the plank (and nail) off my foot. When I’d subsided a bit, I thought I was due lots of ice cream and sympathy. Instead, my father took me off to the doctor, which sounded frightening. I assured him I felt fine now, I wasn’t sick, I didn’t need the doctor but he took me anyway, for a tetanus ‘shot’ (I did say I hated injections, didn’t I?)
Well, in the waiting room I started acting up like the 5-year-old I was, I didn’t need an injection, I didn’t want an injection, and I wasn’t going to have an injection so there. I was expecting the usual jab in the arm, so my performance stabilised at the usual tantrum level.
We got into the doctor’s surgery and the first thing he did was pull my pants down. My screams of fear and rage added a layer of embarrassment and outrage. He then produced a needle suitable for giving enemas to horses and injected 500cc’s of concentrated sulphuric acid right into my quivering butt. I’d never had an intramuscular injection before. As anyone knows who’s had one, they really do hurt. Add ‘agony’ to the list and by now I was making a noise calculated to cause permament hearing damage.
After an inordinate amount of time fracking** my rump muscles, the quack went to pull the syringe out and – the needle stuck. My muscles were clenched so tight it was anchored as if in concrete. So he unscrewed the syringe and left me, bent double, pants down, being observed through the open door by 5000 curious strangers, with a needle sticking out of my butt, while he went in search of a bloody great pair of pliers.
And that is why for years I had a phobia about sharp pointy objects. It wasn’t Freudian since I knew damn well where it came from, it was Pavlovian (or maybe Skinnerian?).
It’s just occurred to me the only thing that would improve that story would be if I wet myself. Possibly fortunately for all concerned, it didn’t occur to me at the time.
**Gravelinspector can tell you what that means.
All right, the most embarrassing, and also one of the most funny things in my life. That has to be when I confessed love to the wrong girl.
I was 17, and the three of us were in driving school together. I had for weeks struggled to get the spine to ask the girl I was after for a date. Now, one evening, I was waiting outside before the lecture started, and was determined, determined I say. Was I a man, or a mouse? Well, determined too much, for she didn’t came that evening, but that other girl came, who looked a bit like her … it got to be her! … go for it, you coward! … it was quite dark, too.
To make it short, I was through with my line “I’m in love with you” before I noticed. I laughed, very hard. Then explained to her. She probably took me for a complete freak. I can’t say if she told her, but when I finally asked the right girl out, anyhow, the reaction was unfavourable.
And thus is how I proved love is truly blind.
In the summer of 1990 I made my first trip to the US together with a friend: one week New York, two days Chicago and a final week in Florida.
One hot day in the streets of New York I purchased a can of “***** sparkling grape” (no advertising, here) and I loved it.
In florida’s Disney World I had an urge to taste that nectar of the god’s once more and wanted to order it at a stall. With my poor English all I remembered was “sparkling”, so I asked the vender for “Sparkling”.
To my amazement he seemed not to know the drink.
… After some back and forth with questions and my (poor attempts) of explaining the guy said “Sparkling is … the bubbles”.
I had just learned a new adjective, stayed thirsty and … embarrassed.
Waiting for a taxi at a cab depot one night I let my mind wander and after this spot of reverie, which may or may not have lasted at least five minutes, a slightly annoyed voice called out to me that my taxi was waiting outside. I got up, thanked the dispatcher, went outside … to the wrong car. I tried opening this poor woman’s passenger side door and the shock I felt when she banged on the window to let me know she wasn’t my taxi is something I haven’t forgotten. I could see other people saw what had happened with their smiles and wry grins followed me as I got into the taxi. The driver told me this has happened a few times and not to think too much on what just happened.
Waiting for a taxi at a cab depot one night I let my mind wander and after this spot of reverie, which may or may not have lasted at least five minutes, a slightly annoyed voice called out to me that my taxi was waiting outside. I got up, thanked the dispatcher, went outside … to the wrong car. I tried opening this poor woman’s passenger side door and the shock I felt when she banged on the window to let me know she wasn’t my taxi is something I haven’t forgotten. I could see other people saw what had happened with their smiles and wry grins followed me as I got into the taxi. The driver told me this has happened a few times and not to think too much on what just happened.
I know this tale sounds unbelievable but this did actually occur as described. To this day it is by far the most embarrassing thing that has ever happened to me, but it’s a great story to tell at parties!
About 10 years ago my wife to be was pregnant with my first daughter and for my last holiday free of parental responsibilities I went to Italy with two friends on a skiing trip. One evening about half-way through the week we had a little too much to drink, resulting in me showing up at breakfast the next morning feeling less than perky. Wanting to get rid of my hangover before we hit the slopes I decided to wash away the fogginess by drinking lots of strong Italian coffee.
This actually seems to work and by the time we got our skis on I feel fine. It’s a cold morning, around -15 degrees C and by the end of our first run it is snowing quite heavily. At the bottom of the run I get onto a three person chairlift with my friend Barry to my left and a quiet German woman to the right. All is going well until half way up mountain, with us dangling about 40 feet above the ground, the lift grinds to a halt. It is obvious that the lift had broken down but this didn’t concern us as it isn’t uncommon for a lift to stop for 5 minutes. Fast forward 20 minutes and it’s still not moving, the snow is still falling and exposed to the wind we are getting seriously cold, but worst of all that coffee has gone right through me and I need to pee. At first it’s not too bad but 20 minutes turns into 40 and I start to worry. We are visited by ski patrol on snowmobiles who shout something unintelligible in Italian – we guess they are telling us we’re going to be stuck for a while. What the hell am I going to do? After an hour and now in serious pain my worry has been elevated to dread mixed with pure animal panic. I now realise that I am going to have to deal with this; there is no way it can wait any longer and for all I know we could be here another 3 hours.
Barry has known all along that I need to pee but now I tell him it can’t wait any more. Giggles ensue but after he has calmed down we get to business. Luckily Barry is an ex-soldier and just the right person to have in a crisis. We run through the various options. Do it where I am in my ski pants? No way, it would freeze within minutes and I would end up with frostbite or hypothermia. Lower myself to the slope below? Way too dangerous – I could easily end up with broken legs or worse. We realise that the only way to do this is if I pull my pants down and hover far enough over the edge of the seat that the pee doesn’t flow back onto the seat. Please God! This can’t be happening!!!
There’s no way I can do this next to the nice German lady so I start by clambering over Barry ski by ski. Once I’m on the far left Barry does his best to shield the lady on the right and I pull my ski pants and undies down to just above my knees. Barry grabs me so I don’t fall and I start to slide down in my seat enough to take a pee. Unfortunately we have been out in the cold for so long that there is literally nothing for me to take a pee with – it’s too shrivelled to point anywhere. By this point the people in the chairlift in front are all turning round and looking at me and I dread to think what the people behind can see. However I have no option but to continue. The only way I can think of doing this without getting my clothes wet is to tuck everything down between my legs and clamp my legs together. So with me dangling off the edge of the chairlift this is what I do. My embarrassment is so overwhelming by this point that I don’t even notice who is watching any more. With great relief I manage to finish my pee without getting wet. I pull my pants up and Barry helps me back into the seat.
We remain stuck on the mountain for another 2 hours in freezing, uncomfortable silence. When we finally get moving again all I want to do is disappear. We get to the top and without looking up from the floor I ski away as fast as I can.
O.M.G.
I am amazed at your dexterity in ski clothes, boots, skis, and dangling in mid-air; and we should all have a Barry, 24/7.
Perhaps you’re not the only one who’s been telling this story for 10 years. 😉
(And a part of me wonders if your pregnant wife enjoyed a bit of schadenfreude, if she heard the story.)
In 1970, I was drafted into the US army and sent to Viet Nam. About 200 of us—all military police–were sent to Cam Rahn Bay. With a surplus of MP’s we were assigned to any unit that needed any type of replacement. Luckily I was able to talk my way into the local payroll office, since I had a degree in banking and finance. Part of our duties included pulling guard duty once a month. One night I was assigned to walk around the general’s house until dawn—a house that looked like it was lifted from the California suburbs and placed in sand hills by the bay. I was left alone, given strict orders not to go close to the house or bother anyone inside. I started my route, gun at my shoulder thinking of ways to mentally pass time through the night. After several hours and many trips around the house in the dark I must have either varied my route or the strain of the parade of marching feet finally caused the sand to give way, and I fell through the rusted top of the generals septic tank. I didn’t go all the way in—just up to my crotch since my gun held forward in both hands stopped my descent. It was about 2 AM and I pulled myself out covered with stinky crud. The generals sewage was ripe with the tropical heat. Totally humiliated, I could not leave my post or call for relief, so I just had to tough up and bear it. I did go up to the house to find a garden hose and hosed my pants off as best I could. Fortunately no one was either home or awakened by the running water, so I finished my shift reeking of the general’s shite. Humiliating as it was, I am thankful that turned out to be my worst wartime experience.
What’re the odds?!
Amen to your last sentence.
what the heck, I’ll contribute one:
We used to hang out with a bunch of people, usually playing D&D. One of the guys, Al, would always go to our fish tank and insist that he would eat a goldfish. This went on for months.
After running across some very realistic rubber goldfish, my husband decided to call our friend on his boast. After the requisite “Hey, let’s eat a live goldfish!”, my husband palmed a fake fish, shoved his hand into the tank, and tossed a fish and a handful of water at Al.
He screamed, scrabbled for the fish and then ran for the tank “We can still save it!” He threw the fish in and watched it sink to the bottom, mouth agape.
A better reaction we could not have wished for. I don’t think I have ever laughed so hard.
Halloween night during my senior year of college, I started drinking early. It was a small town so my roommate and I spent the night hopping from bar to house to apartment. It was around 9 pm when we ended up at a friend’s house for party shenanigans . At this point in the story, I had not been pacing my drinks well so the remainder of this story is pieced together from phone calls, texts, conversations, and physical evidence.
I wasn’t feeling well so I told my best friend I was stepping outside for some air. When I didn’t return in 10 minutes he got concerned and went looking for me. I was no where to be found. He and another friend started frantically calling me. After several calls I finally answered and without giving them a chance to talk said “II just threw up and pooped in someone’s yard,” and I hung up. I remember stumbling past our campus library and then into my apartment. At some point, I stripped completely naked and climbed onto my top bunk. I have a vivid memory of throwing up off the side of my bed and being too exhausted to clean it up. I texted my roommate and told him not to come home because of the vomit I didn’t feel like cleaning up and passed out.
I woke up the next morning feeling great! As a plus, there was also no vomut on the floor. I had imagined it. I was a little confused about why I was naked though. I got dressed and went to lunch, only to be greeted by laughter. I spent the rest of the morning trying to piece together what had happened to me. I maintained that I never actually defeated in someone’s yard until I went home and found evidence of it in my laundry hamper.
To this day, my friends still preface embarassing stories with “at least I didn’t poop in someone’s yard.”
I’ve had my fair share of embarrassments. Farting at the wrong moment, ED at the wrong moment, soiling my pants, etc.
But this one will stay with me forever and ever.
There was this attractive Phillipina geologist doing a post grad. We got along pretty well in the foreign students association at the university of Brussels. She was very sociable too (with hindsight that should have been a red flag).
So on my 25th birthday we went out for a drink, and smooched a little.
She invited me to her home. Arrived there she said, ‘just give me half a minute’.
In eager anticipation I undressed, and when she called me in: “Surprise!” lights on, She had invited about all the foreign students from the campus, and there I stood, naked and in full erection… I was frozen. Well after half a minute, that appeared hours, they laughed. So I laughed with them.
Maybe not funny, but truly embarrassing.
(Note, later we married, and although she routinely teased me with the incident, it had really nothing to do with our later divorce)
Having just arrived home from a week long trip, my wife and four year old daughter were sitting on our bed as I changed for a shower. I could see that my daughter, with her beautiful round smiling face and perfect posture was proudly displaying her new clothes that her mother had bought whilst I was away.”I sure like your new outfit Camille”, I said as I had undressed and was coming out of the walk in closet. Always polite and socially adept Camille felt this should be met with a compliment likewise. “Well I sure like your penis”.Thank you I said. Your welcome she replied. My wife and I laughed about it later. She had nothing to work with(no clothes) and my penis would have been the most conspicuous thing and at eye level as I went by.
As bad luck would have it we found ourselves in similar circumstances 11 years later. She was hurriedly getting ready for school and rushed into our bedroom to take some of my wife’s makeup while I having just showered was on my way to the walk in closet to put on some clothes. So there I was, standing in the exact spot where I had hitherto received the great compliment. I quickly reached down to cover but too late, the reaction elicited in the 15 year old being less than favourable. First the facial contortion (this all took place in nanoseconds) that would be recognizable in every culture on our planet as utter disgust. A face you would expect to see if someone had seen teaming maggots. Included seamlessly with this was a single gag. Concurrently, in a wondrous feat of human physiology was a colour change to rival chameleon and cuddlefish. The beautiful rosy cheeks turned grey (remember in nanoseconds). Cadaver grey. She turned on her heel and was gone.
To this day, not a word has been spoken of this, as trauma of this nature must be buried forever. Though it must be hidden somewhere in her subconscious because she always knocks.
Years ago, when I was a UPS driver, I was delivering to a house, knocking on the door when I suddenly hear the sound of little porcelain feet. The front door slowly and
laboriously opens, and there, at my feet was a little pink smurf, 4 year old Melissa.
Bent over, hands on my knees, slowly and with great emphasis I said; “Now darling, I want you to go find your mommy and tell her that the ..EWE..PEA..ESS.. man is here!”. Melissa gave me a big toothless grin, scampered down the hall and disappeared into
the kitchen. Suddenly,”Melissa, who’s that at
the door?”. Melissa, with her feet apart, fists on her hips, in her most serious face, looked up; “Mom!” she replied, “It’s the PUS man!”.
Great. Here I am this big burly truck driver, and this little sugar cube has re-branded me “The Pus Man”.
Back at our office was a middle aged clerk, who had worked for UPS for many years, of fine character and great demeanor, named Rose. When I came back to the office, I told Rose how this little Munchkin had demoted me to “The Pus Man” and we both had a good laugh over it.
Two months later Rose retired from UPS. Being
someone whom I was going to miss greatly, I got what thought to be a fairly restrained farewell card: “Yadi yadi yada; Live long and
prosper”, signed – “Randy, The Pus Man”.
I handed her the card, she read it, and suddenly hit the floor in a state of hysterics, and I had no idea why because, quite frankly, the card wasn’t that funny.
It turned out, it was my fault. You see, I had no idea that the word “pus” was spelled with only one “S”. Yes, it’s true; I gave a married woman, I only knew through work, a farewell card signed – “Randy, the puss man”.
I offered to fix it for her, but she said no, it was “a keeper” and that she was going to take it home and show it to her husband.
It was 1979. I was in my final year of a now extinct photographic technology program at Ryerson Polytechnical Institute. There were only six of us in the class and we had the luxury of our own lab, replete with darkroom, studio and all the equipment we needed to complete our work, including a large bar fridge. This particular fridge was fashioned with a padlock whose combination was known only to program professors and the six of us students. In this fridge we kept essential and valuable materials: film, paper, chemicals and, of course, beer.
Now, this was not just any ordinary beer. This was beer in Ontario in 1979 in bottles known as stubbies, short squat containers that made more efficient use of materials than the bottles we use today. Unless you had imported beer this was the bottle from which you drank. Aside from hockey, sadly, this was our only symbol of Canadian identity.
At this point I am compelled to reveal my only talent. I have the ability, as far back as I can recall, to clearly imagine objects in detail and fit them into containers of appropriate size. It occasionally comes in handy when assessing the size of a parking spot or when deciding which size container I need for the leftover rice.
And so, I applied this talent by chance while working in our lab. I had opened the fridge and, noticing the case of beer, immediately had the perverted notion that it would fit into the bottom plastic crisper drawer. I drew open the drawer and dropped in the entire case, all twenty-four bottles. It fit perfectly. I was very pleased with myself. I thought that it would be deceptive enough to provide a few minutes of confusion when we all met there later that day, and we’d all have laugh. If things were only so simple.
At our little gathering, as I had so cleverly anticipated, one of my fellows went to the fridge, unlocked it then opened it, stood aghast for a moment, then announced the disappearance of the beer. All was silent then we all rushed to the fridge to verify that indeed, the small space before us was devoid of beer.
Then pandemonium. Who has keys to the lab? Who knows the combination to the fridge? Who else has access to the lab? Custodial staff? Nefarious invaders from other departments? Beer bandits? Call security? (NO NO, don’t call security. Open the bloody crisper drawer! At least try to search for the beer.) Maybe we should call the police?
This was all going very wrong. By this point I was too embarrassed to confess. I was sweating. I didn’t know what to do. So I did the only thing I could think of and pretended to find the beer. I figured that I could at least avert an investigation, at worst just get the lock replaced.
I went to the fridge and opened the crisper drawer. Then sighs of relief and laughter, a weight lifted, disaster averted. The first finger pointed to me, but I just said, I don’t even drink beer. Surprisingly, that seemed to satisfy them. I know, that’s irrelevant to the question. But then, this is a group that couldn’t find a case of beer in a bar fridge.
Many years ago, when I was a young college student, I returned to my parent’s home one summer break. On a lazy Sunday, I borrowed the family station wagon (do station wagons even exist anymore?) to run errands around our small southern California town. It was a warm day. I drove with the car windows down and the radio on. I was young and life was good.
I made several stops with the car for an hour or so as I performed my errands. After I completed my last one, I started to head home.
As I approached a four-way intersection, a light summer rain began to fall so I rolled my car windows up and came to a stop at the intersection.
I needed to make a right turn, so I turned to my left to check for oncoming traffic: all clear. Then I turned to my right.
But I couldn’t move. My body was paralyzed.
Puzzlement began, followed by the hint of panic. All I could think to do was re-perform the last act my body could do. So I turned to my left: the muscles in the left side of my body responded. Then I tried turning to my right: once again, I couldn’t move.
A full panic began descending. In an instant, I began wondering what kind of paralysis could have affected only half my body. Clearly, something was occurring in only the left hemisphere of my brain, meaning the right side of my body was affected. But aside from that, how would I get home? How would I get help? I imagined flagging a stranger down and asking for help getting to a hospital. But strangers were notorious for not getting involved in such things. Would I even be capable of turning off my car? Where were the emergency lights? I’d have to leave it parked at the intersection.
My mind awhirl with all these questions, I tried again to turn to my left. That’s when I spotted it: my hair was caught at the top of the car window. I had rolled it up with the window when the rain started! It was long enough then that such things could happen.
Imagine my relief and embarrassment—but mostly relief—when I lowered the window and freed my hair, instantly curing my paralysis. I didn’t tell the story to anyone for many years, I guess because it showed me to be more gullible—and more easily spooked—than I liked. Today, I think of it as an illustration of how easily people can be mistaken about what they experience.
That’s funny! And I can identify, having always had long hair…
This story falls under the category of “Embarrassing”
In the summer of 1986 I was a tall, skinny, self-conscious dork doing his undergraduate honors thesis research outside the small town of Casma, Peru. When I travel, I prefer to blend in, but not only was I much taller and whiter than the native population, each day I walked through town wearing my field hat, backpack, and comically large hiking boots. And so along my daily commute I could hear all too frequently the word ‘gringo’ punctuating whatever conversations people were having. I felt like a sore thumb.
One day a van full of archeologists from my home university unexpectedly showed up. They had been doing archeology in the high Andes, but they place they were staying had been overrun the night before by Sendero Luminoso terrorists carrying automatic weapons. The archeologists were pretty shaken up by the experience, so they came to quiet little Casma to lie low for awhile before returning to the U.S.
One of the charming things about Casma is that they have a number of local festivals that feature a brass band parading about town early in the morning and again in the evening. The biggest festival was Peru’s independence day, in which thousands of people flood the central market to see various types of fireworks and to listen to the marching band play their jaunty tunes. I was there with one of the archeologists, a pretty woman with long blonde hair, when suddenly the band struck up the Beer Barrel Polk. Being from Wisconsin, I immediately grabbed my friend’s hands and started dancing. My dancing style is most akin to a muppet on a pogo stick, and suddenly I noticed that the crowd had formed a circle around us and that hundreds or seemingly thousands of amused faces were all turned our way to see the tall bouncing doofus. Remember: I am quite tall, and could see over everyones’ heads! I could not see any part of the crowd looking away from us. It was excruciating for me, but the crowd would not let us stop dancing. It was perhaps the longest 3.5 minutes of my life.
The crowd wanted another dance, but we were fortunately ‘rescued’ by a guy running through the crowd while wearing a bamboo bull on his back. The bull had two large, lit rockets shooting flames and sparks out the back, and these turned out to be very effective at scattering the crowd.
That’s a great story! 🙂
Who can resist a polka?
It’s not very often that my delicate female nature is rattled. I’m not often compared to a soft spoken lady, because I’m usually the one being “one of the guys”. Dates were not something I did often, and I usually decided pretty quickly into the event that I’d much rather be doing a thousand other things.
This date was differnt. This particular person was fantatic, funny and cute, easy to talk to, all the normal swoony things. For once I remembered to order something not messy, not a burger or ribs to which to embarrass myself, and I was on a roll with conversations and jokes. I was doing just fine.
Until my stomach betrayed me. I’ll never forget it. It was like something out of a nightmare. Sitting side by side in a car, in the small lull between conversation, a very small “poot” sounded from under me.
Ice water trickled down my spine. Was that me? No. No…of course not!
“…did you just fart?” He asked, eyebrows raised.
I wanted to calm open the moving car door and leave. Just quietly climb out to my death. My cheeks were on fire, my eyes wide and horrified. “Uuuuh….”
Great response. I’m the best at being a sultry dame.
Luckily for me, the silence was shattered by his laughter. This knight swept to my rescue by telling me how amused he was by the horror on my face, which gave me permission to laugh. The night actually was a grand success after that, though I still get nauseated from recounting it.
That knight is married to me now. He swears it’s going to be the story we tell our kids.
I disagree
My big embarrassment occurred while I was a student teacher in 1979, but the seed of my self-destruction was planted in my college freshman biology course in academic year 1975-76.
I attended the University at Buffalo in the hope of earning a degree in pharmacy, but my career goal changed while taking general biology from Dr. Charles Smith. I was so inspired by my brilliant professor’s lectures (to a class of about 600 students) that I decided I would rather become a biology teacher than a pharmacist.
It didn’t seem possible to me at the time that I could ever be sufficiently scholarly or persistent to complete a doctoral program and qualify to teach biology at the university level. So I set my sights on getting a bachelor’s in biology and becoming a secondary school science teacher.
I made good academic progress and I qualified to receive a student teaching assignment. It turned out to be teaching seventh grade physical science and tenth grade biology at a school where science was a low priority for students: the Buffalo Academy for the Visual and Performing Arts.
Teaching physical science turned out to be rewarding since the curriculum called for students to work in small groups on tasks with various pieces of apparatus in order to learn physics concepts by discovery with the instructor as facilitator and guide. Students were very engaged and the reward system I created so that students would earn points for achieving each learning objective kept each group motivated.
In contrast, my biology teaching was a bust. The curriculum wasn’t set up for me to facilitate small group instructional activities so while teaching to the entire class I sometimes found myself at age 22 taking the role of sage on the stage.
I was no Dr. Smith, but I decided to include in my lesson plan on chromosomes my explanation of a tidbit of [debatable] wisdom I picked up from one of Dr. Smith’s lectures in which he discussed a point Ashley Montagu made in his book THE NATURAL SUPERIORITY OF WOMEN. I imagine that some of my students still remember how I embarrassed myself explaining the supposed significance of X and Y chromosomes:
“Here’s why women are superior to men. The sex chromosomes are X and Y. The Y chromosome is scrawny and has far fewer genes compared to the X. In all their cells, men have an X chromosome and a Y chromosome. But women have two big X chromosomes!”
I was trying to be an animated, expressive speaker for my performing arts students, but I didn’t realize that as I uttered that last sentence I was gesturing with both my hands out in front of my chest as if to signify large breasts. The students laughed out loud. The classroom teacher who supervised my student teaching laughed out loud. My face turned bright red.
I managed to survive the rest of my student teaching and graduate. But, at the time, there were few secondary school teaching jobs available, even in science, so I never became a secondary school teacher. I didn’t know what to do so I entered graduate school, but not in a biology program. To my surprise, I even wound up earning a doctorate and becoming a professor.
I occasionally embarrass myself while teaching undergraduate courses in public health, but never as much as when I was a student teacher.
Hi Jerry,
I constantly embarrass myself, so it was really hard to choose.
It was my 28th birthday, and also the day of my great grandmother’s funeral. I already had to go through the embarrassment of my mother forcing everyone in my family to sing happy birthday to me as we were all dressed in black. It was the weakest, saddest rendition of the birthday song I had ever heard—understandably. Prior to this, I had tried to avoid a family prayer circle (there are a couple of Methodist ministers in my family) by sneaking off to the bathroom for a few minutes—but they all waited for me to return! I knew it was my aunt’s doing—and I was forced to say “pass” in front of everyone when it was my turn to “pray” out loud. What a disappointment this must have been for them.
Ok, here is the embarrassing part:
At the funeral, my aunt—who apparently formerly had a beautiful voice, but that ship had since sailed, decided to sing at least four solos at the funeral—as well as a duet with another family member who actually does have a good voice. With each note, I felt the solemnity of the occasion diminish. I found myself holding in laughter—genuine laughter. I could not believe that anyone could focus on being sad because her voice was so awful. I held the laughter in though, and as I read through the program I could see that I made it through her last song. All that was left was The Lord’s Prayer. Phew.
Then she sang it.
She sang the Lord’s Prayer.
She sang the words “hallowed be thy…naaaaammmmme” like some sort of solemn dirge. I had no idea her range went from soprano to bass. She sounded like an old pipe organ where someone pressed all of the low keys at once. I couldn’t hold it in. It was an unexpected challenge to my resolve, and I laughed out loud—at my great grandmother’s funeral! A woman I loved and admired and sincerely miss to this day. Almost everyone heard it, and I was humiliated. I tried to play it off like I was crying—but I was shaking the entire pew, and I couldn’t stop. People were turning around, my aunt saw it from the font of the church (granted the church was small, but still). My aunt and I don’t really talk anymore—but that is OK, because I am no longer expected to “join hands in prayer” at family events. And luckily, people in my family live into their 100s, so, I haven’t had to attend another funeral since.
Good One – we’ve all skirted that fine line between laughter and tears.
+ 1
🙂
Not an entry, but this really happened to me…
I was diagonally crossing a large exhibit hall at the Tate Museum in London. There was seemingly a ‘step’ under my foot which I sprightly took in stride. Halfway across, I noticed everyone staring at me in shock, disbelief, and disgust. I looked down and realised I was striding across some kind of low-lying, hard, smooth, modern sculpture.
The only way I could not die from embarrassment was to pretend that my carelessness was a protest against modern art (which in general I don’t like much). So I lifted up my head proudly, walked slowly and deliberately, and set my jaw in detaste until I was off the exhibit and out of that museum. I never returned. 🙂
(I did notice that while I was doing my ‘protest’ one guy’s look of revulsion turned to one of admiration. He probably disliked much of modern art also.)
“…set my jaw in detaste…”
should be distaste of course. 🙂
As readers of WEIT are no doubt aware, much of what we suppose to perceive about the world is actually a simplified model invented entirely within our brains. This is a wondrous adaptation, one which allows us to navigate a world full of incomplete information, while simultaneously ignoring swaths of mundane and mostly irrelevant details. But because we do all this automatically, without recourse to conscious thought, we are also prone to any manner of illusions and reactions that are all but immune to intentional override.
Consider the everyday task of locomotion. There are many ways to do it, and whichever we choose, there is a sometimes steep learning curve, but eventually it becomes so ingrained that we never think about it again. Once learned, we can steer a bicycle without even touching the handlebars, glide backwards on skates in graceful loops, or pause in mid-step to synchronize with an escalator. Yet sometimes, circumstances intervene that demand immediate attention: the chain jumps its sprocket, we run over a pebble, or the escalator is out of service.
It was this last situation that I encountered one day at a shopping mall, and suddenly I found myself giving conscious thought to alternate ways of ascending escalators. It’s hardly a complicated problem, but whereas the majority of an escalator just consists of normal stair steps, the bottom forms an oddly uneven slope; it resembles more a curved ramp than stairs, but with cusps that will grab the toe of the inattentive. With this observation lodged firmly at the forefront of my conscious thoughts, I strode confidently onto the escalator—
—and promptly toppled over, turning my ankle and scraping my knee and shins on the toothy edges of the next few steps. Because for some mysterious reason, the escalator had failed to rise up and meet my foot in the standard trajectory that my subconscious had precomputed for me. Although I did my best to adopt a cat-like nonchalance as I hobbled up the steps, not even cats are able to fully salvage their dignity after momentarily forgetting how to walk. Fortunately, nobody on the next floor up could have known the reason I was limping that day.
Not only funny, but neurologically intriguing as well!
I was teaching evolution with my grade 10 students. I asked a student how old the earth was before realizing I was asking someone of whom I knew his parents were Christians. There was no way I could turn this around and his answer was 6 000 year old. I tried not to laugh, managed to keep a straight face and found a way out of it without making a big fuss of his answer. A week later we had the parents conference where I had a meeting with the student’s dad who happens to be a scientist. Towards the end of our meeting he told me that he was actually considering taking his three children out of school since my lesson on evolution. I looked at his wife and once again I managed to play it down. Before shaking his hand he offered me to come to my classroom to teach his intelligent design point of view to my students which I refused.
While showing them out he said with a spark in his eyes that he wished that I could see the world as he sees it now, and that his revelation that he ought to convert to Christianity had come to him went he had gone to church.
I simply replied that when I went to church I had the same revelation as him and that’s when I became an atheist instead!
Ugh a scientist who believes the earth is 6000 years old! I don’t know how you were able I stand that entire interaction
Thanks, everyone, for your stories. There are some doozies here. Sadly, with comments now approaching 400, and the time being up, I declare the contest CLOSED.
A winner will be named by Friday.
–Management
I started to write my story, went back to work & forgot! Never mind…