Embarrassing Moments

We’ve all had a few – from minor slips of the tongue to major red-faced debacles, everyone has had an embarrassing moments. And while you may want to hide your face and cry while it’s happening, the one redeeming quality of an embarrassing moment is the re-telling. In that moment, telling your story, you are the star of the show, bonding with your fellow humans around an emotion we can all understand.

I have two short moments I’d like to share, both equally embarrassing to me at the time, though now they seem rather foolish. I do like to tell these stories, though, and they make for great ice breakers. Try it sometime!

The Famous “You Too!” Slip Up

I think everyone has done this at one point or another, right? (Say yes, for the sake of my pride). You’re chatting away with someone and as you depart, they call out something, be it “Have a nice day!” or “Drive carefully!” Usually, a cheerful “You too!” is appropriate. How sweet of us! We reciprocate your good will! Right back atcha!

In high school, my senior year, we took the yearbook photos close to the beginning of the year. The school used a local studio, and while I didn’t know the photographer personally, it’s a small town, and chances are I will (or have) see him again. The session went well – my pictures weren’t horrible, I didn’t have anything stuck in my teeth and my hair sort of cooperated. As I left, a jaunty bounce to my step, bidding goodbye and thank you to the photographer, he called out behind me, “Have a great senior year!”

You can see where this is going, can’t you? Anyone can. It’s so clear from a mile away.

I turned and without thinking, said, “You too!” It wouldn’t have been a big deal if I had just walked away as if nothing had happened, but I realized my mistake. I tried to correct it. “I mean, you too, have a great senior year! Except you aren’t a senior, you know, but it’s MY senior year, and I hope you have a good year too! Right. Have a good year! Ok. Bye! Thank you!”

Face Red? Check. Tears pricking at my eyes? Check. Burned my face into his memory indelibly as the crazy senior girl? Check.

It doesn’t seem like a big deal now, but I wanted to die! Now, I still regularly call out “You too!” inappropriately, but I’ve learned my lesson. I just walk away and hope they didn’t notice.

You Make a Better Window Than  a Door

I think  I was about 12 years old when my mother took my brother, my sister and I into a Finagle a Bagel near our house. We had already ordered and eaten our bagels, and I was anxious to get to our next destination (no idea where we were going, but I was certainly in a rush). I walked out ahead of our little group and headed for the door. I could see our car through the floor-to-ceiling glass windows that lined the front of the building, and headed straight for it.

Unfortunately, I mistook the glass window for the glass door right next to it, and walked directly into the window. Hard. So hard that I was knocked backwards about two feet on my ass, skidding to a stop at my family’s feet, my forehead aching. I could feel the goose-egg forming already. The worst, though – worse than my brother and sister laughing hysterically, or my mother stifling her giggles and attempting to look concerned, were the looks on the faces of all the customers. It was a busy weekend morning, and the place was packed. No one laughed at me outright, but I saw more than a few smiles. I managed to get to my feet, exclaiming about how the door looks exactly like the window because they’re all CLEAR! What gives?! and ran out of there as quickly – and carefully – as I could.

To this day those commercials for Windex, where the birds fly into the window because they can’t see it? Those make me squirm just a little bit.

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Your turn! Tell us about your embarrassing moment so that we can bond with you. And don’t forget to visit everyone else! Nothing soothes your pride like hearing about the time that someone laid the worst silent-but-deadly they’ve ever experienced during their drivers test, or that time you answered the door wearing poop.