The Good Girls have laid down the law for my guest shot here:
No politics.
No religion.
No drinking the good tequila
No talk of hot monkey love
Which leaves me bereft of my usual blog topics. So I’m forced to write about embarrassing moments. My own, of course, but I hope you’ll join me in this cathartic exercise.
Embarrassing moment #1. When I was in college I was pretty wild and hairy. One day I was standing next to a woman holding a toddler and she was giving me the fish eye like I might snatch her baby out of her grasp at any moment and run off to my Satanic-worshipping cult. I saw that her child wore little boots and, wanting to be friendly I said, “Cute shoes.”
She glared and said, “They’re corrective shoes.”
Embarrassing moment #2. I was on leave and visiting my girlfriend. It was the weekend so we parked out in the woods on a logging trail and proceeded to do that thing you do when you do that thing, you know, without any pants. We soon learned that loggers work on Saturday. Six trucks, horns honking and jammed with hooting lumberjacks passed by as we struggled into our clothes. To this day the Pennsylvania logging industry celebrates that Saturday as the Pink Skin Matinee.
Embarrassing moment #3: My wife and I worked in summer theater. One of the plays we did was Talley’s Folly, a two-person comedy about courtship and socialism. One night everything went wrong. Props didn’t work, lines were dropped, I broke my glasses, and when the show was over the director came backstage to tell me that my fly had been open for the entire evening.
Please, tell us about a humiliating moment in your life. I could use the company.
##
David Terrenoire is a the author of the novel, Beneath A Panamanian Moon, and the blog A Dark Planet.
-
So my husband and I had a co-worker named Jeff. After we changed jobs we drifted apart a little, but were still close enough that we were invited to his wedding and baby shower in quick succession.
One of Jeff’s elderly parents had died not long after the wedding and I couldn’t remember if it was his mother or father. I was trying to pick up a hint when Jeff said “It’s too bad mom couldn’t be here with us today.” Yes! Mom died. I say something consoling and Jeff informs me that it was his father who died and his mother was called away to do something else and couldn’t attend the shower.
I just can’t catch a break sometimes.
by Liz
on July 5th, 2007 at 5:30 am
-
David, welcome! You know we love to have you here! But who said anything about no hot monkey love???
I have so many embarrassing moments…am going to have to give this some serious thought before entering one in the public record…
xo
-
Tasha, he *assumes* we don’t want hot mokey love here. But au contraire!
#2 got a little close, but we would have liked more description.
Embarrassing, huh?
That might be an email I mistakingly sent to a magazine editor a few years ago. She’d rejected a short. I sent an email to my best friend (I thought) that simply said “what do these people want?” Except I sent it to the editor instead. Total OUCH moment. She was very cool about it though. Very cool.
I guess another was more recent. While boogie boarding in the Atlantic. Basically lost my bikini top when I was standing up from the last wave. Fortunately I caught it before anyone noticed. Except maybe the fish.
by Laura
on July 5th, 2007 at 8:42 am
-
Well, David, after that soul barring I do believe you’re entitled to hit the wet bar and treat yourself to the good tequila.
And before I confide my embarrassing moments, you’d better pour me a shot as well.
-
Here’s a lime and some salt…..
-
Let’s see there are so many…
One that springs to mind right away was a military dinner thing I went to with my husband. We were at a new base–only there for a few months for his training class. I’m yakking away about the base and all sorts of stuff: what I like, what I don’t like, the housing, etc. About halfway through dinner, after a certain comment from the wife, it dawns on me that this is the wing commander and his wife. Spent the rest of the evening trying to convey my discovery nonverbally to hubby and remember what I said earlier.
by Sara
on July 5th, 2007 at 10:09 am
-
As one who lived that life at one point, Sara…OUCH!
by Laura
on July 5th, 2007 at 10:14 am
-
HA! Well, here’s a harmless moment of –er — professional awkwardness.
Some of you might know I’m in this Celtic music band with my sisters. One year we were helping out with our local community theater–singing carols between scenes in a version of Scrooge.
It’s local theater so needless to say the production values were not great–we wore these goofy capes over our “gowns”–and there were lots and lots of children in the cast.
Anyway, one night we start out through the curtains singing “Hark the Herald” or something–I’m out through the curtains first–and suddenly I’m all by myself in the middle of the stage, the other voices have died away…I turn around and there’s this wild comotion behind the curtains–like a cartoon fight is in progress. You could practically see the stars and dust and fists. My lonely little voice falls silent.
The audience starts to titter. The curtains fly up, and first one and then the other of my sisters stagger out onto the stage clutching their capes.
(Apparently just as they were starting through the curtains a couple of those cute little supporting cast tykes had grabbed their cloaks and tried to stop them going on stage.)
By now the audience is rolling–I mean, literally almost falling out of their chairs. I can’t imagine what our faces must of looked like–and so of course then we start laughing. We try to get control, and start to sing, but the audience just can’t hold it together. I say, “It’s okay, I don’t think anyone noticed–” and the laughter starts all over again.
Needless to say the stage manager, etc. was not amused.
-
So many to choose from……….
Okay, I used to be a professor. I had a student who was a professional wrestler. (I swear I’m not making this up!) The guy towered over me by about 2 ft. and dressed, um, remarkably, including eyeliner. But he was the smartest student in the class & quite an interesting person; I often chatted with him before class about books, movies, etc. I assumed he appreciated having a prof. who could see he had a brain under the fishnet armstockings.
And then, after the finals were in, he called me in my office & it turned out he had a major crush on me but knew I was married. I was just mortified! How could I be so clueless?! And I was so shocked I actually laughed at the poor guy becouse it was just so improbable. D’OH!!!!!!
by Cynthia
on July 5th, 2007 at 10:37 am
-
Now, you see, I *do* assume you want hot monkey love here. But then that’s just the kind of guy I am.
Embarrassing… embarrassing. Nope. I’ve blocked it all out. Denial ain’t just a river in Egypt, ya know.
Loading ...