Your most embarrassing moment

[jpcher]

I don't know why this memory popped into my head. This happened more than 30 years ago and I still think that this was the time that I was over-the-top embarrassed and had now clue as to how to handle the situation.

I was 20 years old, engaged to be married. My fiance rented a townhouse (I had a key) and I was still living with my parents.

One night, about a month before our wedding, I thought to make him a surprise special dinner. I called him and told him that I would be there when he got home from work, but I didn't mention the dinner or the surprise.

I went to his townhouse with all the groceries, prepared the meal, put everything on "warm" then dressed into a (surprise!) skimpy outfit (not a negligee, but close enough ) I sat down on the couch, watching TV, waiting for him to come home from work.

There was a knock on the door.

I froze. There was no way I was going to answer the door with what I was wearing and the bedroom, where the rest of my clothes were, was upstairs. The stairs were right in front of the door. The door had windows.

I stayed put and thought "Please go away, please go away, please go away!"

The knocking came again and again. Many minutes later I cringed when I heard a key in the door and fiance's voice "She's not answering? She said that she would be here."

I ran to the powder room and hid. I was mortified.

Fiance was calling my name and I heard them go into the kitchen. That's when I made a mad dash to the stairs.

When I came down, fully dressed, Fiance said "What? You couldn't answer the door?" He seemed a bit angry, which embarrassed me even more. Friend said "I was knocking for 10 minutes!"

After turning more than 20 shades of red, stammering for a reason why I didn't answer the door, I quietly said that there was dinner in the oven, gave Fiance a peck on the cheek and left.



I honestly think that was the most embarrassing time of my life.



What about you? Please share your stories!

[EmmaJ.]

I have a thousand embarrassing moments  but will share the most recent. I was in the hospital visiting a friend, and afterwards thought I better stop by the restroom before the long drive home.

This hospital has only family style restrooms for visitors. I found one right in front of the elevators and popped in to do my business.  This one was a small room with only one toilet and sink. I dropped my jeans and sat down.

Just then the door was FLUNG open and a young teenaged boy literally leaps into the room.  I'd forgotten to lock the door. We both stared at each other, frozen in horror.  I stammered "it's occupied" and he finally spun around and zoomed out of there.

Now it occurs to me that the door is still unlocked and I can't reach the doorknob from where i'm sitting. And since this restroom is in a high-traffic area in front of the elevators, I was terrified it was going to happen again (it didn't).

[SiotehCat]

I don't have embarrassing moments.

I have had so many (think dozens and dozens) moments that would make normal people die of embarrassment. I stopped feeling embarrassment a long time ago. Just for my own sanity.

I walk into poles and glass doors/walls. I tripped on my own pants and fell down the stairs in the middle of a busy bookstore. I fell down the stairs outside a busy restaurant AS I was thinking "please dont fall down these stairs"!

DS and I were in a travel center once because we each needed to use the restroom. He went into the boys restroom while I used my phone. I finished up and then followed him. I stood in the busy mens restroom with every man looking at me and I completely forgot what I was doing. DS yelled at me to get out.


OP, what happened with your fiance? Did you ever explain what happened?

[mmswm]

My most embarrassing moment was while teaching.  That term I was teaching a business calculus class that met at night.  Most of the students were older than traditional aged students.

This particular night we were learning how to take derivatives using the multiplication rule.  The lesson was going well, then I showed them an example that combined the multiplication rule and the chain rule (which we had learned in a previous lesson).  Now, it's not important for the telling of this story that the reader has any clue what those two rule actually are.  What's needed is the knowledge that a problem of this time winds up being more tedious than difficult.  As I was going through the many steps involved, I could hear all the whining and sighing from the class.  I finally looked at them and said, "You know, just because it's long, doesn't meant it's hard."

Then the snickers started.  At first it was just a couple of students.  Then other students figured out the double entendre.  It took several minutes to recover the class.  Oh, well.  At least it wasn't as bad as what one of my biology professors said.

[bonyk]

At high school orientation, I tripped and landed face down in front of the entire freshman class.  4 years later, our class president used it as an example in a speech about overcoming challenges at senior night. . 

[EllenS]

Just after college, I was visiting a large theme park with a friend, and we were being hosted by a friend of hers, who was an employee and gave us special access, tours, discounts, etc.  He and I had been flirting for several days of our visit.  Nice guy. (NG)

Toward the end of our visit, I stopped by the restroom and was surprised to discover that I needed to spend a quarter in one of the machines for emergency supplies (IYKWIM).  Unfortunately, the more "secure" option was sold out, and the more bulky option was the only thing available.  Even more unfortunately, I had not planned for this eventuality when dressing that morning, and my foundation garments were on the flimsy side.

Shortly thereafter, we were all browsing in the gift shop.  NG walks around the corner aisle to speak to me, and I turn to smile at him...when my Emergency Supply falls right out the leg of my shorts onto the floor.

NG was a perfect gentleman - he kept right on walking.  But we couldn't look each other in the eye the rest of the trip.

[soupmom]

Not long after DH & I married, I started working as a reporter.  One day my editor assigned me to cover an important school board meeting that evening.

My husband got home from work earlier than usual.  After an early dinner, we started feeling romantic and took advantage of the extra time to spend quality time together.  I dozed off then suddenly awoke, realizing I was going to be late to the meeting if I didn't get myself together quickly and head out.  So I did, getting there with just a few moments to spare.

At which point, a (nice!) middle-aged woman pulled me aside and quietly said, "Honey, your pants are on inside out."

I don't think my face has ever turned so red.  The incident taught me to leave myself enough time to check myself before I head out the door.

[oceanus]

I've had a lot, but here's one I remember:

At a banquet I was assigned to sit on the podium (to be introduced, thanked, say a few words, etc.) with about 6-8 others.  Before taking our seats we got food from the buffet.  I had on heels, and I’d had a drink earlier.  As I approached the podium, I tripped, fell flat on my chest,  and the tray and food flew everywhere.  Ugh.  Several people helped, but it really bothered me the rest of the night.

[CakeBeret]

I am clumsy to the core and, like Sio, have stopped feeling embarrassed at my clumsiness out of self-preservation. I have the ability to trip over absolutely nothing, fall going up the stairs, get thrown off balance for no reason, and accidentally drop things.

I have social anxiety, so situations that would, to a normal person, barely register, feel more like 'strong embarrassment' to me, but again, I've come to live with that.

I think I have posted my most embarrassing story on here before, but it bears repeating.

I had just been given a former coworker's work cell phone, that very day. This was back in the "dumb phone" days and it was a basic flip phone. I had checked the ringtone and put the phone on silent, and left it inside my purse.

So it was late evening, and we were seated in the quiet church with our pastor for pre-marriage counseling. It is a very conservative church and a very conservative minister, and the place is very very quiet.

Suddenly, from the depths of my bag, there comes a loud blast of "Hey! You're a crazy b**** but you f*** so good..."

Mortified, I fished out the phone to discover that an alarm had been set, with that song as the alarm tone. Hands down, I have never felt more humiliated.

[Reader]

I stopped once for gas after work, so I was still in business casual with heels.  After placing the pump into my tank and starting to refuel I decided the best option for me at the time was to step over the hose to put my card back in my purse (which was in the car still).  Suffice to say I didn't clear the gas hose.  My right heel caught the hose and I did a full side plant.  I think I turned six shades of read and really wished the ground would swallow me up, since I was not the only at the station at the time.

[Frostblooded]

<Background.> I was eighteen, on my Senior Trip to Disney. We headed to Blizzard Beach.</Background.>

So, EVERYONE was in line to get on the biggest slide there. I remember something said about it being the tallest on the east coast, but perhaps not. Either way, everyone who went on the class trip was there.

I had/have never considered myself beautiful or feminine. I watched all the pretty girls in the tiniest bikinis ever go down that slide just fine. Then there was me, in my frumpy t-shirt and shorts because of my self-esteem issues.

I went down that slide and my shirt just, by whatever fate of the universe, decided to fly above my head and expose me to the poor people on-looking. Fortunately there weren't any kids at the bottom. Unfortunately, it was my fellow classmen.

      

See, I was the first girl to play on the football team at that high school. Some of my fellow teammates patted me on the back after, and we had this kind of relationship where we could say anything on our minds. They tried to console me, saying: "Well, at least the girl with the biggest bazongas had it happen to her. A plus for the whooooole class!"

Yeah, at the time I was mortified. In retrospect, now it's really hilarious and that response from a young virile fellow makes me laugh.

[BeagleMommy]

While DH and I were dating I was visiting him at his parents' house.  His father suggested we go for a swim in the nearby river.  Well, it was "that time of the month" for me so I was not going swimming.  I declined by saying "Oh, not today" and FIL kept asking for a reason.

By this time I'm turning about 8 shades of red.  DH tries whispering "Dad, it's a female thing".  Did that help?  Nope.  FIL just kept insisting that I shouldn't worry about "hair getting wet and make up disappearing".

Finally, MIL shouts from another room "For the love of Deity, FIL, she has her period!".  I wanted to run out of the room.  Fortunately, DH took my by the hand and said "I think we need to go for a walk" and out we went.

[Virg]

Yeah.  I posted this in another thread, so I'll just link it here.  It may or may not be the most embarrassing thing I've experienced but it sure ranks up there.

http://www.etiquettehell.com/smf/index.php?topic=29350.msg666155#msg666155

Virg

[SDG31000]

When DS1 was a few weeks old we had some visitors and decided to go bowling.  At this point I was still trying to breastfeed DS1, but it wasn't going well and I needed somewhere private to do it.  The only place available was in the disabled toilet at the over end of the alley to where our lane was. 
I fed DS1 and walked the length of the bowling alley with lots of people smiling and looking and I just thought that they were looking at very adorable DS1.  I did until I got back to our lane and DH rushed over to cover me with a baby blanket.  I peeked under it and found that that people weren't smiling at DS1, but rather were reacting to me flashing my very flattering nursing bra to everyone as I hadn't done up my shirt after feeding DS1    At least I had an amazing cleavage at the time 

[TylerBelle]

Quite some time ago, I was out with a couple of friends and the boyfriend of one of the friends. We stopped by a restaurant for beverages before going home, though I didn't have any money left with me.  The friend with the boyfriend ("Nell") announced to us that we could get a soda or something if we wanted that her boyfriend would get it for us. He'd done so in the past, but I didn't want it to become a habit for I didn't really like someone else spending money on me. Especially one who wasn't doing the offering in the first place. So I made my first mistake, I kinda hemmed-and-hawwed, on whether to get a soda or not, while Nell urged me to go ahead and get something. Her boyfriend seemed to make the decision for me and said, "Go ahead and bring it," to the waitress, while he'd ordered coffee for himself and the others got beverages, too.

Our waitress brought our drinks, placing the soda down in front of me. I'd taken a couple of sips when Nell laughed and loudly announced, "Look at you drinking his coke! That's his coke!" (Meaning her boyfriend's) I think I muttered an apology while I slid the glass over to the guy, who took it without a word. I was glad that I wasn't alone in not quite getting the meaning of Nell's boyfriend's words for the waitress apparently thought the same, though she was an innocent bystander in the mix-up. I blamed no one but myself, I should have just asked for water.

I stopped once for gas after work, so I was still in business casual with heels.  After placing the pump into my tank and starting to refuel I decided the best option for me at the time was to step over the hose to put my card back in my purse (which was in the car still).  Suffice to say I didn't clear the gas hose.  My right heel caught the hose and I did a full side plant.  I think I turned six shades of read and really wished the ground would swallow me up, since I was not the only at the station at the time.

Oh bless your heart, I've done similar. Running up on to a curb at shopping center for the mailbox there, the front of my sandals' bottom didn't quite clear the curb and down I went. There's a feeling like everyone in a five mile radius saw or at least somehow knows what you did.