Not too long ago, the Pioneer Woman had a contest on her blog. As you may, or may not, know, Ree's contests usually require some sort of cleverness in the form of naming a photo or whatnot. Exposing my lack of cleverness to the world is not on my to-do list so I've only entered one of her contests and that was only because a title struck me instantly and it made me giggle even though it had no chance of winning. This, by the way, was breaking one of my basic life rules of never entering contests that I don't think I can win... not that I'm competitive or anything... cause I'm really not. At all. Really.
Anyway, all you had to do to enter this particular contest was to leave a comment sharing an embarrassing moment and the winner would be selected by a random generator. Geesh... what could possibly be easier than that? I mean, I embarass myself pretty much on a daily basis (assuming I leave the house, although sometimes that's not even necessary). The things I've said, the things I've done, the times I've fallen... goodness, I could right a book! A great book. If... If... I could remember a single one of them. I sat there after quickly leaping to her comments section and couldn't think of a single embarassing moment. Still can't. For somebody who could probably have chosen embarassing herself for a profession, what was the deal? What level of professionalism have I reached that I am able to supress painful memories to such depths?
Well, a few days later I had an epiphany. I'm well aware of my fine tuned skills in the art of denial, but I recognized the real life skill that saves me from just giving up and living with my head in the sand while recently watching What About Bob?... again. Now I realize that some of you find Bob terribly annoying... but it has got to be one of my absolute favorite movies. If you haven't seen it (then you should), Bob is an obsessively phobic and neurotic basket case who insists on intruding on his therapist's vacation. (Yes, Julie, he is way, way out of line. I understand. But it's still funny... just try not cringing.)
Bob is terrified of everything from germs to elevators to dying from any number of terminal illnesses. But Bob comforts himself by pretending to have things he doesn't have (like Turettes) because he reasons that if he can pretend to have it, then he doesn't really have it so it's one less thing he needs to worry about. So as I'm watching this, void of the memory of any embarassing moments, I realized that I do the same thing. Only my method involves immediately sharing my agonizingly embarassing moments with at least one other person... because, obviously, if I can talk about it, it must not have been that embarassing. Right? Of course. Like magic, the embarassing moment is properly filed in my (maybe less than perfectly stable) mind. Yes, they do surface every once in a while... usually in the middle of the night so they can keep me awake for a few hours of distress... but eventually I'm able to shove them back into that dark corner of my mind where they can rest peacefully. I know what you're thinking, but hey, don't knock it until you try it. That's what I say.
In other news, a special little box arrived at my house today. Actually 2 boxes... but it's the little one that is going to solve world peace and global warming! Okay, I may be exagerating a bit... but it is going to repair my laptop. Hopefully. And my life will begin to return to normal. No more climbing stairs to download photos... or to get the camera I left there. No more sssllloooooowww, frozen screens. Yay! The larger box is an empty box that I insisted upon for shipping my laptop to them in case their hard drive doesn't work. The tech wanted me to play computer games with him but I insisted that my husband had done all of the diagnostic stuff, read him the list of error codes and informed him that, "No, I can not sit down with the computer right now. Sorry. My husband says I need a box."
If all goes well with the laptop when DH gets home, I should have a much more colorful post tomorrow... because yes, I do still knit. Oh, and fyi, we are now on round 2 of the flu and I am accepting pity.
Oh! I just had an idea. In order to trigger my malfunctioning memory, how about if you leave a comment sharing one of your most embarassing moments here. I'll even offer up some lovely sock yarn as a prize. I'll make it a random drawing because I wouldn't want to have to choose. So don't be shy... think of it as therapy!
19 comments:
Oh to only pick one! I have them regularly so this shouldn't be hard. One that stands out in my mind is from a few years ago. Rachel and I were making cookies...chocolate ones and we liked a bit of the batter. I had to run to the store for something. I was smiling at everyone and they were smiling at me. I wondered what was up,when I looked at the checker she looked down.Weird. I got home and I had chocolate on my chin. I laughted till I cried.
Okay I need spell check. we not only liked the batter we licked it as well. Does this count as entry #2?
How 'bout that time I sent that scathing email to the executive board(of which I was member) including a rant on someone's perfume overdose only to find that I had sent it to every potential member of the non-profit organization we were trying to get off the ground?
Baby steps-baby steps- also one of my all-time faves though with a husband named Bob I've had to curtail my enthusiasm.
OK, here goes. There are three men in our small town that all share the same name, on of which is my husband. I got a call from BH #2's wife one day. She'd gotten the birthday check sent by my grandma to my husband, BH #1. So I stopped over and got the check. I then commented that it's confusing having three BH's in the same town. I also added that one of them was in jail all the time. She knew that. It was her husband!!! She also knew lots of my relatives because she attended the same church. I crawled out of there!!!
Oh, and one of my hubby's favorite movies is What About Bob. He could play any Bill Murray part. Caddyshack, Groundhog Day.....
Oh what a coincidence. Consider my post from today my entry in this one. I'd rather not go into it again.
I don't think I've seen that movie, other than bits and pieces. Now I'll have to rent it this weekend.
I usually shut out the memories of my embarrassing moments, but there's one scene that I seem to repeat on a regular basis (in slightly different situations each time, obviously, but still...): I reply to people as if they're talking to me when really they are trying to hold a conversation on their cell phone.
I struggle with the modern world.
I hope you're over the flu really soon. I'm fighting a nasty cold right now, and that's no fun, but I know the flu is worse.
Um mm. I can't remember my embarrassing moments. I agree with you: the point is to forget them. The memory only creeps up at me when I am smiling and confident and then, SMACK, I remember. Right now, I can't even remember what I wrote on Ree's comments section. Duh.
Oh, and Bob. You can keep him. I am too neurotic to handle him.
There are so many embarrissing moments that I tend to not be able to remember one when asked to recount one. But they are all there!!
That movie is the best! Its one that I just can't not watch!!
Can't wait to see some pictures!
I am delurking to add my embarrassing moment. I was in junior high and was out bowling with a youth group. Apparently, I picked a bowling ball with finger slots that were abnormally small. I did not figure that out until I went to bowl the first frame and my figures were stuck causing me to follow the ball's path to the floor. I ended up sprawled out down the bowling lane. I definitely wanted a hole to open up and swallow me.
By the way, I really enjoy your blog. I am sending get-well vibes your way!
An embarrassing story? Oh no!
Ok, one day back in High School, I was hanging out with my friends at lunch and this guy that I really liked was there, too. And we where all hanging around and having fun, and my friend walked up and whispered in my ear that my zipper on my pants was down. I was so embarrassed, I ran into the bathroom.
Not a very good story, but I usually don't get embarrassed by much...
good lord, same problem! i was all excited, i couldn't wait to hit post comment... now my mind's blank.
ok... i think i got one.
i had just started a new job as the receptionist at a real estate office, and my desk was on the other side of the office from C, one of the agents. C's pretty darn hard of hearing, but we've got a system of waves and gestures to get his attention so i can tell him when he's got a cal, but a lot of our communication involves yelling. no one cares, they're used to it. hah.
so C tells me one day he's expecting a call from two brokers and doesn't want to talk to either of them so i should take messages.
i... yell. across the office. in my first week at my new job. "don't worry, i'll blow them for 'ya."
... it's been almost two months and i can feel my ears getting hot all over again just typing this up, heh.
I have stair issues and have wiped out down quite a few of them.
My favorite was when I was taking an art history class in Paris and was in the Louvre, running late to catch my class and so running on their marble floors around a corner where there were marble stairs and I lost my balance and pulled my classmate down with me into a huge group of Japanese tourists in the midst of a tour. It was like downhill bowling for Japanese tourists. Of course, being 20 and in a hurry, I picked myself up, apologized profusely and ran the heck out of there. I'll never forget I had on blue leather soled loafers, no wonder.
(This was way in the back and there were never people there. We were trying to take a shortcut- yea I spent a lot of time in there that summer, had a backdoor pass))
And yeah, I am so spastic so often it's hard to pick just one. Grace does not describe me.
Mine is here:
http://5elementknitr.blogspot.com/2008/01/e-is-for-embarrassing.html
Hey, addictedtoknitting - better chocolate on your chin then just batter, because that would've just looked rude!
Yea. I'm a child.
I locked each of my three children (in their own separate incidences ov course) in the car, with the keys when they were wee babies in car seats. They have to bring the BIG firetruck for that when you call 911 you know. My son in front of a friends. D#1 in front of Wendy's, and D#2 in the Vons parking lot.
Oy, I'm obviously a slow learner!
Hubby and I were newly weds. While getting ready for church one morning, I tucked my underwear into his back pants pocket to tease him. We laughed and finished getting ready.
During the final hymn of the service, when everyone stands, I glanced over and happened to see a familiar pair of pink, floral underwear hanging out of my husband's back pocket. We had forgotten! And we were sitting in the front!
I could have died, died, died. I grabbed them and stuffed them deep into my pocket. We left quickly that day.
I'm with addictedtoknitting - only to pick one?
Well, it involves me, so here goes - I was about 5 or 6 years old and had just gotten out of the bath and had my pink bathrobe on and nothing else. My grandfather just arrived to the house and I ran out and said "Look, all clean, TADAAA!!!!" and then proceeded to open the bathrobe. Well, all inocent I was, my poor grandfather turned all shades of red with laughter. Fast forward 35 years later to my 40th birthday. My brother sends me a gift as he couldn't be at the party and it was a pink bathrobe - embarassment all over again :-)
Lucky I just had an embarrassing moment, at our Valentine's dinner at church, it was a night in Italy, I sang in my opera mans voice the song from HeeHaw,"Where oh where are you tonight, why did leave me here all alone? I searched the world over and thought I found true love, but you met another and PFFFFT you were gone." I got booed too. *sigh*
I have several but I will share JUST 2! One is going waaaay back to highschool. My husband, who was my boyfriend then, was quite the football jock and so he hung out with all the other jocks at the entrance foyer to the school in the morning. I remember one morning getting off the bus and walking into school. There they all were, and he looks up and sees me....then, very loudly he says "Look!! Cyclops!!" and points at ME because I had a huge pimple right in the middle of my forehead. (Imagine we got married!). I was horrified and wanted to die of embarassment...now I would just kill him for that.
Another was the time I was a checker at a grocery store. I had gone to the bathroom on my break and somehow managed to tuck the hem of my skirt into the top band of my nylons while tucking in my shirt....no clue how. Anyway, I walked all the way through the store back up to the front end, got back in my checkstand and was checking away for at least an hour. Now this checkstand had my rear end facing the door with people coming in and out...for an hour! Finally some kind man came up to me and said shyly "Um, we can see your backside" and I was twising and turning trying to figure out what he meant. Finally he pulled my skirt and I felt it come free....oh, the wish to faint/cry/die was intense!!
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