I was 8. Maybe. I can’t quite recall what age exactly, but the only thing that matters is that I was young.
I was up at my summer home, a nice house on a country club up in the mountains of Pennsylvania. It’s a beautiful place, with creeks running over rocks and glorious hillsides and trees.
Oh, the trees.
Being quite an adventurous young one, I made tree climbing one of my favorite hobbies while at the summer home. I had climbed many, all over the club, but there was one that was ideal.
It was about fifty yards behind my house, with a thick trunk and branches that would support my (admittedly small) weight. My dad had even nailed some wooden planks on the central branch, to act as a ladder to a tree-house that we never quite got around to building. I’m still not sure what kind of a tree it is, and doubt that I’d be able to climb it now that I am older and heavier than I was. But during my childhood, it was a place to go to climb and read and be alone and such.
Then, one day, the tree betrayed me.
I was walking around with my younger cousin, and we were talking about God knows what. Most likely the newest G.I. Joe toy, or some such thing. In our youthful innocence, we decided to go climbing, so naturally we walked out to my tree.
We started climbing and, seeking to show off, I walked my way out onto one of the branches that stuck out from the tree. About half-way out, it got narrow enough so that even I would break it if I continued, so I stood on it for a few minutes, overlooking my domain. Then, I turned to crawl back to the main part of the tree.
That’s when it started.
I guess it had rained the night before, because the branch was pretty darn slippery. I noticed this fact on the way out, but paid no attention to it cause hey, I was young and stupid. But on the way back down, I couldn’t help but notice it, since it caused my hands to slip and my body to fall, so that I was stratling the branch.
Pain.
I tried to grab onto the branch to keep myself from falling, but before I knew it I was tipping sideways, and on my way to the ground, ten or so feet below.
Fear.
I did not, however, fall off the branch. No, God would have been too kind to just let me escape with a broken neck. An offshooting twig from the branch caught the belt-loop of my shorts, so that I was dangling upside down from the branch.
Panic.
I tried to pull myself up onto the branch, but in doing so, shifted my weight and caused whatever was keeping my shorts on to let go. Once again, I thought I would fall to my death, and once again, the tree wouldn’t let me go. My shorts didn’t come all the way off; they caught on my shoes so that I hung, unpside down from the tree, displaying my Rocky and Bullwinkle boxers to the world.
Humiliation.
From my position, I could see my father running towards the tree to get me down. Halfway there he stopped, looked, and began laughing hysterically.
Thanks, Dad.
And thus ends the harrowing tail of the tree that fought back. It’s still there, behind my summer home, and I even went back to climb it a few times before I got too big for it to support me. Nevertheless, every time we go by it, my father will remind me of the time that I was dangling upside-down from the branch, and compliment me on my choice of boxer shorts that day.
Where do you live that the trees have tails, Three Mile Island?
That is quite amusing.
Oh, I see now, Pennsylvania. That explains it all.
Oh, poop. Well, that’s what I get for trying to sound all spooky-like. 
I grew up out in the sticks. We had a farm and animals and we hunted and fished for some of our food. Anyway, I got my first rifle - a .22 - when I was like 8 or 9 years old. It was a Christmas present.
So, the day after Christmas, I went out with my little rifle - the mighty hunter - all bundled up wearing my scarf and earmuffs and gloves and my little cowboy boots because it was like 12 degrees outside. Everything was frozen - the ground, the pond, the trees - everything.
I was out crunching through the ice trying to find something to shoot with my new gun. I saw something to my left, and thinking (for some reason) that it was a turkey, I turned and shot about 5 rounds off at my target.
Whatever it was (and I never found that out) fell behind a small hill on the other side of the pond. Now here is where I got lazy, and it just about killed me. there was a drainage pipe that went over the top of the water of the pond, and through the hill and out to the ditch on the other side. Instead of going around, which would have taken like, a minute, I decided to just walk across the top of the pond on the pipe. I had done it hundreds of times before! But never wearing boots, and never when the pipe had a thin, almost inperceptible layer of ice on it.
I didn’t just fall. Falling would have been an almost enjoyable experience. I got about half way across when each of my feet slipped at the same time and went in opposite directions. I fell straight down onto the pipe, straddling it (painfully). Then I just fell to one side, off the pipe, onto the ice covering the pond. My prized rifle was a few feet away from me on the ice. After many minutes, I recovered enough to reach out for my rifle. It was at that point that the ice gave way, and both I and the rifle plunged into the frigid water. I came up, minus the rifle, soaking wet, and literally freezing.
By the time I got back to my house, my pants and boots and jacket and scarf and earmuffs were completely frozen. I was walking like a robot, and my parents, and all of the family members who were there, who I’m sure deep down were really concerned, began laughing like I had never heard. It was so humiliating! And then I got in trouble for not bringing the rifle back. I found it the next spring while swimming. It is in my closet right now, although I have never fired it once since that horrible day.
When I was in grade four, I was walking back to my classroom after having a wee. The hallway was completely empty, until two female teachers came around the corner. They looked in my direction, stopped speaking instantly, and after a second broke into laughter, actually falling into each other. They recovered, and kept walking, still giggling.
This was 1976, and I was accordingly dressed in an unspeakably horrible brown-and-yellow “plaid” cowboy shirt. Somehow, I had not only left my fly open, but the tail of my shirt was pulled through it and rolled up in a way that made it look like a big, tackily-coloured willy. It seemed to preceed me by about a foot. How I overlooked it, I’ll never know-- But on reflection I’m glad that they walked past and I didn’t make it all the way back to the classroom full of my peers.
When I was in junior high, I was sitting in english class nibbling on a pen. Since English was/is always so boring, I was half asleep kind of chewing and sucking on the cheap bic pen, sort of like licorice. I started tasting something strange and gooey, but it took a couple minutes to clue in and see what that taste was. Just as I discovered that I had inadvertently sucked the ink back through the tube and into my mouth, the teacher looked over and loudly asked if I wanted to go clean up. This of course caused everyone else to look around too to see me in a sleepy daze holding a leaky pen in front of me with black ink smeared across half my mouth. I must have looked stoned or something. They all started laughing and saying “Ernest goes to jail” which had just come out recently… remember the scene where he was in the courtroom and his pen busted in his mouth? My scenario was almost just like that. I’ve rented that movie just to see that scene a couple times.
(I managed to get the ink all off before I returned to class)
I was about 6/7, playing tag with my sister and friend in the farmyard of said friend (my sister and I were ‘townies’ and only got to do the farm thing once a year).
So I need to head one of them off, and take a shortcut across the yard. In the way is a huge (huge, huge) pile of concrete, well over 3ft high. I decide the quickest way is over the hillock of concrete, and bound up it.
Only it’s not concrete.
It’s cowshit. The outer surface baked hard - and I mean hard - by 2 months of sun, it looked like concrete.
The rest is inevitable. I get to the top, and hear a cracking sound. The crust lets go, and I’m in it, literally, up to my neck. What I remember most is the fact that it was hot. Like getting into a really hot bath. Oh, and it stunk.
Next thing I’m being hosed down by friend’s parents, my aunt/uncle, assorted neighbours, all nearly passing out in hysterics. Did I mention the stink? Jeez.
I was seven years old when I had my first, and only, part in a school play. It was a musical, and I was very excited about it. Dress rehearsal was on a Friday afternoon, and everything went beautifully. I wore a “southern belle” skirt that a teacher had lovingly made out of crepe paper, and sang my heart out. No problems whatsoever. Our performance was to take place that evening.
On the bus home from school, I began to feel a little queasy.
I didn’t feel like eating any dinner, but my Mom thought I was just nervous about the play, and gently coaxed me to eat a little.
In the car, I started gulping nervously. I was covered in sweat. I didn’t tell my Mom any of this.
I was so relieved to be out of the stifling car that I felt much better once we got to the school. Mom gave me a pep talk. My confidence was returning. Good.
I joined the other four girls onstage, looked out at the crowd, and immmediately lost my supper. Completely and explosively. All I can remember is looking down at the vomit dripping off the now-limp crepe paper skirt as I stood there in silent horror. My teacher came out to get me, and gently led me offstage.
It turned out that I had caught a nasty strain of stomach flu that was going around the school. I had a fever of 101F.
I know that it wasn’t my fault that I got sick then and there, but I’ve never been able to get back on stage.
Rich P, I would be more embarassed that my parents let me wander around haphazzardly shooting at things completely unsupervised at age 8 or 9. OUCH, talk about scarey.
Oh, and racinchikki, pointing out others typos is just plain rude. You knew what he meant obviously. 
HUGS!
Sqrl
Fourth grade seems to have been a bad year for me, looking back on it. We used to have a large standing freezer in our dining room, and that’s where we kept all the good popsicles (because really, who wants all those freezer-burned orange ones that have been sitting there since 2 summers ago?). So one day in the middle of summer, I decided to go investigate the popsicle stash. I don’t know what compelled me to do it - I didn’t see A Christmas Story until the end of middle school - but I decided to see if one’s tongue does really stick to a freezing piece of metal.
Oh, yeah. It does.
So, a couple of months later, still not able to taste sour things completely, my neighbor and I were horsing around. She dared me to stick two heart-shaped beads up my nose. So I did. My mom didn’t ask, but just shook her head as she held the Kleenex in front of my nose and plugged off one nostril at a time, sending the beads rocketing into the tissue. Moms are so great 
Hey, I never claimed not to be rude. Anyway, I just thought it was funny. The story and the typo.
Xerxes, I grew up in dairy-farm land, and that exact thing happened to one of my cousins when she came to visit one summer…
I know some embarassing things must’ve happened to me when I was a kid, but I can’t remember any of them right now.
Racinchikki, I see. Now rudeness is my game.
HUGS!
Sqrl
I was 10 or so. My dad, lab scientist that he was, had brought home some leftover liquid nitrogen. It’s great stuff, really fascinating. I was playing with it, seeing what things were like frozen solid. We froze a banana, pulled it out with metal kitchen tongs, and shattered it. Whee! I thought it’d be cool to have frozen maple syrup, so I poured some in, and tried to get it out with the tongs, which didn’t work for whatever reason. Anyway, I noticed that there was some syrup on the tongs. Yum! I licked the tongs. Of course, metal tongs that have been in liquid nitrogen tend to be very, very cold. They immediately froze to my tongue. “EHHHHH!” I said, before I pulled the tongs out. RIP! There were then two fuzzy, bloody strips of tongue still frozen to the tongs, and when I sprinted to the bathroom mirror, two painful, parallel bleeding stripes on my tongue. When I came back my dad just laughed. Sheesh.
Yeah, nowadays it would be pretty stupid I think. My kids will not have any access to firearms until they “are old enough” and have taken safety classes, and are supervised.
Things were different when I was a kid. This was about 1973 or so. Actually, I was the last kid on the “block” with a gun. The times they are a changin…
Rich
ok this is not my story, but a very very good one, nonetheless. A very good friend of mine has a little brother. One day, little brother, good friend, and various family members of good friend are sitting around a dinner table. Everyone is having a good time, and my friend, pulls out her brand new box of cinnamon tic tac’s. She puts them on the table and mentions how stupid it would be if someone put one of those little suckers up their nose. She doesn’t remember what prompted this statement, she just recalls making it. Then next thing she knows, little brother is tugging at her arm going “Look at me! look!” and laughing hystericaly. Then suddenly he stops laughing. everything gets quiet as all attention turns to him. He looks perfectly normal, and no one can figure out why there is this horrid tension in the air. Little brother’s face contorts, into a big round of shocked “oh’s”
“AHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!”
he starts to huff through his nose and a literal explosion of hot, brillantly red, cinnamon scented mucous comes fountaining out of his left nostril. His mother takes one look at the oddly cinnamon fresh “blood” pouring down his shirt front and whisks him off to the hospital. Meanwhile, my friend is busy having a laughing fit and cant explain to anyone what she knows has just happened. No one but her remembers her tic tac comment. It just looks like she is callously lauging at her poor little hemmoraging brother.
They had to have SIX nurses in the room to hold down little brother while they went after the tic tac with rubber tipped tweezers. Turns out that when he was huffing to get the tic tac out he had inadvertantly inhaled it further up into the very delicate soft tissue at the back of his nasal passages. 
i know i shouldnt smile, but i know this kid, and it seems entirely appropriate. He also thought he could fly if he had a grocery bag strapped to his back.
Hiroko
Well, this isn’t embarrasing for me but I was there. My friend and I were about 4 years old and she needed to borrow a bathing suit to play in the hose with me. I let her borrow my second favorite one (I had a lot of bathing suits). It was really cute, it was yellow with pink flowers and a little ruffle-skirt thingy. We we’re playing and having fun when all the sudden she goes “Where’s your bathroom?” and I reply “Inside and to the left” then she says “Too late…”. She had crapped my bathing suit! My second favorite one!! To this day she won’t talk about it because she gets too embarrased.
~Kittie
I was about 5 when my little embarrassment occured, vacationing with my family at a motel owned by my grandma’s sister.
One day, while playing together in our room, the girl I was playing with decided the sundress I was wearing would be perfect for flashing my 4-5 years older cousins. After being assured everything would be okay, I agreed. I was a dumb kid.
So, we called my cousins over, flipped up my little white sundress and hid, giggling at my rebellious act.
They both run, screeching to their parents. My aunts come to my mother declaring her a horrible parent. While I didn’t get into too much trouble from my mom, we both had my aunts giving us dirty looks. What was the worst for me at the time, though, was the fact that I showed my cousins my five-year-old flesh.
Oh, the shame! :rolleyes:
We used to do some stupid stuff. One time, I was like 13, I should have been at church, and instead I went “gondolla-ing” with my friends. Gondolla-ing consisted of paddling around on top of big chunks of river ice. Well I slipped and fell in the water up to my thighs. To escape detection from my mother I went back into the freezing water up to my waist so my pants were all one tone and went home with my brother as a block. Once I got by my mother I ran to my room to change and left the wet pants under my bed to dry out. It was one of the few times I got away with being bad.
mmmiiikkkeee, the pen-sucking thing happened to me, too, in sixth grade. Blech! My tongue was blue for a week.