my very first thread in mpsims…19 replies, I’m feeling all warm and fuzzy now (or it could be the broken air conditioning…)
Thank you!
And not a nice one at that. I was in 6th grade when I got in some minor trouble at the church run Montessori school she had us in. I did not want to go to prayer or some such thing. Anyways, it was decided that I would go to the local public school. YAY, was my thoughts! Until the bitch cut all of my hair off, litterally, to 2" long. Her excuse was that hair holds karmic records and that my negative attitude would improve after the haircut.
I am a girl, I was in California, where looks are everything and life was hard enough for other reasons. I cried for days.
There are many things that I will never forgive her for, but that was one of the few that affected me publicly that I can share with you.
I don’t have anything as bad as the rest of you (luckily), but I remembered something pretty embarassing that my great aunt did to me.
When I was about 18, my mother had given me a tasteful blue, glass-grapes brooch. At some family function, I had it pinned to the front of my shirt and was very proud of it. I went over to my great aunt (a dyno-mite lady), shoved my chest near her face and said, “look!”
Well, she thought I was talking about my young, perky breasts and proceeded to feel me up with a lot of gusto.
It was one of those scenes where everyone stops to look (silverware clatter stops, the music stops) until I let out a big scream and everyone started cracking up. It was quite humiliating, though.
Sunshine, I think my father is your father, too! My father doesn’t wear underwear (it shows), socks with his sandals (dark ones even) and hasn’t had a decent haircut in years (he washes his hair with soap - gross).
We had traveled to Europe last year and he loudly proclaimed, “I like it here - none of the women wear bras!” and I could have died. Luckily, he did move there a few months ago and when I called him last week and asked him if he wanted anything from NY, he said, “Yeah, a couple-a 25 year olds!” He talks like this to his daughter?! The man is a pig.
Oh, he’s been responsible for so much embarrassment over the years. Let’s pick an incident at random . . .
It’s Grandma’s birthday and the extended family is gathered at a nice restaurant for brunch. My near-drinking-age cousins are discussing the names of mixed drinks, and the Fuzzy Navel is mentioned. The older generation has never heard of this drink, and starts debating what it could be. My dad decides to be helpful by pulling up his shirt and showing off his own “fuzzy navel” right there. Ewwww.
Then of course, there is the fact that whenever I had friends over at the house (which was rare, thanks to him), I always had to check the bathroom to make sure we did not have an unflushed bowl of urine in there, complete with fresh bubbles and perhaps a cigarette butt. I’m 33 now and he still does this; thankfully I only have to see it when I go to the parents’ house.
Or how about the time when our DCE (Director of Xtian Education) came over to our house for the obligatory talk with the 'rents before my 8th-grade confirmation. My dad did not attend our church, but he was a part-time EMT, CPR instructor, and so on. The DCE is sitting at our picnic table talking about spiritual health and growth, etc., when my dad interrupts (ciggie in hand) with a diatribe titled “Who cares about that when what you really need is a safety program, CPR courses, etc., to keep people alive if they keel over in church?” IOW, who cares about what happens after you die, and all this God stuff doesn’t matter – to the person who was basically second-in-command to our pastor. I wanted to die right then, right there.
Ick, I feel 15 again – yucko. Thank God childhood doesn’t last.
They probably didn’t intend for this to be embarassing (they never do, HA!) but my parents got me some new boots for school when I was in 7th grade. Cowboy boots. Pointed toe cowboy boots. Jet black roach killers with high riding heels. I don’t mind the cowboy look per se but have always preferred a Wellington style boot like a Justin roper with a round toe and a low walking heel. I was made fun of but in the hideous cauldron that is junior high it was normal. The bad day came when I forgot my shoes for gym and we were playing volleyball on a pavement court. The coach made me wear the boots with my P.E. uniform. The ****sucker twisted the knife when he started calling me “Tex.” Oh, the pain of it all.
hijack
Olentzero, you were a freak!!! Of COURSE I know who you are. Everyone knew who you were. Wasn’t there some kind of Karaoke incident in New South?
Yay! Do you still dress like Lenin? Are you still a Socialist? If so, you and I have a date in Great Debates.
/hijack
I have to say that, while my father is definitely also a pig and grosses me out with his leering and lecherousness (?), he is incredibly easy for me to talk to about anything. When I recently found out what felching was, I immediately told him about it, and we had a great laugh. I guess it’s a trade off…I get a goofy, embarrassing dad but I can talk to him. And of course, embarrassing as he is, I would never trade him for anything. When he embarrasses me now, I try to remember sweet things like when I took him to show and tell in preschool and he wore his Superman t-shirt because I wanted him to.
Sunshine, yeah, I’ve been drinking, bowling and shooting pool with the guy since I was twelve. He’s a fun friend, for sure (he was the parent that bought the keg for the teenagers), but sometimes I would’ve liked some discipline or a father figure. Cool that your pop wore a Superman shirt - he sounds like a good guy.
Were?! I’m still freaky, baby, I just dress better now.
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Ah yes, the famous rendition of “Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah” by Allan Sherman. That was freshman year - '93. Damn, has it been 7 years??
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No. Full head of hair, but still the goatee and mustache. Hat’s gone, replaced by your standard office wear - shirt, necktie, pants that don’t have food stains on them.
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The mere fact that you ask this question shows you haven’t been hanging around in Great Debates much. 
I notice you don’t have a picture in the People Pages (unlike me). So how am I supposed to find out if I knew you? 
Wow, that in itself is impressive.
The only thing I remember my father doing to embarass me was one time we were in a sporting goods store buying sweat pants. I was about 14, we were debating what size to buy for me. He walks over to consult with the clerk, then yells out across the entire store “Hey xizor! the size difference is in the crotch! You want the mediums? Because you are not really large in the crotch?” Unfortunately there was no where to run and hide.
This one was my mother-in-law, when I was about 22. I was in University, and living in a rented house that I shared with one (much older) housemate. She was white; her boyfriend (we’ll call him J) was black. J had two Master’s Degrees, one in Art History, and I can’t recall what the other was. He was a very articulate, well-spoken, and obviously intelligent and polite gentleman. Mum-in-law came in, and J was sitting in the living room. She spoke with him for a few minutes, then he excused himself and left the room. Before he was out of earshot, she looked at me and said, “Well, he seems very intelligent, for a black man.”
I almost died. Damnest thing is, she really did mean it as a compliment.
And another, by her husband, my father in law: My brother and I had stopped by their house to pick up my daughter. With us were my brother’s wife and her sister, who are Chinese. On meeting them for the first time, the first thing my father-in-law said to them was, “You know, we have a Chinese family living down the street, and he seems like a really nice guy.” Again, I almost died of embarassment. Jan just smiled and nodded.
Lee, thanks for sharing your bra story. I feel less humiliated about this story knowing I’m not the only one who sported 36DDs before reaching 13.
So picture me, 12 years old, 1963, and I have to get a swim suit for my swimming lessons. Swimming lessons. At the Y, with all the little kids. And I have these boobs. Big ones.
I’m dying. But my Mom insists, I have to have swimming lessons. So off to Sears we go. And we get the swim suit. (We won’t even go into the humiliations with the store clerk, “Don’t you have something a little bigger in the bust.” for everyone in the entire store to hear.) This is back before spandex suits…so, naturally, the suit is one with a built in bra, in stark white contrasting with the “modest” black suit.
We get it home. I think I’m safe until Saturday when I have to wear it. I am about to go to my room and listen to bad music (now known as “oldies”) and grind my teeth. But, no, it was not to be.
For at that moment, my father pulls up in front of the house, my mom grabs the suit, races from the house, crying out, I swear, at the top of her lungs, "Honey, honey, look what I had to buy for our daughter! She’s a real young lady now!, all the while displaying the INSIDE of the swim suit, with the big white 36DD bra cups, not only to my DAD, but to all the boys in the neighborhood who were in the driveway playing basketball with my older brother. Boys, I might add, on whom I had crushes. All of them.
I am sick to my stomach just thinking about it, even after 36 years.
Unfortunately, what goes around, comes around. When I shared this story with my delightful daughters (14 and 23), they proceeded to regale me with stories of when I embarrassed them. Stories of incidences that, for the most part, I don’t even recall. It is terribly easy as a parent to forget that your children have extremely sensitive feelings at very early ages.
But I never showed the neighborhood boys their bras. Ever.
One of them titled “Embarrassing things”
The other one titled “Things your parents did to traumatize you and leave permanant scars on your psyche”
I feel terrible… some of you guys should be in a bell tower with a gun screaming “It’s my parent’s fault, it’s my parent’s fault!”
Anyway, I digress. Mine ‘embarrassing’ moment is pale by comparison now, but here it is.
I went to my son’s school (open house) to meet his teachers. He was a Jr (11th grade) at the time. While we were chatting with one of his teachers, he popped his gum. I absentmindedly held out my open palm under his mouth for him to spit out his gum.
He says he was never so embarrassed.
All in all I think we have a good relationship. He felt comfortable enough to tell me that he played strip poker last weekend with a couple of buddys and either three or four girls. I guess a good time was had by all.
*thinking to myself: “things sure are different than when I was growing up” *
OK, here is the deal. I was 18, youngest of 5 kids, and out on my own for the first time. I had joined the Navy and was in Florida going to “A” School. While there, I had met a dancer that I had started to develope a relationship with.
Next thing I know, I wake up in a hospital. I had been hit by a motorcycle while crossing the street. My folks were there. Seems strange, where did they come from?
Anyway, because of the accident, I had a cast on my right forearm, and one on my right leg that went from my toes to my hip. My mother, being a mother after all, was very worried about me falling and insisted that whenever I decided to walk somewhere,(who needs a wheel chair) I was to let her walk in front of me, with my hand on her shoulder for support. OK, that makes sense.
Enter Denise, (the dancer, remember her?) to see me. We want to go sit in the lobby to talk, me, her, and her dancer friend that I also knew. This is where mom steps in with her ‘Walking in front with your hand on my Shoulder’ routine. Man, I thought I was going to die. Then, to top it off, when we get to the lobby she says, “I will just sit over here until you are ready to go back to your room.”
Gee thanks mom, guess that means I won’t be able to talk to Denise about anything personal.
Oh well. I can kind of understand the way my mom felt at the time, but still,18 and with a chick that I was trying to show what kind of guy I was. How embarassing.
my mom dressed me funny. real funny. theres a picture of me in front of the washington monument and im wearing red white and blue plaid bellbottoms. i got a leisure suit handmedown from my cousin anthony, and she made me wear it to church. every time. i wuz very clueless as a child, and a young man, and one day when i wuz about fifteen, i looked down at myself, and the scales fell from my eyes to reveal that i wuz wearing gray wide wale corderoy bellbottoms with the mom hem, remember, the hem that was halfway to your knee, so you could grow, and when you sat down it made your pant legs stick out funny, and a matching cowboy shirt with fake mother of pearl buttons, and them roundtoed two toned stackheel ugly 70s shoes. insert munsch’s the scream here. i immediately hauled ass to the local head shop and bought an allman brothers t-shirt, the one with the magic mushroom on it. it didnt look good with grey widewale corderoy bellbottoms, tho.
The day my period started…
I felt weird all day. About dinner time, I realised what was going on, and did not want to join the family for dinner. My mother came upstairs to find out why I was acting so distant. I told her. She promptly ran downstairs and announced to my stepfather, brothers, and sisters…“Carina’s a woman! She’s grown up!!”
:rolleyes:
I didn’t think I would ever have the huevos to leave my bdroom again, after that.
Love ya Mom!
My mother has had me called out of a movie theater. I don’t remember what for exactly but the person who told me to go went up to the front, stopped the movie, told me to go out front, and see my mother. As I stood up, everyone just watched me get up and leave the auditorium and when the door shut, I could hear them all laugh at me. Oh well. It’s in the past and that’s where it stays.
My dad is a real racist. I mean…REALLY racist.
I had a bunch of friends over for a birthday sleepover one year…musta been when I was 14. Anyways, one of the people I had over was really Italian, and one was really Jewish. We’re in my room playing video games, and my dad’s about to go to bed. He opens up the door to say goodnight to me…and he’s standing there, in his beaten-to-death UNDERWEAR and a stained t-shirt. So I get up, run outside into the hall as quickly as possible, and shut the door to tell him goodnight. Unfortunately, I didn’t shut it far enough. I asked my dad how he liked my friends (as he had never met them before), and he replies, “Oh, they’re great. Even the guinea and the kike.” Loudly. Where it is easily audible in the next room.
No one said anything when I went back into my room, but you could have heard a pin drop, it was so quiet.
I figured I’d easily be able to come up with some great examples of parental embarrassment, but after reading this thread, I realized just how very lucky I am.
Um, thinking hard now, trying to find an example of just where my parents embarrassed me. I know it’s happened.
Clothes ever pulled off? Nah.
‘Humorous’ childhood stories ever related to friends or dates? Nope.
I guess the most embarrassing thing was having a 1 am curfew in high school, and having to leave early from social functions. Even that wasn’t all that bad, and during summer vacations in college and for two months after graduation, they didn’t much care when I came or left.
But there’s gotta be something. I never wanted to have friends over, because I felt embarrassed, but for the life of me I can’t remember why. Even now I’d rather go out or go to someone else’s place rather than invite a guest over.
Damnit! Don’t I have any childhood scars?
When I first started playing Little League around 8 years old, or so, the father of one of my friends took me out to buy my first ‘athletic supporter’ and explained to me what testicles were and why I didn’t want a baseball to hit me there. It never occured to me until years later that my father was probably too embarrassed to mention it.
Hmm.
The summer after my freshman year of college, I flew to Chicago to visit friends I had met in college. On the way to the airport, my father gave me a very clumsy heart-to-heart talk about underage drinking, drug use, and unprotected sex. I mumbled, “Yeah, dad, um, I know, I’ll be safe.” and wished for all my life that he’d just drop me off at the airport and be done with it. Of course, he was probably wishing the same thing.
Jeez, all of this is so tame. I wish I could say something like “My father shouted out in the pharmacy 'Little Joey has a dripping burning problem!” …
Yesterday I was commenting to my parents about how hot my bedroom was the past few weeks. Out pipes my dad “It’s all that passion in there! Why don’t you stop steaming up the room with all that sex. You aren’t newlyweds anymore”