What is the most embarrassing thing you witnessed

In My Humble Opinion
101

I remember an incident from few years ago… it was during our high school beauty pageant thingie. I was a member of the Stage Crew… we just set the lighting and drew the curtains and stuff like that.

Anyway, It was taking place in our auditorium, which consisted of a stage, an orchestra pit right in front of it, then the seats. Well, for our “runway”, we had a long, well, runway, constructed out of plywood by the carpentry class. The runway extended from the stage, over the orchestra pit, and onto the railing beyond the pit.

Now, for the opening of the pageant, the winner of last years’ pageant was to come to the mike and speak a few words. We had been instructed to place the mike on the end of the runway, and dim the house lights to about 10% (pretty dark). This runway of ours was probably about 4 feet wide, if that. So, last years winner walks to the runway, begins to walk across, and suddenly, she’s gone and there’s a loud thud. She had misstepped and fallen off the runway into the pit. Much of the audience didn’t know what had happened, but us in the Stage Crew did. We were laughing out asses off. Turns out she was on… she had just sprained an ankle.

102

Not the best, and I wasn’t there, personally, but it sure sounded funny:
A good friend of mine had just arrived in Costa Rica for a semester abroad; at school he was always sort of cocky about his perceived Spanish speaking ability-- the college was in Oregon, he was from California, you know. A nice guy, but physically small and had the insecure/compensational cocky thing going on.
Anyhow, the scene: he has a suitcase and his host family has just arrived to pick him up-- a pretty full car, big family. They all meet and greet, etc., and start to pack themselves into the car. It looks ike there is little room for him, so his host-mom who is in the back seat next to the door sort of pats her lap, gesturing toward him. Odd, he thinks, but figuring when in Rome, shrugs, and sits down on her lap. Apparently she meant that she could hold his suitcase on her lap, because they all start absolutely cracking up, laughing hysterically. He jumps up, mortified, and in apology declares “Oh! Yo soy MUY embarazado!” (which, while it sounds like it should mean “embarassed” in fact means “pregnant”) They enjoyed this a great deal.

103

Two stories about the same guy (not me):

In my high school, the cafeteria served breakfast (do all high schools do this?), and it was the main hang out area before school during the winter. When I was a freshman, my buddy brought a whoopie cushion to school. We had been playing with it before “Andy H.” the most unpopular kid in my class came into the cafeteria and sat down with the rest of us (Each grade sat together). My buddy and another guy pass notes to each other and formulate a plan. I’m sure you see where this is going. My buddy walks away and blows up the whoopie cushion. He then walks behind Andy H. The other guy then asks to see which guy is taller, him or Andy H. (Andy was far and away the tallest kid in class. As a freshman, he was almost 6 feet.) While this is happening, the senior kids at the table see what we are doing and pass the word. As Andy stands, the cafeteria becomes silent. My buddy slips the cushion on his seat, and says, something like, “Andy’s taller.” Satisfied to discover he remained the tallest kid, he sits down.

The laughs drown out the fart before the sound fades away. Everyone, about 75 kids, is laughing at him. He quickly gathered up his books and walked out.

One year later, same kid, someone puts a tack on his chair. Andy sits down and doesn’t notice. The tack stays stuck in his ass through class and for the rest of the day. Word passes around the school that he has this tack in his butt, and he can’t figure out why everyone is laughing at him.

In college, I walked in on my dormmate masturbating. TWICE. The first time, freshman year, I had to retrieve a forgotten pencil. He didn’t even lock the door. He was a good guy, though, and we roomed together the next year too. That year, I was coming back from class, and he had his pants around his ankles, lying in bed reading a porn book. He still didn’t lock the door!

The guy I walked to school with in fourth grade pee’d himself while standing in front of the class reading a book report.

To preserve my karma, here’s one about me:
My first job interview after moving to Austin Texas was in July. I drove a truck with no air conditioning. I have long hair, and a heavy beard. I came from DC where you always dressed very well for job interviews. I had the suit on, long sleeve shirt, with a heavy undershirt on underneath, because I sweat when I’m nervous. Oh, and it’s my first job interview in 6 years.

Skip ahead bit…

I’m in the interview and I’m wet almost from head to toe. My hair at my neck is moist. The woman talking to me keeps apologizing for the heat in the room, which makes me aware that SHE is aware of the problem I’m having, which makes me more nervous. I can feel the sweat beading on my forehead. A droplet rolls down my forehead, the bridge of my nose, to the tip. She looks away for a moment, and I drag my suit sleeve across my forehead. When I look at it, there’s a big wetspot in the crook of my arm. Another droplet runs into my ear, making me twitch.

After the interview, I notice that the back of my suit jacket was dark with moisture from my back, and even the crotch of my paints were wet from sweat.

And, no, I wasn’t hired.

104

Aww, heck, why not.

So there I am, the summer after my Freshman year in high school, going home from a SAT workshop at my school. I can’t drive, and my house is only 2 miles away, so I’m riding my bike home.

And there I am, on the wrong side of two different streets–I’m on the southwest corner of the intersection and I need to be on the northeast. Watch me, as I begin crossing the street, and as I notice that off to my right, in somebody’s car, is–gasp!–a senior! A senior with whom I have some acquaintance! A senior whose influence can bring power and fame to those in his good favor!

Watch, all, as I raise up in my seat, watch as my posture improves, watch as I stand on my bike and begin to actively look cool (inasmuch as a fifteen-year-old on a bike wearing the gooberiest helmet in history can look cool).

See the look of anguish on my face as my foot slips off the pedal. Feel my utter humiliation (hey, these things were important back then).

Watch as I, absorbed in my own embarassment, veer into oncoming traffic and get hit by a truck.

The cherry on top has to be the fact that my senior friend stopped and was enlisted to take my bent and battered bike home for me while I was driven to the hospital.

Either that or the fact that the guy who hit me–a licensed driver who hit a fifteen-year-old on a bike hard enough to send me flying and get my bike stuck under his car–tried to claim damages against me. blink

105

I was at Fort Dix, awaiting orders to travel to my assignment in Germany. One night, I had CQ runner duty, which means sitting at a desk in, manning the phone and being generally responsible for reporting/preventing problems in the barracks after hours. The CQ NCO and I were sitting at the front desk, chatting the night away when we hear water running down the steps. Imagining a broken water pipe (despite the fact that it was May), we start up the steps to find where it is coming from. Realize that this is a four-story barracks building and we are walking up the steps looking down at the flow of water. We round the corner at the third floors and look up to see Chris, whose last name escapes me now, to his good fortune, standing at the rail on the top floor peeing obliviously off the landing. Just as we see him, he finishes, shivers, and tucks his johnson into his boxers and stumbles sleepily/drunkenly back to his bunk. There was an incredible amount of urine all over the stairwell. I had no idea a human bladder could hold so much used beer. The sergeant I was sharing the duty with was incensed. He motions me to follow him and we go down and roust the poor drunken bastard out of bed so he can clean up this mess. That fails, so he turns on the lights and throws a steel garbage can down the aisle, waking up those in the bay that are not too drunk to sleep through the racket and has everyone who can walk start mopping the stariwell at 0330. The poor sot who actually made the mess was thenceforth known as “Whizzer” to the rest of the 120 or so of us waiting for orders. He ended up being stationed in the same community with a few of us and we made sure that everyone in his new unit knew his nickname. Two years later, he was still known by it.

106

I might as well share the most personnally embarrasing moment I had in the military. When I was in basic training, We received our mail while formed up as a company and one of the drill sergeants would read the name from the envelope and the private addressed would sound off and run front and center to receive the letter. Many of these drill sergeants are not the most literate people in the world. My last name, which is Walker, was misread once where the “l” was replaced by a “c”. I was henceforth known to one and all my fellow trainees as “Wacker”, a horrible nickname to have in the military. Anyone outside the company who didn’t know the origin of the nickname always gave me a disgusted look. It was humiliating. While no one in my unit was in my BT company, I kept running into people who were in the course of my service, who would then tell any of my mates my nickname without giving the origin. Arrrggghhh!

107

I was going to school when I ran into a group of three bullies…well okay they were pre-schoolers playing outside, but still I swear they gave me a dirty look so I asked them what they were looking at. And do you believe those little bastards had the nerve to look at me and say nothing? Well I decided to take action, I gave the first kid a drop kick to the face, followed up on the second boy with a roundhouse and finished off the last one with a body-slam into the see-saw. Apparently the Police didn’t see it the same way, but I know I was right, well I have to go the warden says its time for lock down.

108

ok, 2 stories, one centering on me and the other on a friend of mine.

first, the one about me.
every 8th grade class at my school (70 kids/class, private school) goes to Washington D.C. in the spring for their class trip. so off we go in 2 tour buses to DC to see the sights. now, we stayed overnight in some motel or hotel somewhere, and we got to pick who we could share a room with, 4 or 5 friends of ours. well, after a few days, i was becoming pretty exhausted, since a bunch of teenage boys rarely go to sleep until after 3 or 4 AM, so i was sitting in bed watching tv while the other guys were doing some random stuff.

i think i should mention now that im an extremely heavy sleeper…once im out, i never wake up.

so anyway, i almost instantly fall asleep on the bed, while everyone around me is still wide awake. they subsequently get the brilliant idea that they should find whatever toiletteries they can and mix them all together to make them look like semen, then smear them all over whatever i was wearing when i fell asleep with the goal being an embarrassed Ryan the next morning. well, from what i heard, i was moved around and had this mixture of shampoo and conditioner and soap and whatever smeared on my shorts, and never woke up through the whole thing. however, contrary to what happened, i woke up the next morning with no idea as to what happened, and carried on like usual without any clue.

at the time, i liked this one girl (katie), and had either was about to start dating her or had just broken up with her after 2 weeks (cant really remember), but regardless i liked her, and was trying to talk to her, but she couldnt even look at me. so i asked some of my friends why, and the story came out. additionally, they told me that another friend of mine had brought walkie talkies and the girls in katies room had one of them and the guys in my room had the other, so the whole chain of events was relayed to their quarters. the next week or so wasnt too pleasant, but luckily for me my school tends to find some new thing to make fun of every few days, so people got over it.

i also heard that there were pictures taken of this, but i think someones mother discarded them in disgust (thank god).

ok, next story about a friend of mine.

this happened earlier this year (we were juniors in HS at the time), and we had this “fun” pasttime of “balltapping” one another… ie: sneaking up when another guy wasnt looking and giving him a nice little smack in the family jewels. well, one unfortunate friend of mine got nailed right in the parking lot of a restaurant after a birthday party for another friend of mine. he was able to keep a straight face for a few minutes before succumbing to the pain, but the many onlookers were cracking up from the start. i got the whole thing on digital video tape.

this incident lasted a little longer (until the school administration threatened to suspend people for balltapping), and everyone at the school knew about the infamous balltapping, since i captured the tape and it online. one of the people who heard about it and saw the tape was the girl that this guy really liked, and she thought it was quite funny.

we still mention it to him every now and then.

btw: the video is still around if any of you are dying to see it.

Ryan

109

My 12th grade year, I was sitting in the back of my English class. The teacher hated me and I responded in kind. I knew I was going to fail the class miserably, even if I suddenly morphed into a Hemingway clone, so I pretty much sat there daydreaming.

Anyway, I got suddenly hit by a sudden gas attack. I thought I was just going to let out a left cheek sneak, but instead wound up letting a cheek-flapper variety. On one of those old wooden seat desks, so it echoed from the walls. And it went on and on for at least an hour and a half (seemed like it at least, probably wasn’t more than 10 seconds or so). And it stank like something had crawled up inside me and died.

And my asshole teacher (rot in hell, Mrs. Murdon) waits until the screams and laughter die down and with perfect timing gives me this shiteating grin and says, “Why, Charles, that’s the smartest thing you’ve said all semester.” And just as everyone cracks up laughing, Son of Monster Fart from Hell hits me and I blow another one.

I did have the presence of mind to tell her the second one was a “rebuttal” to her comment - got a trip to the principal’s office for it.

110

There’s always ONE individual that goes on a crusade for ‘the other side’. Get a clue Zoff. The little sh1t deserved EXACTLY what he got. Any kid who’s going to force feed feces to another child, ESPECIALLY one in seventh grade, deserves whatever he gets. Not only is that a cruel, mean thing to do, it’s a sick and disgusting thing to do. Maybe by getting backhanded by an adult for once in his miserable life will make him think twice about torturing another human being for fun - because that’s exactly what the little ass was doing.

And do not bother giving me crap about how kids should be ‘reasoned with’. Its getting to be a very tired old argument. Here:

http://www.cnn.com/2001/US/07/29/children.spoiled.reut/index.html

111

Clothahump, that was just about the most hilarious thing I’ve ever read–nice comeback on the rebuttal remark!!
This didn’t happen to me, but to a classmate in 8th grade science class. The class was studying the inner workings of frogs, prior to dissecting them. We were up to the digestive system, and the teacher called on this girl to read aloud from the text. The word “anus” came up in the paragragh that she was reading. Now most people I’ve ever heard saying this word for the first time mispronouce it “ANN-us” instead of “AY-nus.” But instead she pronounced it “AHH-nus.” The teacher corrected her and tried not to laugh, but he couldn’t help it. I suppose it was simply an unfortunate coincidence that her name was Janice, which of course was quickly changed to “JAH-nice” and all day long people kept saying, “JAH-nice is a pain in the AH-nus.” Fortunately the teasing died down fairly quickly, but she was SO embarrassed!

112

Well, alas, this one is personal…
I ran track in high school, not a bad sprinter and reasonable in the long jump. Coupla medals, and there was a junior olympics I participated in for one of them. Anyway, I was in three running events plus the jump, and after the last event I was totally shagged. This being quite a while ago, the gym shorts in those days weren’t the kneelength jobs of today, they were, well, short. I walked over to the pole vault pit and just fell onto my back, exhausted, my legs splayed. My MOM walked up to me to let me know that despite my regulation Bike (TM reg US pat off) jockstrap, the package was off the shelf and in the window, so to speak. Had it been ANYone else, I wouldn’t have cared. As it was I did beet impersonations for about an hour, including my medal presentation. (Oh well. I have since found Naturism, and know that clothes are an option, not a necessity.)

113

This one happened to my dad, and I wasn’t there to see it, but I still laughed for hours when he told me the story.

Just to preface, my dad is 6ft2, 250 lbs, and blind. He was on a business trip in Pennsylvania, and had met up with a friend for some lunch. The friend was walking my dad back to the hotel, and my dad was carrying a pair of tennis shoes slung over his shoulder, laces tied together (I think his friend had just given them to him). They walk up to the hotel, and his friend leads him to the revolving door. Not only does his friend lead him to the door, but he goes in first, and drags my dad along in the same space.

The tennis shoes get caught outside the door.

So now we have two tall men stuck in a revolving door in the lobby of a busy airport hotel. The door only moved in one direction, and the space was small enough that neither my dad nor his friend could actually turn around. The fact that they both started laughing hysterically didn’t help much, but eventually my dad just dropped the shoes, and retrieved them after a successful “exit.”

Apparently the whole lobby clapped when they escaped the clutches of the angry revolving door.

114

So many embarassing things, so little time.

  1. Being beastly drunk and massaging a girl’s foot at a party.
  2. Being beastly drunk and peeing on my pants.
  3. Being beastly drunk and having someone remark in a loud voice “Hey look! He’s peed on his pants!”
  4. Volunteered information in class that I knew what color sperm was. At that age the only way I would have known it was through masturbation.
115

Or maybe the kid is a junior sociopath because he’s gotten backhanded by adults at home. All I’m saying is that it’s wrong for an adult to beat up a kid. Do you honestly think that kid isn’t still a bully?

Wow. A poll that shows kids don’t clean their rooms. That definitely means they can’t be reasoned with.

But this is just IMHO. With your well-supported and thoroughly thought out arguments you need to be cutting your teeth on the Great Debates board.

Sorry for the hijack. On to an embarrassing moment. Since the theme this page seems to be job interviews I’ll tell you about one of mine. I was just out of college and went for an interview at a think tank/public policy type of place. I met with this nice British guy and we were sitting and chatting. He suggested a tour of the place and I stood up. He was still sitting and I was a couple of feet from his face when he says, in a refined British accent, “Well, I suppose before we get started you should tend to your zipper.” I hadn’t zipped my freaking pants. It may seem small in comparison with some of these other stories, but I still carry the emotional scars.

116

This happened at my business school. While standing in front of the class, my teacher, and old man with old man pants and an old man belly, coughed. His pants fell all the way to the floor. We all laughed. I felt sorry for him, but damn, that was funny.

117

I was 8 years old and on a day fishing trip. It was drizzling outside so we (my brother, 2 friends, my step-dad and myself)packed ourselves into the front of our pick-up truck (before seatbelt laws). At any rate, I had to urinate in the worst way, didn’t think I was going to make it…and unfortunately didn’t. I did however make a gallant try running wildly for a wooded area and managing to get my pants and underwear partially down first. This would not have been so bad, it was raining fairly heavily by then and denim soaks up a good amount of water after a few hours of fishing. (I didn’t say anything out of sheer mortification, so stayed for the day.) But, on the way home for fear of causing unpleasant odors in the cab of the truck, I announced I’d be riding in the truck bed rain and all. The worst? The rest of the kids decided this was a great idea and rode back there with me!

More rain. Rainy day in Seattle (is that redundant?), age 16. I was shopping near the waterfront with a friend while wearing patent leather shoes with virtually no traction. Unwise in itself, I decided to skip the elevator and take a long flight of stairs. I believe it was 8 flights total with several landings in between. I made it about half way down, then fell the rest of the way. It took long enough for me to wonder at my not stopping at each of the landings. Inertia was against me that day. My friend valiantly chased after me, but was unable to catch up until I rolled to a stop at the bottom. I stood up, we looked at each other and laughed for a few minutes. Whew, all over? I neglected to think of the amount of noise I had just created. Walking into the department store, the customers’ and clerks’ gaping faces reminded me.