I perform in a Gilbert & Sullivan troupe, and to me, there’s nothing more embarrassing than blanking onstage. It’s happened to me a couple of times in performance, and even if nobody else notices, I still feel humiliated.
Plus, it’s always the performance in which I blanked or badly flubbed a line or went off-key that ends up on the company recording. Every single time.
Most embarrassing one in public for me was probably the time I was working in a crowded but small store and loudly inquired
“Can I help you, Sir?!” to a short haired young lady.
And, although I have been on the receiving end of this type of thing: “Give your money to the lady behind the counter, Billy”
…“Ahem!” and its really not a big deal to me, it makes me want to turn into a tiny bug and fly somewhere dark and far away.
Most hilarious embarrassment I have witnesses was at a movie theater during a really crowded weekend night. A few friends and I, along with everyone in this large, slow moving line at the ticket window saw a woman having some type of disagreement with a manager and several other employees. The theater people had this guarded, head-shaking manner that we all could tell meant that this woman was not going to get whatever she was arguing about. Voices were rising, employees’ eyes were rolling and suddenly she shouted something about “Calling your corporate office!!” and proceeded with head held high to walk full speed into a large plate glass window she apparently mistook for a doorway (?..it clearly wasn’t). Dazed for a moment, she got back on her feet and ran from the place to the sound of scores of people in line who had witnessed the entire thing. None of us had been happy with this lady adding to the slowness of the line to begin with.
A hysterical case of some demanding individual publicly “getting theirs”.
A couple of years ago, right before choir (this is in college, thank God), I drank a soda. Then I go into choir and get settled and we start warmups.
The first thing our director usually had us do was breathing exercises. So there’s about forty people in there, and we all open our mouths to breathe.
Only, instead of inhaling, I burped. Very loudly. Entirely unexpectedly. I’d had no warning whatsoever.
Everybody starts laughing. Thankfully, while I was plenty embarassed, I also had the maturity (or immaturity?) to see the humor in it.
I’m never, ever drinking soda within twenty minutes of choir or a voice lesson again. Never.
I threw up on the counter of a Waldenbooks! No details!!
I threw up on the floor of See’s Candies after nibbling on a chocolate covered cherry candy…and I like them, honestly
I puked just outside the door of a Denny’s in San Diego. After a night of too much drink, me and two shipmates stopped for a bite to eat. The smells in the restaurant disagreed with my stomach and I went outside to get some fresh air. While sitting on the edge of a planter, I chucked all over the sidewalk. A few minutes later a couple walked up and saw what I did. In a voice that belongs to someone named Mitzi, she announced she wasn’t hungry anymore and they left. I passed out and was awakened a bit later by some kid cleaning up my mess.
I dropped a quart of red paint near the checkouts at a K-mart. A couple of people were splattered and paint was running all over the floor. I backed out of the way and slipped out of the store. Months later when I finally went back in the floor was still stained.
Many years ago while waiting in line at a Squire Shop (remember those?), I had a sudden urge to sneeze and with my hands full, I turned my head and let fly. A fair sized goober was launched and hit a lady in the shoulder. She was wearing a nice leather jacket. She turned and not seeing anyone near, shrugged her shoulders and left the store. The guy in line behind me saw what happened and started laughing and he unexpectedly farted. Suddenly 4 or 5 others started laughing along with me. Only 2 of us knew the real reason for all the hilarity. I saw her a bit later and the goober and slid down about 6 inches.
Here’s my little story of high school gym class hell, again…stupid board killed my first, much lengthier draft…
It starting with me forgetting my swimsuit at home. Then, contrary to what the teacher had told us, I had to get on the bus, go to the pool and wear a rental bathing suit. Said suit rode up every time I jumped (I was in diving). Get back to change room. Drop underwear, notice when someone announces the rouge undergarments that were laying on the floor. Wander aroud change room, towel and underwear-less until everyone leaves, then hurry to change because I was afraid I was about to miss the bus (ending up going braless because I was panicking too much to get the damn clasps together). Spend the rest of the school day miserable, get dragged off to ‘do stuff’ by a (male)friend of mine for around 7-8 hours. And that’s my little story…
This didn’t happen to me but I still felt embarrased for the woman it happened to.
I’m about 16years old going home on the top deck of a bus (this is England remember) and the woman in front of me sneezes and her false teeth shoot out at about 45mph, hit the guys paper in front of her and fall onto his knee thence to the ash covered floor of the bus (we could smoke on our public transport in the olden days)
Lady dives frantically for her teeth, picks 'em up and shoves them straight back in her gob WITHOUT even trying to clean them off.
She spends the rest of the bus journey spitting out ash and bits of tobacco into her gloved hand whilst those that had witnessed the episode were just creased up.