Yesterday I posted a story about a time when I scared the pants off of someone... Well, turn about is fair play, as they say - is it not? As a moment of lapsed sanity and against my better judgement, I'm going to tell you all about a time or two that life got the better of me and had me eating Humble Pie.
In life, we all have the moments when we see an attractive man or woman who's attention we want to get. More often than we would care to admit, we've tripped or done something incredibly embarrassing and left the object of our attention doubled over in laughter. Honestly, that happens to me about 80% of the time I try to get a man's attention. It's no wonder I'm so shy - I know I'll do something stupid.
One of the most horrifying moments I've ever lived through was at Universal Studios CA when I was just a kid. Mom and I were waiting to get on the tram ride through the back lot (back before the entire park changed into nothing but lame 3D shows seen from standard theater seats and City Walk didn't exist). She saw this great, realistic statue of Frankenstein. I remember the statue towered over my dad. Today's translation in my memory would be around 7' tall. Its hands were as big as John Wayne's. If the statue was real, it could have palmed a basketball like an apple. The statue scared me a bit, but I had no idea why. I was around 8 or 9 I believe.
Mom asked me to stand next to Frankenstein for a photo. She pulled out her camera, played with the focus for a minute, and aimed at me. It's a good thing the camera strap was around her neck, because suddenly she screamed and dropped the camera. She reached forward and snatched me by the wrist, yanking hard, just about the time I saw a big green hand come to a rest on my shoulder. I screamed and looked up at Frankenstein, who looked straight down at me, smiling. The "statue" was no statue!
I screamed and ran into my mothers arms. Instinctively we ran a few steps away like a mother bear and her cub running from a panther. Then my mother turned around, ready to do some damage - again, like a mother bear. My heart pounded and her 'be warned' "wooo hoo hoo hoo..." that began incredibly high pitched died out slowly at a normal octave. She shoved me behind her and I watched from under her elbow.
Suddenly she burst out laughing. All of this had taken place in somewhere between 1 and 2 seconds. I think somewhere in the beginning I screamed as loudly as I ever have.
Frankenstein felt terrible. He told my mother he was sorry where nobody else could hear him (characters aren't supposed to speak) and he tried to shake my hand. Still terrified beyond belief, I remained hidden behind Mom. She coached me out and I shook his hand. I tried to dash back behind her again, but she wouldn't hear of it.
"It's just a man in makeup," she said to me, as if she never yelled or panicked along side me. "I still want a picture."
I turned and looked up. As my eyes scanned from their natural view level of his belt buckle, I took in every inch of the massive towering tree trunk before me. My eyes grew wide, I'm sure. He reached out to take my hand so he could walk me back to the original posing point, and I screamed again. Finally he made a very smart move and squatted down. He still towered over me, but he was no longer taller than any human I'd ever seen in my life. I grew a little braver and hugged Frankenstein when he gestured, and everything was ok.
Somewhere in a box buried in the back of a closet in a large house in Northern Utah, there's a 3 inch novelty button with a picture of Frankenstein and myself inside.
Back when AOL chat rooms were all the rage, I used to get into the rooms all the time. One girl in particular had a signature that she used every time she signed out of a chat room. She would say her goodbyes and then put in the following text:
3...
2...
1...
POOF!
Just like that, she would be gone. She would sign out for the night and that was that. One day I decided to mimic this idea. I wasn't having a lot of fun online that day and decided to go play with
Cookie instead. I hit the 3 and then the ellipses and pressed enter. I hit the 2 and entered the ellipses. I hit the 1 and then the ellipses. When the time came, rather than type in pooF, I ended up typing "poop" and pressing enter before I noticed my mistake. The very busy chat room fell silent. Not a single line crossed the screen. I typed in "oops" and pressed enter.
The chat room erupted in uncontrollable laughter. Every line filled with LOL or ROTF or the sparsely used ROTFLMAO. I laughed until I hurt. To this day, if I'm having a bad day, all I have to do is think about that one idiotic moment and how I made people all over the world laugh, and I can't help but at least chuckle to myself. It never gets old.
While I was
living in Arizona, all of my friends in the neighborhood apartment complex had decided to have a BBQ at the pool one day. I was late coming home from work because my employee evaluation went better than expected. I had been given a raise and asked to stay late in order to receive an appreciation award. (I still believe it was the
creepy old guy trying to get into my pants).
When I got home, I jumped into my swimming suit and grabbed my things to run to the pool with. I gathered my cigarettes, lighter, towel and sunblock, bundled them all up inside my towel, and took off. I couldn't help but notice that my very good looking neighbor down the way was standing out on his half circle upstairs balcony smoking a cigarette. I strategically pulled my lighter close to the edge of the towel so that I could drop it at the precise moment I chose.
I took off for the pool, jogging down the sidewalk. I didn't exactly have the figure of the Bay Watch babes, having just bounced back from
starvation, but I still wanted to get his attention. Boy, did I manage that!
At the precise moment I wanted to drop my lighter, only about 10 paces before his balcony, I nearly lost my footing. The lighter slipped loose and flew through the air. It bounced off his patio just inches from his fingers and landed in the grass far off to the right. I wasn't concerned with getting to the BBQ anymore. I just wanted to get out of sight. I knew without looking that the handsome neighbor was looking right at me, wondering what I was doing. I jogged out into the grass to retrieve my lighter from where it landed.
About a yard before I reached the lighter, my foot slipped in the wet grass and everything I had went flying through the air. I landed on my backside and slid through the grass as easily as if it were a slip and slide. Cigarettes rained all around me, my towel ended up in the bushes, and my sunblock opened on its way south. When it landed, a stream of lotion came squirting out with force, shot through the air, and landed in an arc over my head and streaming through my hair.
I was facing away from the balcony, and even the lotion gluing my hair around my ears couldn't stop the sound of laughter coming from behind me, but it didn't sound like it was coming from the balcony.
"I was having such a horrible day," he said from just a few feet behind me. "Not to make light of the grass stains on your swim suit, but my day just got a whole lot better." He gave me a hand and helped to gather my things. He asked if I was ok, and my shy side over reacted. I reached up to push my hair back behind my ear and felt the ooze of lotion between my fingers. Nearly retching with the embarrassment and shame, I hung my head, told him thanks for helping me, and ran straight back home. I figured the BBQ would still be going after dark. The grass stains on my bikini bottom and legs were NOT something I wanted to try explaining at a BBQ.
Last July I had a call to open a roof access at work. Just as I came around the corner to meet the A.C. repair guy and guide him to the stairs, my eyes locked with a GORGEOUS man I'd never seen before. He looked to me like Prince Eric from the Little Mermaid. He was riding up the escalator right in my direction. Still harboring some 'shy' side to me, I looked away and waited for the AC guy to show up. Then I looked back at Prince Eric - he was carrying a repair bag. Prince Eric WAS the AC guy.
Knowing my face was already red from being caught staring at him, I turned and told him over my shoulder "This way, Sir," and kept on going. I hit the door at almost a trot, leaving him panting up behind me. I headed straight for the stairs and bounded up two at a time. He stayed right behind me. At 6'2" he wasn't exactly short legged. He had no troubles.
Suddenly I took a false step. I felt myself starting to fall backwards and knew I would end up breaking my neck and landing in a heap at the bottom of the steps. My first thought should have been "Oh, I hope we have good workers comp," but in all reality, my only thought was "I knew I was going to do something stupid in front of Prince Charming." It was too late to fight the fall, I was half way down.
Arms reached out from nowhere and caught me around the waist. He set me back on my feet and just like that I continued climbing the stairs - as mindless as a robot or as steadily as a slinky in reverse. I made certain it wasn't obvious that my face was now purple from being embarrassed and my heart was once more thumping between my ears, threatening to give me away. I couldn't wait to get him up to the roof hatch and say good bye.
It didn't dawn on me until 10 minutes after I let him on the roof that I hadn't even bothered to say thanks. I snuck back to the stairs and half way up the ladder to the roof hatch. I attached a note to a step that simply said "Thanks for catching me on the stairs," and then climbed back down and split. I wouldn't show my face until I knew he wasn't around anymore.
We all do it, we just don't all admit to it.
Now it's your turn. What's YOUR most embarrassing moments?
Through some weird fluke, my blog about being kidnapped, raped, tortured and nearly sold into human trafficking has become a hugely popular post on Pinterest. It's everywhere, earmarked with the same $20 you see here. Almost anywhere you see this scan on Pinterest, it will point you straight back to my blog. 
