A while back, I shared my Terrible Tuesday experience of the custodian walking in on me in the shower right as the whole shower rod fell off the wall. I won’t go into any more detail about that, I still don’t like to think about it! I thought I’d go ahead and share the rest of my embarrassing stories because reading about people’s lowest moments in life is pretty entertaining, don’t deny it. Enjoy!
1. “Cooking”
This one took place in Kindergarten. I debated even putting this one in here because I can’t even think about it without cringing, and I don’t want my former classmates to find the evidence. I can’t remember the exact situation that led me to this embarrassment that still haunts me to this day because it is published in a cookbook. What I suspect happened, was that we were assigned to get a recipe from home, and bring it to school in order to put in a class cookbook. I’m assuming I forgot to do the assignment. My other theory is that I didn’t understand what a recipe was, or what made from scratch meant. By now, you all should know just how bad I am at cooking by how many times I have mentioned it…well this is where it all started. The day the assignment was due, we were individually pulled aside to tell our teacher our recipe. Kindergarten Lauren didn’t have anything in mind, and didn’t even know how to make the simplest things such as the recipe for cookies. I am not one that is able to think logically when I panic, and I tend to come up with the weirdest on the spot responses, even to this day. This was one of those situations. When my teacher asked what my recipe was, I searched my memory stores for any recipe I knew how to make, and came back with nothing, so I told her the first thing that came to my mind. A Pop-Tart. At first, she looked impressed because I think she thought I was going to tell her how to make one from scratch. We were told to explain the recipe step by step. So I did. 1.) Take the Pop-Tart out of the box. 2.) Take it out of the wrapper. 3.) Put it in the toaster, or don’t. 4.) Once it’s done, put it on a plate. 5.) Go watch TV and eat the Pop-Tart, edges first. Our recipes then had to have illustrations that accompanied it, so I drew a picture of me sitting in front of the TV eating a Pop-Tart, as well as a giant Spongebob edition Pop-Tart on a plate. My recipe is now published in this cookbook along with other recipes such as pan fried fish, a cake, cookies, pancakes etc. that was sent home to everyone in class, making it impossible for me to get rid of all the evidence that I actually did this.
2. Cafeteria crash
I feel like it is a rite of passage to dump food in the caf during your college years at least once, but that doesn’t make it any less embarrassing. I remember my first, and hopefully last, time doing this like the back of my hand. It was the very last day of classes of spring semester my freshman year at Gustavus. It was mandarin orange Friday in the caf, so I helped myself to a nice big bowl of them to add to my pile of spinach. I swear, Gustavus picked out the bowls that make the loudest sound when they hit the ground just to draw more attention to the person who screwed up. Louder than dropping the shampoo bottle in the shower. Those things show absolutely no mercy. I was all ready to go with my rabbit food, and went over to the silverware counter, forgetting that I set my bowl of mandarins right beside me. My elbow knocked the bowl and sent it flying, and when it hit the ground, the bowl hit just right so it kept bouncing in the puddle of oranges. With every bounce, my face turned a darker shade of red. The loud sound was basically a signal to everyone in the caf to turn around and see what person royally embarrassed themselves this time. I got a nice round of applause after that. To make things even better, the person walking behind me didn’t see the traces of the fruit puddle on the ground, and totally wiped out, dumping their tray all over the place. (Shoutout to them, the attention was now shifted from me to them). I now no longer participate in mandarin orange Friday.
3. Flipping failure
Ah yes, the high school days of trying to impress your current crush at the time. I remember some girls trying to impress their crush by acting all cute, sending notes, following them down the halls, and posting an Instagram picture and hoping they like it, but me? That’s not how I did it. I have always liked to try to impress people with my athletic abilities whether that be gymnastics, basketball, mile time, pull ups, etc. At the time, my crush was in my Individual Fitness class, our gym credit. I would always go run with the guys to be with him, usually being the only girl that could keep up with the guys. Things were going well that day, it was the first day I was not really shy around him. We never really talked to each other, we were both very shy. I asked him if he wanted to see a cool trick, and he said yes. I’ll let you in on a secret; I was never taught how to do a backflip back in my gymnastics days. You’d think a gymnast could do one any time, but that is just something I was never able to do. Apparently that day, I thought things would be different. I got all set up, went over the cues in my head; load, set, tuck. That is not what happened. I loaded, but I think I forgot the set part, as I did the slowest back tuck in history, leading me to landing square on my face. Most people would joke about something like that, and now I would be able to shake it off and make fun of myself, but at the time, both of us were too shy to say anything after that. This left us with me lying on the ground face down too scared to look and see the expression on his face, and him standing there unsure what to do but hold back a laugh. I laid there for a good while before I pulled myself up off the ground with an injured dignity and pride, then booked it inside. I avoided him for a good two weeks after that. To a high schooler, nothing is more embarrassing than doing something wrong in front of your crush.
4. Not so restful rest stop
In my recent Holiday Traditions post, I mentioned “the drive” to Kentucky that we do every year. Usually these drives are pretty uneventful; flat roads, several stops, Redbox movies, lots of sitting etc. That’s about as exciting as it got. This particular year, it was different because we decided to rent a van instead of take our own car. The Casey clan was sporting a black mini van with a bright yellow license plate from New Mexico. I was not used to riding in this van, which led to this unfortunate incident. It was at our favorite rest stop in Wisconsin, I had just come outside and was going to get back into the van. I got to the black van and pulled on the handle for the door to open. The door was starting to slowly automatically open, revealing who was inside. It was not my family. I stood there staring at a whole different family, and them staring back at me. It took me a few seconds to understand what was happening, until I heard a bunch of laughing. I looked to see where the laughing was coming from, and it was from another black van a couple spots down, containing my actual family. I turned my attention back to the people that were still staring at me standing there, and then I bolted for the correct black van. I got in and pressed the button for the door to close, wishing that those automatic doors could close faster, because the family was still staring at me.
5. Moment of un-silence
If there is one thing I can’t handle, it is an awkward silence. As bad as it sounds, I can’t stand being in church when we take moments of silence, because a memory of a funny video (usually the flying lawn mower video) immediately comes to mind, or I imagine a funny scenario such as the pastor tripping up the stairs. I also can’t help but laugh when people eat something crunchy when it is dead silent (my professor was eating carrots during a test one time and I was about to lose it). At the same time, having a giant group of people stare at me is one of my worst nightmares, and I would hate to be the person that laughs during a moment of silence, or has their phone go off in a movie theater, which is why I have managed to keep my laughter in all these years. At Gustavus, we have a Vespers student led church service that happen occasionally throughout the year. This again happened my freshman year, and was the first Vespers service of the year. All was well, until they announced that we would take a moment of silence for loved ones who had passed away, or to take a moment to reflect and let go of your struggles. No, I did not laugh, as that would make me feel like a horrible person. Instead, I started to choke on my spit because it went down the wrong way. It is incredibly hard to suppress a cough when you are choking, and I tried the best I could. My efforts caused my face to turn tomato red, but I finally couldn’t hold it in anymore. I started choking and everyone turned around to stare at me, making me an even darker shade of red. One of my worst nightmares came true. The icing on the cake was having to go in front of everyone again for communion, still as red as a firetruck.
6. We got a runner
Many years ago, my Grandma Pat had my family dog sit her puppy, Maggie. Grandma, if you are reading this, which I know you are because you always read my blogs (thank you), you have never heard this story. I was in elementary school at the time. Maggie is a Bichon/poodle, and my dog’s half sister. At the time, Maggie was still a puppy. She loved to run, get the toilet paper out of the bathroom and run around the house with it until the roll was out, but most importantly, be chased. This day, we took Maggie to Christopher’s baseball game, and I was so excited because I finally had something to entertain me. My mom let me take Maggie on a walk around the complex, but she gave me one rule: don’t let Maggie off her leash. Spoiler alert: I let Maggie off the leash. This led to Maggie taking ME on a run, instead of me taking her on a walk. Have you ever been to a baseball game when a fan jumps the wall and runs across the field? That is essentially what happened. Maggie ran and ran all over the open soccer fields, took me through the park, and lastly, my brother’s game. When I saw her heading for the field that my brother’s game was on, my heart dropped. I couldn’t let Maggie run away, my grandma would be so mad if she came back and I told her lost her, so I followed Maggie out into the outfield. I got incredibly lucky, as the game was in a current time out due to a flock of pigeons that were sitting in the infield, but still, it was terribly embarrassing to be “that person”, and I wasn’t even a drunk fan like most are! You bet I never took Maggie off leash again.
7. Staircase serenade
This one doesn’t sound terrible, it is more of a personal thing. Elementary school choir concerts, absolutely hated them. The things we had to do for that were so weird now that I think about it such as when I participated in a dance about a goat named Yesh (still remember the song). As embarrassing as that sounds in itself, it gets worse (at least in my mind). Let me remind you once again that I am an introvert, and don’t like attention being brought on myself. One day after school in fifth grade, I thought I was totally home alone, so I thought I would practice one of the songs that I was struggling to remember the lyrics to. I pretended I was a famous singer and cascaded dramatically down the stairs, singing as loudly as I could about snowflakes. I finished the last chorus, doing my best dance moves and thought I sounded amazing, only to realize that once I cascaded down to the bottom of the stairs, my family was there the whole time. Now, this might not sound like an embarrassing moment, but to my family, something like this was totally out of character for me. In my family, I have never really been one to show much emotion, sing, dance, etc. I keep to myself. They kept telling me how great it was and that I should keep going (but my brother was trying to keep from laughing). I was absolutely mortified, and hid in my room the rest of the day.
8. Talent show regrets
Speaking of out of character for me, talent shows fall under this category. My friend Morgan and I thought we had the greatest idea in fourth grade of making up a dance and performing at the talent show. My first initial thought was absolutely not, but she told me I could do some gymnastics during the dance, and I was sold. We made up a dance to Carrie Underwood’s “All American Girl”, and I will let you know, this dance did not require any talent. We would practice everyday after school on her trampoline. The matching outfits were a must back then, mine pink and hers blue. The day of the talent show, I was absolutely terrified. When it came to be our turn, we got everything set up, and started out real strong until it got to the gymnastics part. We got to the part of the synchronized handstands, and I remember seeing Morgan tip over mid handstand. Being a person who doesn’t know what to do when things go unexpectedly, the dance was totally thrown off, as we could not recover from the handstand detour. The best part of the dance for me, was when it was finally over. I still can’t listen to that song without this experience playing in my head. Best part? My mom filmed the whole thing.
9. Crotched beams, crushed dreams
This one isn’t an exact moment, because it has happened more than once. For those who don’t know what crotching the beam means, it is when your feet are supposed to land on the beam, but instead your feet straddle the beam and your crotch lands full force on it instead ( this is the reason guys don’t do beam). While this isn’t an uncommon thing to do in the gymnastics world, I can’t help but be embarrassed when it does, especially during a meet. I get embarrassed about this because it is in front of all the fans, the opposing teams, but most importantly, the judges. The first thing I want to do when it happens, is grab a microphone and announce to everyone that I promise I can execute the skill, and that I’m a better gymnast than what they just saw (it’s a pride thing). Of course, I’d get deducted so badly for doing that. Crotching the beam is also embarrassing because after I do it, it is incredibly hard to act natural and not want to start crying. I’ve done some weird things to try to “walk it off” such as walking like I just rode across the country on a horse, smiling and saying “it’s all good” while tears are welling up with a twisted smile, little hops around the mat, walking in circles while doing some heavy breathing, lots of rubbing in an awkward place, and my personal favorite; getting immediately up on the beam again, then realizing I shouldn’t have, as I proceed to do my routine, only to crotch the beam again. These attempts to look natural and that I’m not phased at all instead make me look the farthest from natural. It also doesn’t help that the whole arena goes “oohhhh” whenever someone crotches the beam.
10. Speech spooks
Public speaking was not my friend back in high school. We had our last speech of the year in ninth grade, and it was about highlights of the year. Usually when I had to give a speech, I would write a manuscript, and memorize it word for word. This time I figured I wouldn’t because it was a casual speech, and seemed easy to talk about. I should have known that I wouldn’t be able to speak casually and normally in front of 60 people. To prepare for this speech, I memorized a brief outline of speaking points, practiced a couple times, and felt that I would be just fine. Out of all my embarrassing experiences, this one has to be the worst. I learned a couple things from this speech. First, I shouldn’t have assumed that I could speak freely about something under pressure. Second, Victoria’s Secret leggings show sweat in a certain rear end area, so don’t wear those when nervous. Third, when in doubt, flip it out. I was so nervous before I had to go up there, I was getting hot thinking about everyone staring at me. I got up to the podium, and recited the introduction that I memorized. To my surprise, no one was looking at my face, but rather, kind of lower (I will let you connect the dots here, I’d rather not say what they were looking at). Once I got done with my introduction, I completely blanked. I didn’t remember any of the points I memorized. Any person could probably talk about highlights of the year easily, but me being someone who can’t logically think under pressure and when my plan goes astray, I was a deer in the headlights. Because of this, I did the only thing I knew how to do. Gymnastics. I stepped away from the podium into the open space (people still looking at my butt), and threw three back handsprings in a row down the aisle of desks. After that, everyone started clapping and told me how cool it was, making them forget about the catastrophe that just happened right before their eyes. Since then, I now memorize all my speeches again.
Well, there you have it. I know that in the future, I probably will have more moments that make me want to go crawl inside a hole. As much as I hated having to experience all these moments, they are totally worth it because they make for great stories (once several years have passed), and help me to learn to laugh at myself. You know what they say, you learn from your mistakes, and because of this, I will not be in a talent show anytime soon, will be cautious in the cafeteria, will make sure I can speak in a speech, know which car is mine, make sure the coast is clear when I put on a performance, accept that I can’t do a backflip, not take the dog off the leash, and know that putting a Pop Tart on a plate doesn’t count as cooking even if that’s the best of my abilities.
I’d love to hear some of your embarrassing stories! Shoot me an email or leave a message in the comments. Have a great week, and I hope your resolutions are going well!
~Lauren
Life of Lauren 