My most embarrassing moments

(Please note: I've shared these before online, many years ago, so for some old timers amongst my internet friends these may just ring a bell. It has been a while, though, so I'm resurrecting them for my blog now, where they really belong anyhow. 'Twas Skeeter that made me think back on the old days of Oh My and go digging through to dust these off and share...)

So, I have two Most Embarrassing Moments (that occurred in my adult life anyhow) that I thought I'd share. I figure this way, no one will get the wrong idea about me and think I'm some graceful, delicate flower or posh, genteel lady. Oh, no. Not me. Without further ado, my top two most embarrassing moments - that happened in public, of course - upon which I have no one to blame but myself. (There are several moments of public embarrassment in which the kiddo had a featured role, but we'll save those for another day.)

Most Embarrassing Moment the First: This one happened at work, which makes it even better - or worse, depending on your point of view. I had recently been promoted to director of my department at work. I was the youngest senior manager in my agency, at the tender age of 27, and I was keen to show that I was a mature, professional adult who was eminently capable of handing the responsibility. A few weeks into my new position, it fell upon me to lead a meeting involving a group of bigwigs from various other area nonprofit agencies. They were all much older and much bigger cheeses than I, and my agency's executive director was impressed yet slightly dubious as she saw Big Cheese after Big Cheese trooping in to our building and up the stairs to the conference room for my meeting. She almost couldn't believe that a pipsqueak such as me would be in a meeting with the likes of them, much less running said meeting.

So, all the Cheeses are now assembled along the big, long table in the conference room. Being a nonprofit agency, we had a tight (read: nonexistent) budget, and thusly we had a lack of comfy meeting room chairs, so I'd had to pull out some old, metal folding chairs to make up the difference. Being a proper hostess, I was sitting in one of those uncomfy, metal chairs. Swallowing my nervousness and putting on my most professional, bravest face, I called the meeting to order. A few moments into my opening remarks, with the room silent and all eyes focused on me, things seemed to be going well. I was doing it! They were paying attention and seemed impressed by what I was saying! I was coming off as intelligent, witty, charming and funny. Just as I started warming to my spiel, I turned to my left in the midst of illustrating a point. At this exact time, without any warning, my body turned against me. BRAAAAAAAAAAAMP! Either someone had suddenly blown a trumpet or my posterior had decided to pipe up with a very unsolicited comment. The noise actually reverberated off the metal chair and echoed throughout the room. I froze momentarily in that "WHAT THE @#$#@ DO I DO NOW?" panic - do I say "excuse me" and make some pithy remark about eating Mexican food for breakfast? Do I look accusingly at the gentleman seated to my immediate left? Ultimately, I opted to continue talking and pretend I hadn't just let one rip. I could tell from the looks on the assembled faces that everyone had heard the toot (as my kiddo calls them) and everyone knew exactly who had done the tooting. As it happens, I'm an easy blusher, and I felt my face flushing more and more red while I bravely soldiered on... the meeting had at least an hour to go before I could escape to the privacy of my own office.

Now, you might think that farting obviously in public is embarrassing enough, but that wasn't the end of it. You see, I am one of those people that cannot help but have a massive giggle fit if I ever pass gas in public. Like, I'll be in the car with Hubby and if I have to, ahem, toot, even if he didn't notice, I will bust out laughing, and the harder I try to stop giggling, the worse it gets. Of course in those situations I'll excuse myself and own up to it... (And isn't having a kid in the house the biggest Fartometer ever anyhow? She has Gas Radar that detects any emission from anyone's rear end, anywhere - and she ALWAYS calls the gas passer on it, regardless if they are family, friend or stranger. But that goes to the most embarrassing Kiddo-Mommy moment genre, so it is for another time.) Back to my meeting of the big cheeses... after I wound up my opening remarks, I turned the meeting over to the person in charge of giving the next report, and sat there, desperately willing my skin to turn back from its present shade of tomato red to its usual underbelly-of-a-dead-fish white. The more I concentrated on trying to stop blushing (yeah, I'd long since given up on paying attention to the meeting), the more I had the uncontrollable urge to giggle. I finally tried to fake-cough giggle. It came out like kind of a snort-gasp-cough-laugh, and I then pretended I had something stuck in my throat and excused myself to go get some water. Doubtless they were all wondering if I was really leaving to pass more gas... I ran downstairs to my office, where my coworkers looked at me with alarm. I collapsed in my chair giggling like a fiend, finally managing to regain my composure and go back to the conference room. I made it through the rest of the meeting, though it was all I could do to keep from bursting into laughter because every few seconds the memory of that sound crossed my mind and I'd feel myself start to giggle again. Quite the mature, professional Big Cheese in Training, wasn't I?

My Most Embarrassing Moment the Second did not take place at work, but it did involve public nudity... It was the summer of '94. Hubby, then just my fiance, and I were at the home of one of our friends' parents for a family graduation party (as opposed to a drunken kegger, though this party had a few elements of that as well). Well, this family had a pool. I've always had swimsuit issues, even back in those days when I was much closer to a size 10 (and yes, I'd kill to have that body, which at the time I thought was pathetic and fat, back today). My poison of choice when necessary in those days was a one piece bathing suit that had a removable strap that looped from above one boob around the back of the neck and hooked on above the other boob. I'd bought this suit five years earlier when I was about to spend a weekend with my girlfriends attempting to get a tan down the Jersey shore before the senior prom and I didn't want any icky tan lines to show above my to-die-for, late-80s strapless prom dress. (Yes, this was a bathing suit that I'd bought in high school, and now was wearing after college was over, but that fashion don't isn't nearly the worst of it.) Anyhow, we're at the party. I'm not drinking, so I can't blame this one on alcohol, just bad judgement. I allow myself to be convinced by Hubby and our friends to change into my swimsuit and join the crowd in the pool. I changed and made a beeline for the pool, the theory being that if I was mostly submerged in water, people wouldn't say "Oh man, look at that!" and run shrieking in terror from the sight. Bam - I jump in the deep end. When I surface, I feel my suit (I had long since misplaced the strap) slide down a wee bit. I surreptitiously tug it up, no harm, no foul. That should've warned me, but it didn't... I make my way over to the shallower end of the pool where a bunch of my friends are tossing a Nerf football around. Trying to show that I'm not a girly girl (why was that important? Dunno but it seemed vital at the time, probably because it was in front of Hubby and his friends), I joined the game. One of our friends tosses me a pass. It went over my head and I jumped for it. As I went up, my suit went down, but I didn't realize it. I landed underwater and POPPED back up, shouting some witticism about his throw, when I notice that the graduate's grandparents, who are seated poolside, are staring at me in absolute horror. A hush fell over the crowd. I looked down, and noticed at this point that my bathing suit is down around my belly, a good several inches below my now exposed for Grammy and Grampa to see boobs, not to mention Hubby, our friends and at least one video camera. Eep! I immediately ducked under the water and YANKED the suit back up over my offending mammaries. Now, at this point I'm sure any self-respecting chick would've fled the pool area for the shelter of the locked bathroom and some adequately covering clothes, but not me. I was grimly determined to not show my embarrassment, so I grabbed the football, which was bobbing near my Cleavage of Doom in the water, and tossed it back to the guy who'd thrown it to me. He was still in such shock that he allowed the ball to whack him square in the head. (I cannot throw a football to save my life.) I stuck it out for another few minutes before making what I deemed to be a graceful and dignified exit from the pool, citing the fact that I was getting cold as my ONLY reason for going inside to change. People did look a bit scared that my boobs might make another unbilled cameo, so there was a general sigh of relief when I went inside.

To make the above tale more poignant, this same suit offended me in the same, exact way four years prior to the fateful graduation party, while I was Spring Breaking with a friend in Cancun. That time, we were at the hotel pool at around 10 in the morning, so it wasn't terribly crowded (other spring breakers were apparently still inside sleeping off the night before). I ducked under the water to cool off and came back up with my boobs a'blazing, but other than my friend and some hotel workers who were washing windows, no one really noticed. So, you think I would've learned my lesson... Probably a good thing for me that Hubby was there that day and has since ensured that I never, ever bought a strapless suit again. (And I haven't owned a strapless suit from then to this day...)

So, there you have it. My most embarrassing moments. Anyone care to join me and share your own? I promise, I won't laugh, even if they involve gas or nudity. (Okay, I probably will laugh, but you won't hear me, and I swear it would be with you and not at you...)