Everyone messes up, but some mistakes are just too humiliating to ignore. The urge to facepalm/repress/scream internally can be overwhelming whenever a cringey memory comes creeping to the surface, but as these brave souls demonstrate, looking back and laughing (someday, ahem) is the really the only way to overcome our mortifying blunders. In any case, these experiences might make you feel a whole lot better about your own. Prepare to feel some major secondhand embarrassment.
1. Sorry, Julie
I got rehired at a job after six years, and most of the people still there remembered me and were happy to see me back. When Friday rolled around, someone said, “Dave, come by the break room!” I wandered in, and there was this cake at the end of the table, and everyone was standing there. So I said, “You guys!” and blew out the candle.
I didn't realize my mistake until it was too late: The cake said, “Happy Birthday, Julie”.
2. Kid Logic
I used to watch TV with my parents when I was a kid, and I wound up watching a couple French kiss onscreen. Of course, I then thought that that was how you were supposed to kiss everyone. So later, my mom asked for a kiss from me, and I tried to French kiss her. I sometimes think that I was a special ed kid.
3. A Lesson In Humiliation
I had a stats professor at university who had a different picture of his grandkids on his laptop every single class session. He was a cool guy and clearly an awesome grandpa who loved those kids a lot, and he would frequently talk about them. But one day during class about 10 weeks into the semester, he powered on his laptop, and it displayed a picture of some random waterfall.
So, I said to him in front of the class, “What’s up, man? Your grandkids know they were replaced by some lame waterfall?” His response was devastating: “I appreciate the levity, but my daughter had a miscarriage over the weekend, and it’s too painful to have a reminder of what was lost right now.” It was super awkward. Also, it was the quietest I have ever heard a classroom become.
4. I Felt The Cringe Of This In My Soul
During the seventh grade orientation, one of the facilitators of the other group was a really cute senior in their last year of high school. Mind the age gap: I was 13, and he was 18. He was a star athlete and very popular, so he immediately caught my eye. I quickly added him and his friend (who I also had a crush on) on Facebook. My crushes got so deep that I wrote a whole self-insert fanfiction about them in a complicated love triangle with me. I even proudly showed my friends.
During his last month of school, I wanted to confess but was too shy to do so. So, I wrote up a confession letter and somehow convinced my more extroverted friend to email it to his Hotmail. We never heard back.
5. Running Scared
In middle school, I experienced, hands down, the most painful, embarrassing moment of my life. At the time, I was part of a track and field club that went to various events to compete with other clubs. Things weren’t always run in the most organized way, but it was just supposed to be a fun way for youngish kids looking to compete and have fun, so no big deal.
When this story took place, I was nearing the cut-off age for this particular club at the ripe old age of 14. My scrawny little white-boy butt liked long-distance running because I wasn’t very fast, but I had better endurance than many. I usually did pretty well—never first place, but never last. I was usually toward the front of the pack, which was decent for a kid that hadn’t even gone through puberty or a growth spurt yet (I was a late bloomer).
For some reason, on the day this awful thing happened, it was decided that we would compete in a new open track and field event for clubs statewide. I don’t really know the details because I was a kid who didn’t pay too much attention. I just wanted to run. I only know that the age groups were really stupid and wide-open for this particular event.
Anyway, I had registered to run the 3200m that day after a run of the 4x800m relay earlier that day. My first relay went by quickly, and it was a fun race; I experienced some teamwork and fared decently well. I got back to my tent in high spirits when I heard some not-so-great news: Even though I was 14, I’d be running my second race that day in the 15–18 yr old age group.
Some bs was cited about me turning 15 years old before the end of the year was over (this was in May, by the way, and my birthday is in December). Okay, so now I was definitely nervous. Time went by in a crawl leading up to the event. I was the only one in my club with this particular age caveat, so I made my way to the staging area alone when it came time for my race.
To my immediate horror, my wiry little kid butt was going up against some freaking grown adult Kenyan-looking dudes. Not a single one of them was less than a foot taller than me, and by my guess, all of them were probably 18. I still remember feeling like a kid walking and looking up at adults and feeling like I was in the wrong place.
I swear to god, the lady who gave me my tag for the race winced when she saw me walk up to the table. We both knew what was about to happen. I just didn’t know how bad it was going to be. Anyway, the time came, and we all lined up to start. Anxiety. The signal went off, and we all started running. By the time I made it to the 100m mark, the rest were all at 150m. Frick me.
At one lap, they were already around the bend. After the second lap, I no longer saw them ahead of me. A short time later, I got lapped—the first time. While I was only just finishing lap six, the first runners were already finishing the race. I had to swing wide to go around the finishing area where people had stopped. I spent lap seven completely alone. But it gets worse.
Even more embarrassingly, the event coordinators must have thought the event was over because about 200m ahead of me, people had started putting hurdles on the track to set up for the next event. I wanted to stop right there, but I was committed at this point and more than 75% done. So, I kept going.
When people finally realized I was still on the track, they tried pulling the hurdles out of the way, but the emotional damage was already done, honestly. Slowly the crowd of people in the stands realized that there had been another runner still on the track for the last minute and a half, and even though I honestly would have rather been ignored, I guess they felt obligated to recognize that.
The last two hundred meters of that race from hell dragged on and on as the entire observing crowd of the event gave me the one and only pity clap I’ve ever received. And that is probably one of the most embarrassing things that have ever happened to me, still seared into my mind over a decade later.
You know, whether they may appreciate it or not, I have never pity clapped for anyone else ever since that moment, and I probably never will again. I know people mean well, but I also know what it felt like. Thankfully, I still kept running for the next couple of years. I eventually did hit a growth spurt, too. And nothing nearly as bad as that race ever happened again.
6. Don’t Toy With Your Friends
My friend and I were playing with some robot dog toy or something when it suddenly ran out of juice. We went into my parents’ room, knowing the dresser beside their bed had a package of batteries. As we rummaged through the drawer, we accidentally stumbled across my parents’ “adult toy” and some dirty magazines. Our immediate idea was to prank my older sister and plant them in her room.
Ultimately, we decided that it would be too mean since she wasn’t a part of the discovery, and it wouldn’t be funny to her. So instead, we just grabbed the batteries and returned to our dog toy. But that wasn't the end of it... Anyway, long story short, my friend thought it would be funny to plant the rubber dong and mags in my room. I shouldn’t have trusted her, but she snuck them under my bed the second I went to the bathroom.
I didn’t realize it for the entire weekend. Then on Monday morning at school, she came up to me, dying of laughter, and asked what my parents said. I didn’t really get what she meant, and then she spilled the beans—my parents’ special toy and their dirty magazines were under my bed frame. My stomach dropped. Cut to me running home after school praying to God my parents didn’t realize what was missing from their bedside drawer.
My mom was acting funny when I got home. She asked how my day was, and I said, “Fine”. Then she told me she cleaned my room for me in this really weird tone. My stomach dropped, and I was like, “Ugh, great. My parents think I actively took and used their toy dong.” I dropped my bag off in my room and looked under my bed, and everything was gone. She definitely found her “special toy.”
I was so shy and awkward, I just freaking avoided them for as long as possible. I should have just told them my best friend was pranking me, but the idea of talking to my parents about their “special toy” made me want to burst into flames. So, I just didn’t. And now, my parents have continued on, to this day, thinking I took their “adult toy” and dirty magazines and hid them under my bed.
7. Bow-Chicken-Wow-Wow
Oof. So, I used to work in a store that sold prom dresses. My boss was a grumpy older woman with a heart of gold. She was also really superstitious: She had this painted wooden rooster that she picked up in New Orleans named Phil, and whenever business was down, she used to threaten him. She insisted this always made business pick up.
Well, one day, we had a small group of teenage girls come into the store, and as I was helping them, my boss walked past us and muttered, “I’m going to go to my office and choke the chicken.” The looks the customers and I exchanged! Oh, my God! Fortunately, they were really nice about it. One of them muttered, “So...she has NO idea what that means, huh?”
I then told them about Phil, and they all had a good chuckle while we finished up. Then I had to go to the backroom and explain to a woman older than my mother what “choking the chicken” meant...
8. Granny Pantsied
My mother liked to make ceramic dolls. She was part of a “Doll Club” in which fellow crafters would meet and discuss the craft and share ideas. My mom was, on average, 20 years younger than the majority of the club members. They would also rotate hosting responsibilities. One day, while my mother hosted 20 or so mostly-elderly women at our house, I walked into the space to greet our houseguests. I was 17 years old at the time.
While standing in the room saying hello, my younger brother grabbed my sweat pants and dropped them to my ankles: boxer briefs and all. I got pantsed in front of the doll club—the full monty. Thirty-something years later, I can still vividly see their faces and reactions. I’m scarred for life.
9. Duunnn Dunnn…Duuuunnnn Duun...
I’m 39, and I still think about my first almost kiss; it was so awkward and embarrassing. I was 11 or 12, and we were playing spin the bottle at camp. I was a really naive little girl and didn’t quite understand what I was getting myself into. The bottle landed on me, and I stood up to kiss the older and far more experienced boy in front of me.
I essentially unhinged my jaw and opened up my mouth really wide to kiss him. He stepped back and took one look and me, and said, “No.”
10. The Pick Of The Litter
I liked this boy in my art class and found out through some mutual friends that he lived a few blocks from me. So, instead of just talking to him at school like a sane person would, I decided I’d get his attention by sneaking out of my house at 4 AM with a big bag of garbage, walking all the way to his house, throwing the garbage all over his lawn, then ringing his doorbell and running back home.
The next day at school, I asked him if anything weird had happened at his house last night. When he answered, “Yeah,” I revealed that I was the one who “pranked” his family last night. He just awkwardly said, “Oh, okay.” He didn’t talk to me for a few months after that. What the heck was I thinking?
11. And Now You Need A Memory Wipe…
Oh, God. When I was like seven or eight, a friend of my parents had a baby. They already had a four-year-old girl too. My dad and I were watching as the other dad showed the four-year-old how to change a nappy. Note: I had recently seen the first Austin Powers movie. So I said, in my infinite wisdom, “Does that make you horny, baby? Yeah!” as the four-year-old girl was wiping her baby sister.
My dad was mortified. In hindsight, so am I.
12. Ain’t No Thing But A Chicken Wing
I was 17 and working my first job (KFC), and that night I was working the front counter. Being 17, I was as high as a giraffe. This guy came in and began placing his order when midway through, he stopped and said to me, “Sir, there is a large pair of women’s panties behind you.” I immediately looked behind me and saw that there was, in fact, a large pair of women’s panties behind me.
I had washed my work uniform the night before, and some of the laundries had gotten mixed up; my mom’s underwear must have gotten stuck in my pant leg, and I never noticed. But instead of explaining this in a rational, logical way, I was so stoned that I just kind of blurted out, “Oh, it’s okay. Those are my mom’s”.
The look on this poor dude’s face said everything: He thought he was going to Kentucky Fried Chicken but somehow ended up in Alabama.
13. Some Kids Are The Pits
I was 11, wearing a sleeveless blouse in school. Some of the popular girls in my choir class started raising their arms and smiling for some odd reason. Then one girl looked at me and said, “We’re having a competition to see who can lift their arms the highest. How about you”?
I obliged, and as one, the giggly hydra burst into an outpouring of mocking laughter.
I had never shaved my armpits before. I hadn’t even considered the ablution until that moment. And now, here I was, in the middle of class with a wiry brush under each arm, crying and abhorring myself and my tormentors.
14. I Doubt She’ll Want To “Dance Again” After That…
When I was in the seventh grade, I got assigned a project with the most popular girl in school. This was my chance to become her best friend. I invited her over to my house, and I thought we could chill before jumping into the project. I thought the best way to impress her would be to show her the dance I made to a song from the new Jennifer Lopez album. She sat on the couch while I performed.
We did not become best friends.
15. Blessed Is The Patron Saint Of Kleenex
Many years ago, I was on a rickety old bus traveling across the Altiplano of Bolivia. I had a case of the runs and couldn’t hold it in. I asked the driver to stop immediately and jumped off the bus. Without a tree in sight, I squatted next to the bus and literally shat out a gallon of poop. Once the relief left my body, I suddenly made a terrible realization: I had no toilet paper. Like, not even a freaking leaf.
I glanced up to the gods and saw a busload of locals staring down at me with blank, impatient faces. Fortunately, a woman took pity and, from the window, dropped a Kleenex down that fluttered about two feet in front of me. So, like a penguin—with my pants to my knees and caca still dripping from my bum—I shuffled over to it and held it tighter than I’ve ever held anything.
After cleaning up as best as I could, I climbed back onto the bus with my head bowed, took my seat, and felt my mortified soul leave my body.
16. And Then Ross And Rachel Went On A Break…
I tried to bring my ex flowers at work, and she made a scene about how she had nowhere to put them and that I shouldn’t have done it because she’s at work and doesn’t have time to stop and talk to me, and yada yada…Everybody in the building was staring at me with varying degrees of pity, and I was so embarrassed and then furious...
17. Caught With Her Pants Down
My pants fell down in the City Hall parking lot while I was dashing for the Starbucks next door. I didn’t notice at first and kept running until I felt something around my ankles. Mortified, I spent the 30 minutes before work cowering in the bathroom. Since I worked the front desk in HR (and was new), I saw many city officials on a daily basis, many of whom visited that same Starbucks every morning.
I flashed the mayor.
18. When You Gotta Go, You Gotta Go
In my freshman year of college, I was getting stoned with some people I had met once or twice before and got wayyy too high. I started getting really paranoid and anxious and decided to go back to my own dorm room before I had a complete panic attack. I thought the best excuse to get out of the situation without seeming like I’d gotten too high was to stand up and announce, “I have to leave. I just pooped myself,” and walk out.
After sobering up, I realized what the heck I’d just done and avoided those people for the rest of my time at that school.
19. Just Roll With It
I was using the washroom at a client’s business only to discover much too late that the men’s bathroom had no toilet paper. After thinking for a second, I decided to carefully pull up my trousers and just walk to the ladies’ toilet next to the men’s. But as I came out and went to go into the ladies’, a woman had simultaneously walked up to use it, too.
She awkwardly asked, “Do you need to use this one”? I simply replied that there was no toilet paper next door. Instead of just grabbing a spare roll, I locked the door, wiped the mud out of my eye, and came out a minute later. I wasn’t in there long enough to pretend I dropped a full deuce, so it was obvious that I had a dirty booty while we had that exchange.
A little later on, I walked into a room where this woman and two others were talking, and as soon as they saw me, they went dreadfully silent. I think I was the talk of the office.
20. It’s All Relative
Both of my parents have had this problem with me and my twin sister. They had us at barely 20, and both look really good for their age. We would often get mistaken as four siblings—this happened a lot. But one time, my mother and I were wandering around a Christmas market (my dad and sister were elsewhere), and we stopped to get some snacks. The guy serving us was really weird; he kept looking at us and acted like he was in on some kind of joke.
When my mum went to pay, he finally asked, “So...what’s going on here, then”? My mum obviously had no idea what was going on, and the guy kept making more of these vague comments, getting more suggestive, until he was like, “Does your husband know about this?” He actually nodded at me and winked. Finally, my mum realized what was going on and said, “I should hope so since this is our son.” I wanted to crawl into a hole.
In that same year, when my dad and sister got into a taxi together, the driver was immediately like, "Who’s this then? Your girlfriend?" My poor dad had to awkwardly answer, "This is my daughter." My sister and I were 16 a the time, so our parents were almost 40. Even if we weren’t all related, this is still such a weird conversation opener; it’s always baffled me why people care so much, especially the guy who was eyeing up my mum and I for ages.
My theory was that the guy had assumed my mum and I were girlfriend and boyfriend but got confused because I look a lot like my mum, and he probably had her marked as too old to be a sibling but too young to be a parent. I have no idea, but it was weird.
21. He Did More Than Cut The Cheese
During the early days of courting, my girlfriend and I had just finished making love. We were all sweaty and had those postcoital munchies. We went into the kitchen to prepare food. Our relationship was at that wonderful moment where everything was still new, but we were gaining intimate trust. We had just reached that huge milestone of passing gas in front of each other.
We’d grown comfortable doing so, and when we entered the kitchen in our sweaty glow, I decided to let rip. It was quite a small poof, but it came with such pressure (I wanted to make her laugh) that some poop flew out my nekkid butt and landed on the kitchen door. I looked at the poo. She looked at the poo.
I closed the kitchen door in her face and grabbed the kitchen roll, utterly horrified, hearing her howling with laughter on the other side of the door. It’s been 20 years, and my wife reminds me of that shart almost every month. Love is bliss.
22. Why Did No One Check On You?!
I almost drowned at my aunt’s engagement party when I was 11. All night I had been trying to get in good with the other kids at the party (whom I had idolized), and all of that evaporated in the blink of an eye when all of them and almost every other partygoer gathered around me at the poolside while my dad (an EMT) worked hard to resuscitate me.
Lucky me, I woke up to nearly fifty pairs of eyes on me, my soaked clothing, and the embarrassing and suddenly enforced fact that I had yet to learn how to swim and that this incident was, in fact, my third drowning. This was the most publically embarrassing moment of my life. However, my private most embarrassing moment (which I still look back on and cringe about) came immediately after.
The shame of the situation overtook me to the point that I locked myself away in the home’s only bathroom for the rest of the party, a total of three hours or so, with a plate of rice acting as my only form of company. Nobody even noticed I was gone…which means I got what I wanted, I suppose!
23. It Was A Hot Button Issue
I’ve had many embarrassing moments because I’m genuinely an awkward person. The topper, though, was when I was in university. I was heavy most of my life until my last year of university, being approximately 60–70 lbs overweight as a teen and young adult. During this one night class, I would get a whiff of this horrible smell every once in a while. Eventually, the smell became so overpowering that I couldn’t help but cover my nose as inconspicuously as I could.
A very attractive girl I used to work with happened to be sitting in front of me (FWIW, it was a large lecture hall, and she came into an open seating area after I had sat down). We talked for a moment, but since she and I hadn’t really spoken much before, it was a short conversation before she returned to her friends. But throughout the class, I noticed that she and her friend kept giving each other side-eye as the smell kept getting stronger.
Eventually, class let out. I threw on my jacket and left, finally free of the stench…or so I thought. When I got home and took off my jacket, I got hit with the same scent—super strongly. Then, it finally hit me: The smell was my own belly button funk. It was kind of a warm day, and I had hustled to class, so I guess I sweated into my navel, and it just fermented.
I had never really consciously cleaned my navel before as I figured my body wash got it, and why would it even need cleaning in the first place? The smell was putrid; I almost gagged when I realized it was my navel, and I put my finger in and smelled my finger afterward. After losing the excess weight, I haven’t noticed it smelling as strongly. However, I now make a concerted effort to clean it almost daily to avoid that mortifying experience in the future.
24. Flushed With Embarrassment
I once lost a tampon in the toilet. Gross, I know. We were visiting my partner’s friends for maybe the second time, and they’re lovely, but at the time, I was very nervous and intimidated by them. Anyway, I panicked and flushed it. It messed up their plumbing, and the toilets and showers started to back up. Traumatising!
25. The Wrong Kind Of Flash Signal
I flashed my tits at an officer once. That was pretty mortifying. They lived on my street and were driving by while I was outside. I went to give them a thumbs-up signal, and my thumb got stuck on the hem of my shirt on the way up…and there were my tits. This was the second time I’ve flashed someone while trying to give a thumbs up. I don’t do that signal anymore.
26. Now Who’s Singing A Different Tune…
I was studying in the library with my friends when we heard this horrible, off-tune singing from the floor below. We started to joke about it for a while. After hearing our jokes half an hour later, one librarian came to say that it was a mentally challenged kids’ concert organized by the library. At the moment, I was red as a fire truck and could only say that we were sorry about this.
I will not ever forget that embarrassment. Luckily I’m not that kind of person anymore.
27. This Is Straight Out Of A Rom-Com
I walked face-first into a street light lamp post because I was staring at a beautiful girl walking in the direction where I was coming from. It was in front of the main gate of our university. Hundreds of students saw it. My friends laughed hard as heck.
28. A Waking Nightmare
When I was 11 or 12, I accidentally walked into the public swimming pool house completely in the buff. I had just left the pool to go take a shower and forgot to tell my friend something. So, after dropping my shorts and stepping into the shower, I decided to run back and tell him, utterly oblivious to the fact that I was now in my birthday suit.
There must have been 30-40 people staring and laughing at me. I wanted to perish. Today it’s a funny story, lol.
29. An Exercise In Humiliation
Oh God, this was gross and embarrassing. I was enlisting in the Navy, and I had to go for a drug test. The lady comes into the bathroom with you and watches you pee. I pulled down my pants, and I had gotten my period bad; it was all over. I was mortified. I asked the lady if she had a pad or tampon, but she said no. So, I rolled up some toilet paper and stuck it in my underwear.
The next thing we had to do was strip down to our bras and underwear (there were 15 other females in the room) and do stretches, bends, and duck walk (look it up). I had on bloody underwear with toilet paper stuffed in them. Everyone saw. Everyone thought I was gross. I wanted to cease existing.
30. He Left A Mud Trail
I went hiking around a mangrove trail and felt completely fine, but as I neared the end, I saw a public restroom and thought, “Huh, I haven’t peed in a bit, and it’s a bit of a drive home, so why not.” I almost got to the door when I felt a sudden rumble. Thinking it was just gas, I trusted it…You can guess what happened next. It was bad, really horribly bad. I ended up stripping my pants off and scrubbing myself and any other areas that got affected with paper towels and soap.
I then tied up the bin bag, had my partner grab my towel from the car to make a makeshift skirt, and left an “I am so totally sorry, I can not apologize enough. I’m seriously so sorry! I owe you the biggest apology in this life and the next few, too” note to the cleaner and legged it home to brood in my shame. I was 27 when this happened, and my family will never let me live it down. My partner will also use it in silly arguments to win.
31. Sounds Like A Gas
This happened at my very first ever parent-teacher conference for my daughter. My wife and I sat at one of the little kid tables with the teacher going over grades. She proceeds to tell us how well mannered and polite our child is: She’s a pleasure to teach and always helps the kids with no friends. As she was telling us this stuff, I sneezed, and because we were at the little tables, I was in the perfect squatty potty position.
A toot came out. It was little but loud, thanks to the hard plastic seat I was in. I looked at the teacher, and she tried to act like she didn’t hear it. I then looked at my wife, and she was beet red. I lost it. I fell the heck out of that chair laughing. I asked to be excused so I could grow the heck up and contain myself. After a couple of seconds, I came back into the classroom, made eye contact with my wife, and fell out laughing again so hard I went straight to the car and waited.
It was quite embarrassing because it was a Catholic school, and they get pretty strict on behavior. Yet, there I was, acting like a dang child hearing a toot for the first time.
32. They Weren’t Bosom Buddies
My most embarrassing memory? You’d think it was the moment I got absurdly hammered, was half-exposed in the bathtub, and had an awful dragon drawn on my back. Or you would think it was the time I got near-blackout intoxicated and let my ex’s family and friends stack pillows on me because I was too tired to give a hoot. Or you would think it was the time I pooped myself on the bus. Or maybe even the time when I got caught loudly snoring in the middle of a lecture.
But no: None of it compares to the mortifying embarrassment of accidentally texting my mother nudies because my friend’s number was one off from hers. I wanted to show off how perky my tits looked. Instead, I got a drug-fuelled rant from my mom about how I dared to send her this filth, and then I had every part of my body critiqued negatively.
Never again.
33. Wrong Twin
In middle school, a boy I’d never met asked me to be his girlfriend in a park. Thinking he was good-looking, I said yes, but that we should get to know each other first. He then looked at me confused and said, “Jago, we’ve been texting for a whole week.” Jago is my twin sister’s name.
34. Does Anyone Else Feel A Draft?
Growing up, I shared a room with my sister, who is four years older than me, so we often accidentally exchanged clothes. Once when I was in the first grade getting ready for school, l could not find my underwear for the life of me. Logic at that young age convinced me it was alright to borrow my sister’s underwear. They were very loose on me, but I could still somehow keep them from falling down by holding onto them (I was wearing a skirt).
It was all good up until recess. That's when everything went wrong. I got too excited on my way to play with my friends…and some way, somehow, my underwear completely fell past my ankles and got left on the playground pavement. I played it cool: I pretended it didn’t happen and that it wasn’t me, even though everyone saw. So, I spent the rest of the school day going commando.
Somehow, that wasn’t even the most embarrassing thing that happened that year, so people never bugged me about it.
35. Occupado!
In the second grade, my classroom had its own bathroom, and I was, well...using it. All of a sudden, the door opened, and I briefly saw my teacher standing there. She immediately shut the door, and I hoped none of my classmates saw me. But when I walked out, this girl said, “I saw your underwear! I saw your underwear!” Ten years later, I still remember that and cringe every time I think about it…
36. Oh…Oh, No.
I thought it would be funny to hand in my two-week notice at work via a sympathy card. I didn’t know that the mother of his kids had passed over the weekend. I still feel awful about it five years later.
37. A Class Act
When I was in the first grade, I needed to take a massive poop, and the dang teacher wouldn’t let me go to the bathroom. I even told her that I would poop in my own underwear, but she didn’t believe me. So, I let it all out. INSTANT REGRET. The feeling of mudded excrement going through my downstairs was the most awful, wet feeling ever.
She sent me to the office to find any lost and found clothes to use. No luck. So, my mom got called while I balled my eyes out. For whatever reason, I ended up taking off my pants and walking back to my classroom to get my backpack, probably leaving a trail of poop all over the place. Since I lived just down the street, I walked back home with shame and embarrassment.
So many people were driving by, but I didn’t want my mom to walk with me so that she wouldn’t feel embarrassed. Once I got home, I hopped into the shower and cleaned myself up for a good hour. Screw you Miss Mansell!
38. Alrighty Then…
During my first couple of weeks at a paint store, I noticed that one of our largest customers (who happens to be in his 70s and has a severe limp) was signing for his paint with his left hand. Since I’m a lefty, I am legally bound to make a lefty joke. Me: “How long have you been left-handed?” Customer: “Ever since the stroke.”
39. Hang In There
I was on the phone with customer support. The call was coming to an end, and I thought it would be hilarious to say, “No, you hang up!” It didn’t land, and the rep just said, “Excuse me?” I nearly perished and hung up straight away. I’m still haunted by that moment.
40. She Hit The Bar Pretty Hard
I was working a shift as a dancer at a new club. I’d gotten pretty tipsy during my shift and decided to try performing a trick on the spinning pole. Unfortunately, I was not used to spinning poles, and I wasn’t much of a trickster either. I flew off that bad boy and landed right on my face. I also knocked myself out for a good few seconds and woke up to men rushing the stage to help me up.
It was embarrassing as heck, but I ended up making loads of money because people felt bad.
41. Kids Say The Darndest Things
When I was 12, I watched a movie about someone visiting a loved one in prison—it was a conjugal visit. I didn’t know what that meant since the “visit” was all that really got depicted. So, I boldly turned to my dad and said that if he ever went to prison, I’d have conjugal visits with him as well. He said, “I wish you wouldn’t,” and then laughed. Anyway...
42. The School Was Suitably Impressed
Some kid and I agreed to wear tuxedos to the last day of middle school. I was too young and stupid to realize he wasn’t serious, so I convinced my mom to front the cost of renting a tuxedo which I spent the next several weeks paying off. I won an academic award that year, too, so not only did I show up in a tuxedo, I had to go up in front of the whole school in the gym to accept the award.
43. That Awkward Moment When…
When I was in a quite full public transport vehicle, someone sitting stood up and offered the seat to me. At least, that was what I thought; it was actually for the person behind me, but I’d already sat down before I realized.
44. Legend Says He’s Still Running
One time I forgot to zip up my shorts after using the restroom at Panda Express, and when I went to order my food, I was COMPLETELY unaware that my schlong was poking through my boxers and shorts. The lady got a huge smile on her face when I told her my initial order. I was very confused by this reaction but didn’t think too much of it. About halfway through the order, I felt a draft in my nether region and looked down to find myself exposed.
I hastily put it back in, zipped my shorts, and literally ran out of the restaurant. I haven’t been back since.
45. Welp, Now Urine Trouble
When I was like seven or eight, I stayed over at a friend’s for a sleepover. I had to go to the bathroom late that night, but it was down a super creepy dark corridor, and I was too spooked. So, my friend suggested I just pee in one of his baby brother’s diapers, and I was so desperate that I did. His mom then came in to find me holding a soaked diaper with pee all over the floor whilst he was laughing hysterically. 1/10 I want to self-destruct every time it comes back to me, which is at least twice a week.
46. Class Dismissed
When I was in high school, I once asked a teacher if she was a member of the Mile High Club in front of the entire class. I had never flown before and was not aware that the Mile High Club was for people who “do it” on planes. I was thinking about the memberships where you sit in private rooms to wait for your plane and get free things. I basically wanted to off myself afterward. Yes, she was attractive; no, she did not answer.
47. En Garde
My cousin and I found a couple of “adult toys” at his parent’s place and started using them in sword fights. We were swinging them wildly, so no one seemed to notice what they were. My cousin was holding his “sword” by the balls while I had my “sword” the other way around like a club, and he knocked mine clean out of my hand right into the living room.
My aunt shrieked loudly, followed by the dog picking it up and running away with it as a stick. When we finally caught the dog, I asked my uncle what it was, and he said it was a cake mold, which made sense at that time. There were bite marks on it; the dog went to town on that one.
48. Cuz It’s Wrong
My most embarrassing moment happened at school. My high school history teacher called me and the girl I was dating into her office, asked us about the nature of our relationship—then she dropped a bombshell. She revealed that we were cousins and she was our aunt…and that we should not be dating. We didn’t know.
49. What A Jerk
I fell asleep on a plane one time, and I had the aisle seat. I did that thing where you jump in your dream, and I jerked myself awake. Unfortunately, my legs flew out when I jumped, and one of them flew into the aisle. I tripped the flight attendant, and she went down like a ton of bricks. I sheepishly apologized to her, but she was not happy at all.
Everyone on the flight looked at me like I was the biggest witch on earth. The rest of the flight was terrible; I kept my head down and didn’t make a peep.
50. He Almost Became The Villain
During a family meal, I delivered a whole lecture on how the parents of many Disney protagonists were either deceased or missing by the time of the movies. I did this remaining completely oblivious of the fact that my brother’s girlfriend, who was present at the table, had lost her own mother just a few weeks before. I only realized the depth of my mistake upon noticing my brother gently signaling me to shut up.
I have never felt so embarrassed in my life. I don’t know how she managed to forgive me.
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