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February 4, 2020 | Simon B.

Never Forget: The Embarrassing Moments That Haunt People To This Day


Few things can haunt us like the ghastly, cringey things we have done in our most mortifying moments. But rather than face those painful memories, let’s sweep our misfortunes under the rug and revel in the misery of others, as we explore these dusty and web-ridden closets full of embarrassing moments; told by the people who are haunted by them to this day.


1. Soul Destruction

I married into an Italian and Greek family. They are very affectionate. They do the cheek kiss thing upon greeting and departing, the whole caboodle. I came from a no-touch home. We didn't kiss, hug, shoulder pat, or touch each other in any way, shape or form, so it took me a good amount of time to get used to this type of behavior. I only learned my lesson the hard way.

There was a point in the summer when I was still new to the family when my father-in-law went in to kiss my cheek and I turned to kiss his and we accidentally brushed lips. We immediately drew back from each other and he poked fun at me for "not turning the right way," only for me to die a little inside. I will never forget that for as long as I live.

Die A Little Inside factsShutterstock

2. Trick or Treat

Trick or treating with my little brother as kids. This woman several houses down is standing on her porch looking directly at me and hollers "Hey! Do you want to trick or treat with us?" My brother is across the street, so I holler uncomfortably loud, "Hey, you want to trick or treat with them?" I turn back to the woman and she goes, "Oh... actually I was talking to those people," and points behind me to different kids. I died that day.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Flickr, Steven Depolo

3. Animal Farm

I had to help a few teachers for a day at school. I was asked to grab an "Animal Farm book" from a classroom. I got to the classroom, and asked for "Anna McFarnbook" at least five times, then realized 30 minutes later that I completely misread the call.

Dumbest Things Heard factsShutterstock

4. The Great Miscommunication

I worked at a cancer center in my early 20s. The most hated part of my job was calling up the people who had not booked their yearly post-treatment check-ups. 80% of the time, that person was deceased. One ordinary day, I was calling my list and just as the family member of the patient was telling me he was deceased, a co-worker came back from lunch pick up, walked past my desk and said, "The food you ordered is in the break room."

Speaking to him, I said "Ok, great." Then I got hit with a wave of dread when I heard the deceased man's wife say, "Great?! Screw you!" and slammed the phone down. I felt like puking. I tried to call her back, no answer. I sent an official letter of apology, no response. It still haunts me.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

5. The Leash

Not something I said but something I did. About ten years ago when I was dating my ex-boyfriend, we took his dog out for a walk. When we got to the park, he said that he was going to let him run around a bit but that the dog can be naughty sometimes and try to run away, so it may be difficult to get him back. Instead of removing the lead, he just dropped it on the ground and let the pup run around with it still attached.

Shortly after that my ex got a phone call, was a bit distracted, and the dog was running around like mad. I called for him to come back and he didn't really listen, so as he went to run past me, I panicked and slammed my foot down on the lead. He flung backward and I basically choked the poor little guy. I will never forget the look on my ex's face at the time. Still haunts me ten years later...

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Pexels

6. The Gasoline Man

I don't know why I do things like this. I was off for an entire day, but I just couldn’t act like a normal person for some reason. So, I was filling up some gas tanks and sprayed my feet with gas by accident (I was born without a sense of smell, important detail for later). Once my gas tanks were filled, I called my grandparents to tell them I was on my way to put the gas under their porch.

On this call, they told me my cousin and her fiancé were over. Ok cool, I’ll stay and say hi for a minute. I walk in, say what’s up, and ask my grandpa for the keys. After saying hi to everyone, for no darn reason, I completely forgot my cousin’s fiancé’s name, even though my grandpa just said his name when I was on the phone not even ten minutes ago...first cringe.

Second cringe was after I dropped off the gas and came back in, my grandma tells me I smell like gas and to leave my shoes outside. For whatever reason, after I come back in after taking them off, I just can’t keep a normal conversation. Accidentally talking over people, looking at the wrong person while talking to someone else, saying off-topic things, just being weird.

Last cringe was when my cousin and her fiancé were saying bye, I said, “How about a handshake?” as my cousin is already hugging me...as she looks at me weird, I say, “You know because of the gas...” I swear I was stone-cold sober the entire day, and I’m not usually this awkward or weird. Safe to say when I went home, I had a few mixed drinks and wondered if I was actually mentally challenged for a while.

So Crazy, No One Believes FactsShutterstock

7. The Beach Day Party

When I was in kindergarten, we had a beach day party. My teacher brought in a beach ball and we were allowed to wear swimsuits. It just so happened that day was a little chilly, so my mom wouldn't let me wear a swimsuit to school. Instead, she put it in my backpack. I was angry because I thought I was going to miss out for not wearing the suit.

So, I went UNDER the bus seat and thinking that no one could see me, proceeded to completely UNDRESS (yes, even my underwear) and put my suit on. Obviously, people were watching me. But that wasn't even the worst part. At one point, my butt was sticking out slightly into the aisle and I ACTUALLY YELLED, "Don't look at my butt!"

Then, I was told that we were going to change at school so I calmly got back under and put my clothes on. Keep in mind, I was female and the majority of my bus mates were BOYS. But by some crazy miracle, I wasn't even SLIGHTLY embarrassed. How? I don't know.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

8. Careless Whisper

I was in a women’s youth group and my leader was in a car accident when she was a teen that messed up her voice box. She had to whisper to speak. One day I got a call and it was a whisper saying, “Is (my name) there?” Thinking it was my sister messing with me, I replied with a whisper, “Yes, this is her.” It was not my sister.

She didn’t say anything about it and I immediately used my normal voice, but I wanted to sink into the floor.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Pixabay

9. Lost in Translation

Ok, so I remember volunteering in an elderly home around one or two years ago for school and most of them spoke Chinese. Now my Chinese is absolute trash, I’m barely able to give a short introduction without messing up somewhere. So, with my trashy luck, I was chosen to read out the numbers for bingo (with someone helping to read them in Tamil, Malay, etc.).

After a few numbers were called, someone finally wins. Now I didn’t know what to do, so I decided to try to say “give him a round of applause” in Chinese. With my little knowledge in the Chinese language, I ended up making an incredibly embarrassing mistake. I said  “给他一巴掌,” which means “give him one slap” in Chinese.

Immediately everyone started laughing and it took me a few seconds for my mind to process what I had said. I started apologizing profusely was almost going to die of embarrassment. Of course, all the elderly decided to joke about my mishap for the entirety of the game. Never going to volunteer for this type of stuff ever again.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

10. Finding Nemo Facepalm

I had a mate in high school whose dad had recently passed on from cancer. A group of us were hanging out at lunch break and somehow, we got onto the topic of Finding Nemo. I don’t know why but I blurted out, “Imagine if Nemo’s dad was dead!” The room just went silent and then I made it worse by immediately going, “Sorry...” Possibly the cringiest moment of my life. I still have no idea why I said it.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Shutterstock

11. The Passing of Wind

A girl I was dating at the time in high school was hanging with me during a free period. So, we stayed in a teacher's room who was friendly and just talked/did homework. I was feeling really sick and full of phlegm, but I didn't do homework the night before and really needed it done. She noticed that I looked deathly ill and asked if I was okay.

Before I could respond, the anxiety and fear of responding made me pass gas, which I tried to hide. Then I did something so embarrassing, she broke up with me. That contraction made me somehow sneeze, so I not only passed wind loudly in a quiet room in front of her and the teacher, but blew nasty boogers all over her.

She ended up almost crying out of grossness and cut things off shortly after.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

12. The Departing Kiss

I've shared this story before, but I still cringe when I think about my first solo date back in high school. I had a huge crush on this girl; I thought she was really cool and I loved her art, so I couldn't believe that she said yes. We went to the zoo because it was free; we were just broke teenagers and we had a blast. Afterward, we went to grab some food at this place before having to split off to go home.

Our trains were heading in opposite directions and the entrances were across the street from each other, so I walked with her to her side to say goodbye. I closed my eyes and awkwardly leaned in to give her a kiss goodbye, and she went in more for a hug. I ended up headbutting her in the face and her nose started bleeding.

I was so embarrassed and didn't know what to say, so I just asked, "Are you okay?" She replied, "I think so." Still not knowing what to do I just said, "Okay, bye!" and then ran across the street to catch my train. It was so painfully awkward and embarrassing, I avoided her for weeks after that. And nope, we did not date again.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPixabay

13. The Clogged Toilet

When I was 11 years old, I had a poop at school and it clogged the toilet. Someone thought it was bark from the playground and told the teacher. After lunchtime, the teachers set up a meeting with the classes that were allowed to use the toilet and told us that whoever put the bark in the toilet had to own up or our camp would be canceled.

I was way too embarrassed to confess in front of the class and I felt horrible. I think one guy ended up confessing to get the class out of trouble (actual legend). I decided I would tell the teacher after school, but then something even worse happened. The cleaner came in and whispered something to the teacher in charge and the teacher told the class it was a big misunderstanding.

I wanted to die. I think I'm over it now, but that haunted me for a long time.

_

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Pexels

14. The False Execution

The stupidest thing I've said was at the end of several screw ups because I was daft. I was into this girl for a long time, and liked her a lot. She was adorable and funny. Now, strike one was that she was a giggly mess around me. It was a nice ego boost, but I didn’t think much of it. Strike two was those little heart things you can send in Instagram messages.

We'd spam the heck out of those to each other. I just thought it was funny. Strike three was that I was who she went to for ALL the advice. The dumbest thing I ever said was strike four. We were talking as we walked and she says, "Yeah, there's this guy I like, not sure if he likes me, but we send each other a lot of hearts on Instagram...”

I thought she was asking for advice, so I said in my infinite wisdom, "That’s not necessarily true! We send each other hearts all the time on Instagram and it doesn't mean anything!" Oh God.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPexels

15. Happy Valentine’s Day

I’ve had lots of embarrassing moments, but here's one that popped into my head recently. Once as a boy scout, we were tasked with making Valentine’s Day cards for some residents of an old folks' home. Or so I thought. Being the morbid and hilarious kid I thought I was, I made one up with a bunch of arrows piercing a gory, disembodied human heart, sort of sitting there slumped over in a puddle of blood.

The cards turned out to be for veterans. Like WW2, Korea, Vietnam; we were making valentines for a bunch of veterans and I handed this disgusting second-grader's illustration over and could barely contain my own glee as I handed it off to this totally bewildered, silent old man. At the time I didn't think anything of it, besides the fact that I was awesome.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

16. Expecting the Best

I was at a party with a girl who I had a lot of back and forth flirting with for a good while. We both got drunk and it got a bit physical in the garden and the kitchen. When it came time for everyone to leave, the girl whose place it was asked if I wanted the bed in the spare room for the night, since I often stay at her place. I gave the other girl a look and we both went upstairs.

In the morning, the girl was gone and I had no trousers on, so presumed the best. When I finally discovered what really happened, I wanted to crawl in a hole and die. Turns out we were both far too drunk to do anything. I had thrown up on her hair and she left shortly after I had undressed. Many people had been in and out of the room in the morning looking for coats only to be greeted by a sleeping me. I haven't spoken to her in months.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

17. The Flying Leg

Context: I am a double amputee and I wear two prosthetics. I was on a field trip to the Football Hall of Fame in 7th or 8th grade, and there were a few other schools there as well. We did exercises, took turns jumping over obstacles, running, stuff like that. Well, near the end of the exercises, before lunch, it was my turn to jump over something. I fell, and one of my legs FLEW off...in front of everyone.

At first, I was embarrassed, and I remember asking out loud, "Did my leg fall off?" One of my friends helped me back up and I had a good laugh about it with everyone else.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPexels

18. The Love Letter

When I was in kindergarten, I was being stupid and I wrote a “love letter” to some girl. Then she tried to open it in front of the whole class, so I decided I would stand up and start chanting, “RIP IT, RIP IT, RIP IT!” Of course, nobody else was chanting, and so to make matters worse I ripped the paper out of her hands and started tearing it apart.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

19. The Swim Team

When I was in primary school, I went to one swimming competition, did really poorly, and never went to another. A few months later, the whole school was sitting in an assembly and the head teacher was praising the swim team’s recent accomplishments. She asked them to stand up using the words “you know who you are” so that we could applaud them. This is where I made a huge mistake.

I decided that he must have been talking about the competition I was in and stood up. I immediately realized my error when all of the kids who were standing up were two years above me. But I couldn't just sit down, so I just stood there accepting the applause with the rest of the team. Afterward, the whole team found me outside and enquired why I stood up.

I just said “I wanted to” and then ran away. This was 20 years ago. I still think about it often.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

20. The Waterpark

I had a great day at a waterpark/outdoor pool and towards the afternoon a woman came up to me and whispered in my ear that I have a problem with my swimsuit. I reached behind a noticed a huge gap. The fabric was torn right in the middle and you could see my white, untanned butt crack. I was running around like this all day and no one said anything.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPixabay

21. Watch This!

I was at my friend’s birthday party in high school and was super drunk. I ran up to a group of people and said: “Watch this!” I then proceeded to run and dive into a bounce house. That's when my absolute nightmare happened. The Velcro-lined entrance grabbed my sweats AND my boxers pulled them down to my ankles.

I’ll never forget the looks of horror on their faces while I laid there on my back with my legs in the air showing off all my goodies.

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22. The Surprise

I was on an airplane years ago with my girlfriend and her parents. My girlfriend couldn't get a seat next to me and sat directly behind me. During the flight, I thought I would surprise her and reached my hand back onto her knee. Slowly I kept extending it up her thigh until I heard giggling. I looked behind through the seats and saw that my hand was on the leg of the guy next to her.

He saw my face and said, "I just wanted to see how far you'd go." Of course, my girlfriend was in on it and started laughing along with the rest of the row. I was so embarrassed.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPixabay

23. Shoeless in Seoul

I had made a short film that had gotten into a festival and I had to travel down to Busan from Seoul on the fast train—super expensive. I was looking good, wearing cool clothes, including a pair of leather shoes I had thrifted. Bad mistake. By the time I left the subway in Busan and walked 100 meters towards the theatre, the top of one of the shoes was starting to flap.

I managed to hook my big toe over it to hold it down, but the sides were now lifting up. People I was passing were starting to notice as it looked like I had a club foot. In the end, I had to take the shoe off and throw it away. I now had one shoe and a limp, but my nightmare day was far from over. This was in an area full of apartments; NO SHOPS.

Not even a convenience store. I hopped along, then the other shoe came apart and I had to throw that away. What the heck should I do? I'm in an unfamiliar city, shoeless, and on top of that, the glue had left big black oily patches on my feet. I walked shoeless to the theatre. If you know Korea at all, you know how well-dressed people are.

I honestly didn't know what I should do. Not go? Even though I was expected and it would ruin my reputation? I honestly felt like crying. I made it to the theatre and was ushered to the front before I could explain my situation to my co-director. I had to give a speech shoe-less and with oily feet to people I was trying to impress. Then I had to walk to find a store shoe-less.

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24. The Spores

In third grade, we were in the computer lab, and my teacher asked me to go back to the classroom and get everyone's spores. Spores. We had been studying fungi in science, and we had been taking spore prints of mushrooms. I went back to the room, grabbed the container that had 15 mushrooms in it and brought it to my teacher.

He stared at it for what felt like 20 minutes, and then said, "No. SCORES. My grade book." I think about that so often and that was more than 20 years ago...

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

25. Oh, Hi Mark

I was really drunk once, and I got a phone call. I thought the caller ID said "Matt," which was the name of a good friend at the time, so I yelled an inappropriate hello into the phone. Turns out it wasn't Matt...it was the worst possible person. It was "Mark," who was my boss at the time. He was calling to ask if I could come in that evening to cover a shift. He was very old school, late fifties, with no sense of humor.

The awkward silence before he awkwardly pretended that he hadn't heard it will haunt me forever.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Shutterstock

26. A Powerful Sneeze

This was during my sophomore year in math class. I sat between two gentlemen. I was really congested that day and thus pretty tired at the same time. I was resting my head in my hand and hunched over my math book when I felt a sneeze coming. I went to lean back but apparently didn't move quick enough when the force of this sneeze sent my face hurling into my desk.

My head smacked the desk so hard that I bounced back up like a basketball. At that point, I was just dizzy and like, "Uh..." Meanwhile, the two guys next to me just completely lose their heads. The one on the right is howling with laughter. The one on the left has his face in his hands and is snorting. The teacher looked at us so confused and all I could say was, "...I sneezed."

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27. Nice to See You

In 11th grade, I was interviewing for a leadership position in a club for next year. I was really nervous and I walk in and there are a bunch of teachers there as interviewers. When I shake the first teacher’s hand, instead of saying nice to see you, I said the most embarrassing thing ever: "Nice to look at you." Face went tomato red. I still cringe at that when I'm lying in bed at night.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

28. Struck by Beauty

I walked face-first into a street light lamp post because I was staring at a beautiful girl walking towards 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.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPexels

29. Food Poisoning

Recently went on a vacation with some friends and a mutual friend who I don't know that well. Him and I took the pullout couches, and his was right next to the bathroom. Already a recipe for disaster—but I never expected it to go as horribly as it did. Later one night, when we were all walking around away from our hotel, I got the stomach rumbles.

Then the nausea hit. I have never felt so sick in my life. It felt like someone was grabbing my insides and twisting them. The second we got back to our hotel I made a beeline for the bathroom. Through that paper-thin wall, this guy I barely knew heard me release pure liquid out of my butt (complete with loud, wet gas), cry, and vomit in a trash can in front of me.

I spent the rest of the night shivering in bed and making runs to the bathroom. I hit the "been married for a decade" barrier with them in a single night.

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30. Shrug It off

My sophomore year of high school, I had a crush on a girl who I had a class with. We’d talked a few times but I didn’t know her that well. It was around Valentine’s Day and our school did a thing where you could pay $10 and student volunteers would go sing a song you picked, in class, to whoever you picked, and give them a card.

So instead of approaching her like a normal person for a date, I decided to go with the singing Valentine. I plunked down my $10, signed up, and started getting extremely nervous about the next day. That afternoon I told my friend what I’d done and he started laughing. And laughing. More than if he were just laughing at a bad idea. Then he told me the awful truth.

He said that the girl had a boyfriend, he was a senior, and I was an idiot. The next morning, I explained the situation to a friend of mine who was involved in the program and after he finished laughing, he told me it was too late. Singing assignments were out, and it was going to happen. There was absolutely nothing I could do about it.

My only hope was that, since singers and time are limited, they wouldn’t get to mine, which is a thing that would sometimes happen and you got your $10 back. So, our class together rolls around (which of course I had sent it to that one) and I start watching the clock. A couple other people got the singing Valentines but with about 10 minutes left, mine still hadn’t come.

Then the door opened—and it was even worse than I'd imagined. Instead of one person with a boom box like it usually was, there were three. One was the guy I had begged to cancel it, who gave me the biggest smile as they set up. Now, song options had been limited. This was before streaming existed so it was just what they happened to have CDs of.

I honestly didn’t know most of the songs, and didn’t want to go sappy, so I went with the one higher tempo song I knew: "Wild Thing." They announced who the Valentine was for and she blushed, I’m sure assuming it was from her boyfriend. They started singing and she blushed harder. They handed her the card that I had written my name in and her face stopped being pink and went far more red.

She looked over at me and all I could do was shrug. After they left, she said, out loud, “But (my name), I have a boyfriend!” and then everyone knew it was from me. I just muttered that I’d found out too late, happy Valentine’s Day and I’m sorry. That was the most embarrassed I’ve ever been.

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31. In Hot Water

When I was 16 years old, I went to a waterpark with slides, pools and all with my uncle and two younger cousins. I wore a regular bikini and went swimming in some pools with my cousins for about 40 minutes. We then went to this big slide thing, and after that, we got in line to do an even bigger one with my uncle too.

As I'm standing in line, I hear some teenagers laugh behind me, and I turned around to see one of them pointing at me and quickly stop as they saw me stare back. I then looked down. I had bits of wet, white toilet paper all down my legs. When I was a teenager, I used to always fold toilet paper and put it in my underwear to prevent discharge staining them.

I must have done it automatically and forgot I was wearing a bathing suit. I have never felt so exposed and ashamed in my life. There wasn't just a little bit. I started trying to get it off, but there was always more. I tried to play it cool as I was chatting to my uncle, and I know for a fact he noticed because he always notices little things.

But thankfully, he never said a word. We are not that close which made it all the more awkward, along with the fact I was touching my crotch way too much. I was paranoid for the rest of the day for there to be more.

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32. The Sandcastle

I was in kindergarten and was playing in the sandbox at recess one day with my friend. We were making a sandcastle but didn’t have any sand that was wet enough to form a solid structure. I had been holding my pee for a while, and being five years old I didn’t want to stop playing, so I let it out while I was sitting and promptly let my friend know that I had magically found some wet sand that we could build with, and no one was the wiser. We built a darn good castle. Sorry, Matthew.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsLibreshot

33. The Maniacal Laugh

There’s a woman I go to school with. We have mutual friends and I find her physically attractive, but despite that, my feelings toward her are...a mixed-bag (for lack of a better term). During freshman year, I was leaving a room one day and almost walked right by her. When I noticed it was her, my brain and heart panicked simultaneously.

After duking it out, the two came to the conclusion that the perfect response to this dilemma was to start laughing. Maniacally. She stopped, turned around, and stared at me. Other people who left surrounding rooms stopped to stare at me. I was so mortified, and it only got worse. I’m pretty sure I was still laughing as I made my escape. Not my proudest moment.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments facts Shutterstock

34. Falling for You

In primary school, there was a school-wide assembly in the hall. I was a sixth-grader sitting on the hard floor with my class then I got called up the front because I'd won an award. So, I proceed to stand up, but sitting on the hard floor gave me a dead leg and my foot collapsed under me, making me immediately fall over on top of the girl who was sitting next to me. In front of the entire school.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPixnio

35. The Fist Bump

There was one morning at my previous job where I worked as a drafting assistant (basically just a highly technical administrative assistant who also performed technical writing) when I did something ungodly embarrassing. I was walking around one of the mechanical shops, checking up on a project, taking notes, pictures, marking stuff up—my usual routine.

Well, as I come around the corner of a vehicle, there are two mechanical engineers working on the door. I can't recall exactly what I was checking at that moment, but during my attempt to get a good look, one of the engineers reached out his fist to give me a friendly morning fist-bump. Now, I'd love to be able to say that I was tired that morning, or that I was simply too preoccupied with what I was doing. But that would be a lie.

Here's what happened next—may God have mercy on my soul. I lowered my clipboard and my pen and I stared at his fist for a good moment. I then turned to look up towards the man's face. I stared some more. And then I turned my attention back to his fist and continued to look. The man was still holding his fist out waiting for me. But at this point, my lack of response got the attention of the other engineer he was working with.

And so now he was looking at me. Two engineers staring directly at me, one with his fist out, and me looking at the fist. Finally, though, I begin to outstretch my hand. However, instead of reaching out and returning the fist-bump in kind, I extended my index finger. The two men's attention followed my hand. And, like a child touching a foreign substance, I pressed my finger to his fist.

The man slowly returned his fist. He and his partner became transfixed on the part of his hand that my finger touched. The man held his hand up to see if I left a mark. His partner joined him in looking. There was no mark. They looked back towards me. I looked at them and then smiled. I then made my way back to my office. I was about halfway there before I realized the absolute absurdity of my actions.

Once I got back, I didn't leave my office for the rest of the day.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

36. The Bro Code

I was on a road trip with some friends. We stop for gas and a bathroom break. I walk into the empty men's room with my best bud right behind me and I take the closest of the three urinals. In a rare break from Bro Code, my buddy takes the one right next to me. The urinals have dividers so not a major infraction, but still—I want to teach him a lesson.

So, as he's in full stream, I reach around the divider and grab his elbow and shake the heck out of it, in an attempt to get him to pee all over himself. Suddenly I hear this strange voice say, "Well, I didn't know you wanted to hold my hand." I slowly lean back and look to my left only to see my buddy at the FAR urinal leaning back and looking at me. Oh my God.

Turns out an elderly man had ghosted into the restroom between me and my buddy, and took the urinal between us. He actually thought it was funny. My buddy collapsed in the corner laughing, and that's how I grossed out an old man in a truck stop bathroom.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsFlickr, Richie Diesterheft

37. The Opportune Moment

I was at an NFL game and something I had ate earlier had just wrecked my stomach and left me with horrible gas. Like the kind that clears a room it is so bad. I was walking up the stairs to my seat mid-game and really had to let one rip. Right then, the crowd cheered and I thought the moment was right. But I had missed something crucial.

What I didn’t realize is that my butt was at the same level as a woman sitting in her seat on the aisle, and I literally released right in her ear. I looked back at her as she looked at me with shock and disgust. I quickly turned away and climbed the stairs as fast as I could and blended into the crowd. I still think about her time to time, and how horrible that must have truly been for her and just cringe at what an idiot I was.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsWikimedia Commons

38. The Picture

I wasn't there when it happened, but I have like, residual embarrassment because I sent my wife a naked picture of myself. She opened her phone screen to show something to her family and, "Oh, I have a message from my husband, what could this be? OH GOD!"

Cheating Exes FactsShutterstock

39. The Hurricane

This is going to sound ridiculous but it’s all true. Pooped on my friend’s pillow when I was six years old pretending to be a hurricane...that still haunts me. To bring some clarity to the situation let me tell you. Pretending to be a hurricane isn’t hard. Especially when you’re six years old. Sure, it’s hard to get into character and fully embody the destructive force that is a hurricane, but in the end, I think I nailed it.

Let’s go back in time to when I was six. I was staying over at a friend’s house for a sleepover, and everyone knows six-year-olds are ridiculous. Upon waking up, we were playing with toys and stuff. Someone had a nerf and tried to shoot another kid but he said, “You can’t hit me, I’m a tornado.” And that’s it, he had no acting classes obviously, because he didn’t even try to portray it.

Just said it like it was a fact and that we should take it to heart. But I knew he was a filthy freaking liar and not a tornado. So, six-year-old me looks at said kid and spurts something along the lines of, “The only thing worse than a tornado is a hurricane.”I spread my arms like a soaring eagle and begin to spin towards him.

Fully taking in the destructive nature of a hurricane. Just really living it, you know. Now I don’t know if it was the spinning or if it was what I ate the night before. But my little hurricane tummy must have been ready for a poop I wasn’t aware of. As I’m spinning there is another friend who was the kid who’s house we were at.

He was still in his sleeping bag on the floor playing a Gameboy or some handheld device. I went to jump over him. Now the next part was just as unexpected for me as it was for the kids. When I landed, it forced some gas out. Which graduated into a poop. A full-on graduation with honors. It magically made it out of my boxers and landed on his pillow right next to his face. Everyone said it was gross.

Nothing has ever stopped a hurricane in its tracks quite like that accident. I cried from embarrassment when I got home and stopped getting invited to sleepovers for a while. And that is the absolutely true story of how I pooped on a pillow pretending to be a hurricane.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

40. Walk of Shame

Ugh. I didn’t have a car so I was walking home from work one day. I knew a ton of people in the vicinity because my job was about a five-minute drive from my apartment. There was a long line of cars waiting for a light as I was walking. Someone leans out the window, waves, and motions me to come forward. Thinking it was one of my friends from work, I started running toward the car.

I got halfway across four lanes of traffic before she yelled out the window NOT YOU. She was motioning to a homeless girl and trying to give her some cash. And that long line of cars had to watch me sadly walk back across the road and to the connecting street. Felt great.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

41. The Footloose Dance

I still think of it when I walk into the offices at work. Usually when I arrive there’s nobody there and I go ahead and do my thing. I walked in to work, music blasting out of my earbuds, doing the footloose dance. I do a swirl and turn around to see a full conference room of people just staring at me for a solid 10 seconds. Did not know there was an early meeting that day.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

42. A Rumbly Tummy

I was on a date and we decided to go to sushi, one of those decently affordable but kind of sketchy ones. I was really craving Korean short ribs cause that stuff is the best. Lo and behold, the sushi restaurant had it on the menu! Fantastic! I ate it, it was delicious. But on the bus ride home my tummy started to feel a little rumbly.

No big deal. We would be home in 20. Well, over the course of that bus ride it turned into a grave situation. Water at the floodgates kind of thing, but I was off the bus now and we started our 5-minute walk home. I made it about 40 steps before the horror began. My date was next to me and I just said, "Oh no, it's happening."

The only thing that saved me was there was an area off the side where it was dark and no one would see me. I hid until my date got back with a pair of pants. I left the poopy pants behind. I'm really sorry to whoever found that. I made him swear on his mom's grave that he would never tell anyone. We broke up, and to this day I still wonder if he kept his promise.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

43. Sharing Is Caring

Not me, but a mate. He was out on a first date. According to him, on his first mouthful of food some of it hit the back of his throat and he coughed. A piece of food flew out and landed on his date’s food. Apparently, she didn't see the funny side. If memory serves correctly, she didn't eat any of her food. Can't say I blame her.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

44. The Ultimate Humiliation

I went to a small school with about 50 kids per grade. I didn't get along very well with a lot of the kids there, and I did not get along with the popular guy in school, but I had my small group of friends. However, there were not many girls at our school, and I didn't socialize with any of them that were worth talking to.

That changed when a new girl came to our school in sixth grade. Over the first few months of school we became friends, and I got her number to talk to her outside of school. Things are going great and I end up asking her out, and she said yes. Word started getting around that we were “dating” (like the next day), and the popular guy in school informed me that I was too much of a loser to be dating her.

He said that he was going to get her to go out with him instead, even though he was not interested in her prior to me asking her out. Later that week, a kid in our class was having a birthday party at his house and everyone in school was invited. I didn't like the kid, so I planned on not going. I asked my new girlfriend if she was going to go, and she said she wasn't going either, so we planned to talk on the phone that night.

She called me later that night to chat. I don't remember the whole conversation, but I do remember her asking questions on why I liked her, what I liked about her, why I asked her out etc...At some point, she informed me that she didn't want to go out with me anymore, and she was going to go out with the popular guy in school.

Right then, I heard the laughter of practically everyone in our class, but most of all I could hear the obnoxious laughter of the popular guy in school.She had called me from the party, with our whole class listening to the call, to ask me why I liked her, just to let me know she was going to date the popular kid instead of me...I've had a lot of embarrassing moments in life, but nothing quite compares to that

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPixabay

45. Let It Fly

I had just got off the train to work and was strolling up the hill to the office when I felt a pressing urge to let one fly. There was no one around so I let 'er rip, figuring it wouldn't be anything too out of the ordinary. But I miscalculated badly. It was a much bigger proposition than I'd thought it'd be. It was enormous. Loud, raucous, a true dog-frightener.

I was just in the process of congratulating myself on birthing such a monster without even breaking stride when a small woman, all dressed for the office, went hurrying by, her stilettos tack-tack-tacking on the concrete path. The realization didn't really hit me for about five seconds, but she would have been only a pace or two behind me when I let fly and she was obviously hurrying to put as much distance between me and her as humanly possible.

Oh, God! I was so embarrassed. I ducked into the nearest doorway and let her get a good hundred meters up the road before I continued on my way.

Worst Thing Found in Hotel FactsShutterstock

46. Bad Hair Day

I helped a friend move once and decided to walk over to a nearby bar one night after we finished. He and his wife were both tired so they went to bed. My night started normal enough with me just sitting at the bar enjoying a beer or three, but then I got to talking to some strangers, and then we started laughing and cutting up.

Then we were buying each other drinks, and then we were doing shots. Then they left, and I was by myself at this bar again absolutely hammered. I should have gone home—but unfortunately for me, my night was just beginning. Well, drunk me decides to be all outgoing with everyone standing outside, and I decide to do this by walking up next to some nice Asian gentleman putting his arm around him and complimenting his hair.

I then turn to the other dozen patrons and say, “Hey, who’s got better hair, him or me?” I hadn’t even done anything with my hair, it doesn’t make any sense why I did this. It was just on my head looking like regular hair. That group was looking at me like that one meme where all those people are looking at the camera with "what the heck" faces.

The Asian guy politely removed my arm from his shoulder and went off with his friends, and soon it was just me and these two older women standing outside. That's when they unleashed their cruel response. One of them looks at me and goes, “Your hair isn’t all that great” before stubbing her dart out and going inside with her friend.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsPixabay

47. The Spelling Bee

In fourth grade, I was asked to be in my school's spelling bee. I was the only fourth grader and the youngest person who would be in it, so I practiced every day for weeks with my mom. The day finally comes, and I get EVERY single word wrong. I never attempted to spell even one letter from the words, I just stood there awkwardly and silently for about 10 seconds each time before I sulked away back into my seat without speaking a word the entire time.

In front of the entire school and staff. I blanked out when the first word they asked me to spell was “rotisserie.”

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsWikimedia Commons

48. Hard to Spot

When I was in primary school, I think year five or something, we had an assembly and I got an award for something—I don’t remember what. Anyway, I get up, get my award, stand there with other award recipients and then people clap and we go back to our line. ANYWAY. I was just getting my glasses, right, so I’m blind, I can’t see well.

I spend like 10-20 minutes in front of everyone looking for the spot I was just sitting in. Nobody helped me. It was just me looking for my spot aimlessly. Eventually, I found it, sat down, and everyone was laughing at me.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsShutterstock

49. The Paid Proposition

I was 13 years old. I paid this kid in my class $10 to tell this girl in my class that I liked her and to ask her if she would go out with me. The stupid kid told her that I paid him and she never confronted me about it until 8th-grade graduation a few months later.

Haunting Embarrassing Moments factsFlickr, Seika

50. What Time Is It?

I was the dumb kid in this case. One time I woke up late for school because my alarm didn't go off. I am incredibly blind without my contacts and just glanced at the clock and was very late. In a furious panic to try somehow make it to the bus I put my contacts in, dunked my hair in water and grabbed my backpack and jacket as I sprinted to the bus stop.

It was the time of year where it's dark outside well into the morning, so it was still pitch black. No one was at the bus stop, so I figured I missed. I still waited for quite some time in case it showed up. When I realized I was so late it wasn't coming I walked back to my house, knowing I would have to wake my mom up to take me to school.

Fortunately, when I walked through the front door, she was already up waiting for me! She greeted me with, "WHERE THE HECK HAVE YOU BEEN?!?!" I responded that I was sorry, but late for the bus and needed her to take me to school. She glared at me and told me it was something like four in the morning.

I had somehow misread my alarm clock in my state of panic and tried to explain that I really did think I was late and was really at the bus stop. She just assumed I had snuck out with friends the night before and was just coming home, something I had been doing off and on for a while at that time. So, I was grounded for sneaking out, when in reality I just woke up too early to go to school.

Queen Christina FactsShutterstock

51. What a Load of Poop

I wasn't allowed to say fart. Instead of saying that, my parents wanted to replace it with "poop." One day in second grade I had one of those horrible, once a month, disgusting smelling farts, and I told my friend "I just pooped!" A girl who was also sitting at our table heard me and raised her hand in front of the entire class to tell the teacher I had just pooped my pants.

The walk of shame to the nurse was not fun after having to explain myself to my teacher and the entire class.

Weirdest Rule FactsShutterstock

52. Good Grief

My mother and I were out walking and we came across an older couple we knew from the local church. Their eldest son had passed on the previous year from an inoperable brain tumor, and their younger son just moved out for university. Mum starts with, "Must be nice to have the house to yourself! More time for Church!"

The conversation devolves from there. She ignores all hints to drop the subject, including the mother stating they hadn't been back to the church since their son passed on. The couple were obviously horrified. I couldn't end the convo quick enough. Afterward, my mother told me I was just being immature and had no conception of what "polite adult conversation" was like.

Lacked Any Self-Awareness factsShutterstock

Sources: , , 3, 4, 5


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