Everyone has embarrassing moments, but these humiliations really take the cake. From awkward doctor's appointments to classroom mishaps, Redditors share their most cringeworthy memories.
1. Sudden Seasickness
I was on a particularly rough ferry crossing with my family and another family we were friends with. The mum of the other family was sitting on a lounge bench seat looking very queasy. That's when she realized she wasn't going to make it to the toilet.
She suddenly grabbed her handbag, tipped everything out of it, and then proceeded to puke violently into it for what seemed like ages. Then she stopped just as suddenly—a terrible look of horror on her face. She slowly lowered the bag from her mouth, staring at its prior contents on the seat next to her.
You see, the bag she'd grabbed was not hers. Instead, it was a similar one that belonged to the complete stranger sitting two seats away from her. She started to apologize profusely and offered to get it cleaned.
Of course, the woman just hurriedly grabbed her things from the seat, got up, and huffed, "You can keep it"! before storming off.
2. Mile Thigh Club
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.
3. Just Like The Movies
My husband and I were driving around the city and it was pouring outside. Absolutely pouring. We were about to pass the light rail train tracks when the crossing gates came down because the light rail was approaching. One idiot in a van decided he could make it across before the gates came all the way down. He kept on driving, but he did not make it.
Instead, his vehicle was now trapped between the gates. We could see from our car that this person was PANICKING. His life was flashing before his eyes. In his movie mind, the light rail was about to crash into the van and drag it for dozens of yards before finally stopping...so he did what anyone would do.
He violently pushed the door open and ran in the pouring rain for his life. He was halfway down the street before he stopped, turned around, and noticed that the light rail was patiently waiting for him to move the vehicle. The door was still open. My husband and I just about fell over laughing.
4. Well That Escalated Quickly
I was 15 and at Sam's Club with my parents. I was in the video game section playing some demo on a PS2. I felt like I needed to let gas out, so I pushed a little. It felt like I had let a silent one out, because I didn't hear it, and it smelled terrible about two seconds afterwards, per usual.
About 30 seconds later, the smell is still lingering and I was just proud that I had caused that much damage to the air. That all changed in an instant. My seven-year-old sister comes up to me and asks where I got the chocolate milk, and how I spilled it on my leg.
I look down, there's liquid poop on my right leg and shorts. I'm terrified because I have it on my leg. I casually walk to the bathroom. Here comes the embarrassing part: I'm in the stall, cleaning up my leg, trying to figure out what the heck to do with my boxers, which are covered in it. I can't keep them because the car will smell on the ride home. I can't leave them in the stall because there were people waiting. I had to flush them.
Well...apparently boxers don't flush well. The toilet backed up, flooding the entire stall and spreading to the rest of the bathroom. I'm freaking out, but I'm clean–I got most of it off my leg. A janitor has entered the restroom, and I exit the offending stall. He asks what happened, and I can't speak. I should have, because the boxers were still in the toilet, clearly visible. I just casually walk out.
MEANWHILE my parents were ready to leave, and couldn't find me. They got worried. This ordeal was going on and was 10 minutes long. Oh, and there was a twist. My sister told them that I walked towards the bathroom with an older man. So, my parents are assuming the worst, and get the security and management involved.
Back to the bathroom. I'm trying to walk out, the janitor finds the boxers and is all huffy-puffy. The manager is walking down the hallway towards the bathroom to try and handle the "missing child with old man" situation. I'm trying to leave the bathroom to handle the "Oh my god, I just pooped my pants and clogged the toiled with my boxers" situation.
Manager stops me, asks me if I was in any type of "situation" and I don't know how to answer. I tell him "there was an incident in the restroom". He takes that as something happened to me with "the old man" who apparently took me. He radios the security to contact law enforcement and to have them head towards the restrooms.
I freak out. I didn't think flushing my underwear warranted them getting involved. My parents get to me and ask if I'm "OK". I'm too embarrassed to tell them what happened, still without knowing what their perception of the matter was. I said "I'm fine". Security is rushing over, asking me if "He's still in there".
I have no idea what they are talking about. They ask me what happened. There is a gathering of rubber-neckers, trying to see what is going on. I'm really confused why this is a huge deal. I confess. I tell them that I mud-butted down my leg, and tried to flush my underwear down the toilet, clogging it in the process.
The looks I got...Worst part was, law enforcement were there in like five minutes, and I had to tell them exactly what happened to me. After the "seriousness" of the situation wore off and everyone realized I wasn't touched by an old man, many laughs were had at my expense. My father to this day still brings this up–family gatherings, at my wedding, holidays...
5. Say Cheese!
So I'm a waitress at a local tavern and we get a lot of tourists. Last night, an older couple walks in holding a super nice camera. As I approach them, they ask me, "Can we get a picture of you?" Now in my head, I'm thinking this is kind of weird but what the heck... they probably just want to remember all the places they went and include a picture of their waitresses from time to time.
So I say "absolutely!" and head over next to them, kneel down, and smile for the camera they're holding. I quickly regretted this move. They both looked pretty embarrassed, and kept looking back and forth at one another. Finally, the gentleman said, "Oh umm…haha! Would you mind actually taking the picture of us?"
Ugh... facepalm. They hadn't asked me to get a picture with them. They had asked me to get a picture of them. Annnnnnd, beet red face commence!
6. Dinner And A Show?
I was on one of those fancy boat cruises on Sydney Harbour. The idea is you get a three-course dinner and a cabaret-style show. I took my Mum when she was visiting me from out of state. We were seated next to a young couple who were clearly on a date. The young woman was very pretty, and the guy was somewhat nervous and overdressed in a suit and tie.
Their dinner was an exercise in speed drinking for the young woman. She smashed through bottle after bottle of the cheap drinks at a record, borderline alarming pace. By the time dessert was being served, the date had morphed into a nightmare.
She was vomiting spectacularly all over the tiny white table. Anyone who has been on a cruise like this knows the tables are small and seated close together. The volume of vomit was incredible for such a tiny woman. Pale, watery chunks covered the entire table as the guy rubbed her back and tried to clean up the mess with the fabric napkins.
I almost got my elbow covered in the contents of her digestive tract. My Mum and I ended up giving the guy our napkins to clean up the swamp on the table the staff had failed to notice. It was absolutely embarrassing for the young couple, but my Mum and I really did get the dinner and show we were promised—just not the one we expected.
7. The Midnight Bathroom Break
When I was an undergrad, I lived in this house with two of my closest friends and worked at a local movie theater. Our house became THE party house. We partied what felt like eight days a week. Girls were always over, that kind of thing. Well, one night I got way too hammered and decided I would go to bed around 10 pm to sleep it off.
To start, I typically sleep completely commando. I get up around one in the morning to go pee and didn't think anyone was still over. I had to walk through the living room to get to the bathroom. When I walked to the bathroom, I turned off the lights because no one was around. I go pee, realize I had to puke, took care of that, and opened the door to hobble back to bed. I couldn't believe my eyes.
About 30 people, mostly my friends and coworkers, simultaneously scream, start laughing, clapping, everything. I'm completely stunned, and it took about two of the longest seconds of my life to realize they're all staring at me. My sister was there. The girl I liked was there. Everyone was there. I covered my bits and I've never run into my room so fast in my life.
I think I actually evaporated of embarrassment that night, because since then, I just don't get embarrassed. I didn't live that down for years.
8. How To Make A Memorable First Impression
I was about seven years old at a new school. The entire school was having a singing program for all the grade levels. The teacher told us all we had to dress up. I was being adventurous and told my mom I wanted to be a bunny. She happily obliged and made me a full bunny costume.
Flash forward to the program: a sea of seven-year-olds dressed in little suits and dresses. And one giant, white bunny. I was known as "bunny boy" for the next two years until we moved away.
9. Not Lovin’ It
I ran into an old co-worker at McDonald's. He recognizes me and calls me over to his friends and tells them "this is the nicest guy I have ever met". In the next three minutes, I ruined myself. I called him by the wrong name and asked him how he liked a job he'd never worked at.
It was pretty clear that I hardly remembered him. I was so embarrassed that I got my McDonald's to go and ate it in my car. I'm midway through my burger when him and his friends walk up and get into the car directly facing mine. We made awkward eye contact while I had my food in my hand and then they drove off.
10. The Golden Voice
It was middle school graduation dinner, and one of the other students had asked ahead of time if they could sing. For whatever reason, I don't know. So, while the rest of us are sitting at our tables eating, she gets up in front of us all with a guitar and starts singing Blackbird by The Beatles.
I don't think I'd ever heard her sing before, and I have no idea why she wanted to. Anyway, it was a huge mistake. It was genuinely one of the worst things I'd ever heard in my life. She could not sing even a little. Her voice shook on every word, it cracked, and she was out of tune.
Every person had to stare down at their food while trying not to laugh in her face. I remember sitting next to my best friend and we just kept glancing at each other like "WHAT is happening right now"?
Thinking of it now makes me laugh again, and I know that if I called up my friend right now and sang "blackbird singing in the dead of night..." that he would start to laugh too. It became a joke in our class.
She finished Blackbird, and then decided to follow it up with American Pie, which thankfully a lot of us knew the words to, and the teachers walked around encouraging us to sing together and drown her out. Part of me is like, well screw it, she did it! She was brave! But I do wonder if she thought she was actually good or not.
11. My First Almost-Kiss
I'm 39 and I still think about my first almost-kiss, it was so awkward and embarrassing. I was 11 or 12 and at camp, we were playing spin the bottle. 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".
12. Kids Can Be Jerks
When I was in third grade, the schools were just starting to add those projector screens. My class was known for being uncontrollable and disrespectful. My teacher tried bringing hers down so we could watch a movie, but it got stuck, and when she pulled on it, the whole thing came down and hit her on the head pretty hard.
Almost the entire class started laughing at her and calling her dumb rather than asking if she was okay or needed help. I think that was her breaking point, because her reaction stunned us. She ended up sitting on the floor and crying for a while. The principal dismissed her right there and substituted for her for the rest of the day.
My brother was friends with her daughter, who revealed later on that she quit teaching because she couldn’t handle how mean a group of kids could be. I still feel so badly for her to this day.
13. What A Brat
I played hockey when I was in high school. Tons of it. Shortly before moving off to university, I fractured a rib. If you don't know what that entails, it's extremely painful, and there's not a single thing you can do about it. You can't wrap your whole torso in a cast, so the only thing you can do is stay off of it completely. You can't even bend over. It's awful.
Now comes move-in day. My dad is working, so I have my mother helping me. There I am, with no cast and nothing obviously wrong with me, directing my mother where to put all my stuff like my mini-fridge. My mother is moving all of my stuff in while I look like some spoiled rich kid not lifting a finger to help. I felt like such a douche-canoe.
14. Dressed For Success
I was in fourth grade when I first immigrated to the United States, and they had Spirit Week at my elementary school where you can come dressed up for a theme. They had the theme listed for each day but for some reason, I believed some sixth graders who told me that the first day was career day.
Not wanting to be a downer and wanting to fit in, I insist to my mom that I wear something for career day. She ends up putting together a lawyer costume for me last minute, which consisted of her old formal suits. So I went to school, only to find everyone else in pajamas, except for me, the lawyer. The worst part was that it was kind of baggy on me and I had forgotten we had gym that day so I had to run in my baggy lawyer outfit and tripped over myself.
15. Holding It In
During a big important dance competition, a 14-year-old student ran off stage during their number. The teachers were very concerned and ran to go find her to see what was wrong. When her teacher found her, she was in the backstage wing, sobbing in the fetal position. The teacher assumed she was injured and quickly went to console her and ask what was hurt. Believe it or not, this was not even the embarrassing part.
As the teacher held the student in her arms, the student peed all over her and herself. They both sat in the huge puddle while all the crew, dancers, and stagehands stepped around them to keep the show running. It turns out she had to go to the restroom but tried to hold it for the competition, couldn’t, and ran off stage to try to make it to the bathroom.
She made it maybe five feet before falling to the ground in pure embarrassment of what was about to happen. Everyone had seen her run off, so the teacher cleaned her up and told everyone that wasn’t a witness that she was sick instead. Poor thing.
16. Merry Christmas, Santa
One Christmas when I was about five or six years old, I was in line at the mall to sit on Santa's lap. I decided that I wanted to give him money to go towards feeding the reindeer, and since I was five or six, that money was basically a handful of nickles and dimes, and probably a couple of pennies. It wasn’t much, maybe like 40 to 50 cents in change.
My turn came up and I sat on Santa's lap. I tried to hand him the money, but it fell out of my hand... and right down onto Santa's crotch. I dove right in there trying to pick up the money with my little boy hands and Santa hastily said very hastily: "Oh, ho, ho, it's okay. I'll get it later". And put me on the ground to send me on my way.
You guessed it, that still haunts me to this day.
17. It’s Not What It Looks Like!
I had just joined a gym and was changing in the locker room for first time. Apparently the norm there was to walk around without clothes making small talk about picking up things. I had just come from the shower, taken off my towel and lifted my duffel bag. To my horror, a full, open two-pound bag of jelly beans spilled out and skittered all over the entire locker room.
Absolute silence. But the worst was yet to come. The brightly colored beans looked suspiciously like sketchy pills, so every musclebro watched closely while my undressed self scurried in a panic to collect hundreds of candies. I tried to apologize for the disruption, but every time I lifted my head my eyes were squarely at their private level. I didn't go back to that gym.
18. Let It Out
I was at an NFL game and something I had ate earlier had just wrecked my stomach. It left me with horrible gas. Like the kind which clears a room, it is so bad. I was walking up the stairs to my seat mid-game and really had to let one out. Right then the crowd cheered and I thought the moment was right. What I didn’t realize is that my bottom was at the same level as a woman sitting in her seat on the aisle.
I literally let one out 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 I just cringe at what an idiot I was.
19. Shoots… And Scores
I went to my fiancé’s high school where he was the wrestling coach to watch their match. I got there early with our dinner, and it turned out it was picture day for all the sports teams. I am very awkward, so I opted just to sit on the floor at the back of the gym rather than be near some strangers on the bleachers. I barely noticed, but some girls were messing around with a basketball nearby.
I have a magnet on my face when it comes to any type of sports balls so I kinda thought I might get hit. But I ignored it. Big mistake. Not five minutes later, I hear a gasp and then BAM! My glasses go flying. My drink has tipped over and my face hurts. I started to cry from embarrassment and shock, and the girls came running to check on me.
They got my glasses and helped clean up my soda. I had to keep explaining I'm not crying because I'm hurt or mad at them, just because I was so startled, but I don't think they believed me. My glasses had broken right in the middle, and I made a comment it would be hard to drive home later. One of the girls asked what grade I was in, and I had to sheepishly reply I was 23 and a college graduate.
They just said "oh" awkwardly, and they slowly left me to get my stuff together. My fiancé had actually left to do something so before he came back, I had to use my phone camera to navigate until he found me some tape for my glasses.
Shutterstock
20. The Push-Up Challenge
In high school, this really dorky kid challenged this drill sergeant wannabe teacher we had, saying he could do 20 push-ups easily. To put it simply, the kid was not fit. He was very lanky and clearly had no muscle. I really don’t believe that before that day he had ever attempted a push-up in his life. He drops to the ground with an insane amount of blind confidence and goes to do a push-up.
He gets halfway into the first push-up, and his body makes this really loud multiple-joints-cracking sound. It was already embarrassing—and then the unthinkable happened. He struggled for another second and then I guess the strain caused him to pass gas very loudly, then fall flat on his face. He grunted and lay there for a second before getting off the floor.
I was laughing so hard that our teacher told me to leave the room. I had tears running down my face.
21. You Want What?!
When I was a kid I used to think I was the coolest and abbreviated everything under the sun. “Yo mom what are we having for breck?” “Breck” was short for breakfast. “I’m going to MV to hang out with Bran and eat some J-Bo’s”. Mission Valley, Brandon, Jack in the Box. I thought I was some kind of cool guy talking in a code language. Looking back, I can see I sounded like a complete moron.
Set the stage to Thanksgiving dinner, I was 10 years old. It still haunts me to this day. I’m sitting at the table with my conservative grandparents and the rest of my family. Part of my cool persona at the time was the fact that I could eat a lot of food and that I could eat it quickly. So after I finished my first plate rather quickly, I waited for a moment where no one was talking and announced, rather loudly, “I want some sec’s!”
Everyone kind of froze, my grandmother and my parents were shocked. A baby started crying in the background. Confused, I repeated, “What? I just want some sec’s!” Still silence. I looked over at the abundance of food and just repeated the statement to myself in my head until it dawned on me. Oh no. “No! I… No! I meant I want seconds!! Not ugh…I…Seconds!
You can imagine the rest. My bright red face must have been on the verge of tears. Silence was inevitably broken by manic laughter and jeers. “Wow he must really like the food!” “He’s growing up so quickly!” I wanted to crawl under the nearest rock and perish.
22. Mean Girls
When I was about eight years old, we took a field trip to the Field Museum here in Chicago. We had a lunch break and I wandered off to the gift shop to see what they had. I had a huge crush on this girl named Victoria in my class and I saw this lady bug ring for a couple of dollars. I knew she liked lady bugs and I had money my parents gave me to buy something at the shop, so I decided to buy the ring and give it to her.
I was really nervous and kept waiting for the right time to do it. I eventually decided to just go for it and walked up to her near the end of the trip. She was with some of her friends which made me more nervous, but I found the courage to do it. She looked at the ring and laughed. Her friends joined her and she then tossed the ring in the trash.
I was completely devastated and tried hard to hold back my tears. Even though I'm over it now, that completely messed my confidence with girls for a long time. Looking back, I may have embarrassed her too by giving it to her in front of her friends, which is why she reacted that way, but whatever the case, it's probably the most embarrassed I have been in my life.
23. A Lull In The Room
I have this buddy that is actually on the spectrum—he was diagnosed in childhood. I love him, because he's just the most honest person I know, and I can say anything to him. Anyway, we're at this bar and these guys at the next table are talking. One of them says something about Asian girls a little too loud, just as the room has one of those weird noise lulls.
The jukebox was between songs, and everyone somehow took a breath between sentences all at the same time just for this guy to say something completely misogynistic, stupid, and prejudiced. This girl across the room jumped up and called him a terrible person. The whole room went silent and stared at the guy. And then my buddy just piped up: "OOOhhhhhh, how embarrassing for you"!
The entire bar laughed so hard, the guy just stood up and walked out.
24. A Fun Prank
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 in the stupidest way possible. I snuck out of my house at 4 am with a big bag of garbage, walked all the way to his house, threw the garbage all over his lawn, then rang his doorbell and ran back home.
The next day at school, I asked him if anything weird happened at his house last night, when he said yeah, I revealed that I was the one who "pranked" his family last night. He just awkwardly said "oh okay," and didn't talk to me for a few months after that. What the heck was I thinking?
25. Making It Rain
In Korea, the toilets in more rural areas rarely have toilet paper. I was 14, visiting family for the summer, and had to drop a huge deuce. It came out like gravy,and it was then I realized I had no toilet paper or paper towels in the bathroom. There were a ton of people in the bathroom, and for some stupid reason I decided to use my umbrella I had because it was raining, and I figured the rain would wash it away when I got outside.
Still, I thought I had gotten away with it. I was soon proved very, very wrong. When I went outside again, my aunt grabbed the umbrella, since it was the only one we had. She yelled at me for taking so long and opened it up. Small pieces of my gravy flew on my entire family like we were gingerly coated with brown pepper. Needless to say I have never returned to Korea.
26. That Didn’t End Well
When I was about 14 or 15, we had a group music project in school. We had to write a piece of music and then perform it to about half the year, roughly 90 kids. I got put in a group with a girl that I had a huge crush on at the time. She was the musical type so she took charge of the project. Her first question was “can anyone play an instrument?”
My first thought was to mention the bass guitar that I had got just ONE WEEK before, knowing full well I could barely play a note. She came up with this piece of music for us to perform, and asked if I could play what she’d written on the bass. I was trying to impress this girl so OF COURSE I said yes.
A few of weeks go by, and I’d managed to bluff my way through rehearsal with excuses like “I forgot my bass at home” or fake sicknesses. Somehow this girl still had faith in me that I was some heroic bassist. Performance day comes round, and it dawns on me that I have absolutely no idea what I’m doing. Nevertheless, I get up on stage and I am absolutely losing it.
The rest of my group start playing the piece and it sounds amazing–but people begin to stare at me because I’m doing nothing at all. I realize I can’t sit there and do nothing, so I just start twanging away at the strings with no idea what sound they would make. Safe to say, my random bings and bongs ruin the entire performance.
Everyone’s laughing at me throughout the song apart from the rest of my group and the teacher. The girl was in tears and the teacher gave me a detention for “making a mockery of her project”. She thought I was playing deliberately badly. Embarrassment is an understatement. Looking back, I don’t know why I didn’t just learn the freaking music.
27. It’s A Flash Mob
I did some work with a small non-profit that planned and performed little “flash mobs” in public, and kids of all ages participated. The performances were always very messy and not put together well, think of a kindergarten play for example. They would draw crowds because a bunch of singing five-year-olds is adorable.
Well, this one performance was in the middle of a very largely populated shopping center built beneath some fancy condos. And it went so badly. LOTS of people were watching from their balconies and the street. A “guest dancer” probably about 15 years old had a little solo part where she ran and did a leap—all attention on her. She slipped very badly and ate the floor.
When she hit the ground, she bumped the stereo, and the music went silent. She wasn’t hurt, just seriously embarrassed. She stood up and cried, without leaving the stage. Everyone watched her cry in silence as the crowd slowly dispersed. That was the end of the performance that day. I felt so, so bad for her, but luckily a parent eventually went to hug her and pull her out of the crowd.
Shutterstock
28. At The Bus Stop
When I was in 8th grade, there was this kid named Paul in my class, and he rode the bus and his mom would drop him off at the bus stop. She drove a moped, and usually, she went right back home after dropping him off right before the bus came. Well, one day she must’ve been running a bit late so everyone on the bus saw Paul’s mom dropping him off.
The embarrassing part was that everyone saw her and asked Paul, “Is that your grandma"? and he said, “No, that’s my mom”. So, cue the entire bus and eventually my whole 8th-grade class talking about how Paul’s mom looked old as dirt. Coincidentally, that week, the 8th-grade science teacher was going over geological periods, and she was specifically talking about dinosaurs and fossils.
She asked our class “Can anyone give me an example of a fossil"? and this absolute madlad Blayne blurts out: “Paul’s mom".
Shutterstock
29. Nothing Is Happening!
I peed my pants in primary school in year five. I was so shy I didn't want to put my hand up and ask to go to the toilet, so I tried to hold it in until home time, which was only a few minutes away—but to no avail. Once the floodgates were open, and there was no going back, I decided that the best course of action would be to look as nonchalant as possible, and just maybe, no one would notice.
So, I stood there, silently gazing out of the window, trying to appear as though I didn't have a care in the world. Obviously, that was a terrible plan of action, and of course, everyone noticed. Just when I thought I'd reached the climax of mortification, however, when the whole class was watching me pee myself in stunned silence, the teacher said "Bonnie"?—and my mouth decided to betray me.
I blurted out "IM BEING SICK". The teacher muttered, "You're... being sick". And I responded, defiantly, with pee streaming very obviously down my legs and all over my socks and into my shoes, "Yes. It's not wee. I'm being sick".
30. Graduation Misery
My graduating high school class was about 550 kids. It was held in an amphitheater to accommodate everyone, where they usually hold big summer concerts. As one girl walked on stage to get her diploma, I noticed a very large, very wet, very red stain on the back of her white gown. My exact train of thought was "Did she sit in paint- OH MY GOD".
I can't even imagine the embarrassment and pain she went through walking in front of everyone.
31. Totally Tongue-Tied
I used to work for a small coffee shop that had three locations. I had a ridiculously big crush on a woman who worked at one of the other locations. I thought she was so pretty that I literally couldn’t remember how to talk around her. For example, one time on my day off I stopped by her location to get a cold brew and she was working the register and said, “Hi Karl how’s it going"?
What I wanted to respond with was, “Oh pretty good but it’s been a long week,” but all that came out was “…long…” I was so embarrassed, I turned around and left without getting anything. Oh, but it gets even worse. Later that summer, there was a big employee BBQ at the nearby river. I finally got over my nerves and had a really good conversation with her, made her laugh, all that good stuff.
A little later I had to pee and went to the port-a-potty only to walk in on her going to the bathroom.
32. The Smelliest Place On Earth
My parents took my grandparents to Disneyland Paris. At the end of the last day, my grandfather was all hyped up because of his three young grandchildren. He ran to the front of the pack, bent over, and let a huge gas out. He got up, and looked back laughing, only to make a chilling realization. He had just done it to two random people walking right in front of us.
His face got red so darn quickly. All of us just couldn't keep on our feet because we were laughing so hard.
33. Hard Lesson
I was walking home after a night out. There were no streetlights, and it was very dark. So there were cones in the road where the council had dug the road up. Anyways, some jerk had put one cone on the sidewalk. Being a good citizen, I put it back onto the road, and then fell down the giant hole in the sidewalk.
34. Make A Wish
I invited my entire sixth grade class to my birthday party at the bowling alley. I gave each person individual invites two weeks beforehand. We rented a room, had food catered, a big ice cream cake, and 15 gift bags. Not one person showed. I cannot imagine how my parents felt at the time. But try attempting to explain to your classmates on Monday morning how the party went.
35. Choose Your Character
I was a younger gal and crushed HARD on another girl at the stable I rode at. She didn’t know it. Remember Tony Hawk for GameCube? Well around that time, in the game series you could create a skater. You could design them, change body features, things like that. I once spent a solid 30 minutes creating a great replica of her. I used to play as her and so forth.
That Christmas was my family’s year to host the barn party. We had a great time. Then I’m chilling and I hear the other girls say “Oh cool, Danielle (me) has a GameCube. We should play something". I thought nothing of it…wait…oh no. OH NO! I know what game and memory card are in the system! I walk into the room just as they are all staring at the choose a skater screen.
Jennifer, my crush, is on the screen. And even worse? I had her first and last name. She looked a lot like her. Do you know that meme picture where it’s a party? First-person view? Like 40 girls holding cups, cringing, and staring at the viewer? That’s what I walked into. I hid in my room until the party ended.
36. Blowing Your Nose
I was teaching in a high school, there were kids aged around 15-17 and the class was like 16 girls and one boy. He was a nice kid but a little overeager to look cool and impress some of the girls. One day, I called on him to answer a question and he tried to do the exhale-out-of-your-nose thing to show he hadn't the faintest idea of the answer.
Unfortunately, he did not have a clear nose. So basically, I asked him a question, the whole class looked over to him, and he straight up snotted all over himself. I just immediately asked a student on the other side of the room a different question to pull attention away before anyone could react. Amazingly, no one said anything and he was able to sheepishly clean the nose rocket off his face with a tissue.
It was cringe-inducing to see, but the lack of mockery and schadenfreude from the class somewhat restored my faith in humanity.
37. Singing Along?
This was a company Christmas party. There are about 800 people in attendance, eating dinner. The DJ the company hired decided to try to stir up some excitement by playing that 70s song that goes "That's the way (uh huh uh huh) I like it (uh huh uh huh)". As he explained it, he was going to sing the words, and the crowd would pick up the "uh huh uh huh" part.
Nobody was having it. He was dancing up a storm, singing his part, then he'd point at the crowd and we all just stared at him. It went like "That's the way <awkward silence> I like it <awkward silence>". For the entire song. Just to make the party more awkward, it was a Vegas themed party. The "Vegas Dance Troupe" they hired to perform after dinner turned out to be "adult" dancers.
They didn't quite go all the way, but the remaining feathers they were wearing by the end did not leave much to the imagination.
38. Never Ask
I once asked a woman in an elevator when she was expecting. “Expecting what?” said she. I stood frozen and silent until I got off.
39. Not The Sharpest Sharpie
When I was a teenager, I was a volunteer at a triathlon. My job was to write the athlete's number on both legs and both arms with a Sharpie. So here comes a man. I marked one leg, then the other one. I do his first arm and I ask him to turn for the other one. I couldn't believe my eyes. He said, and it was true, “But I have only one arm!”
40. The One Who Ran Away
I started talking to this girl and I really liked her. She and I are big runners and we were starting to run with each other in the morning, once a week. Well, one week I told her it looked like we were going to have to cancel since the weather said it was going to rain. She was bummed, but understood how miserable running in the rain is.
Except the next morning, the skies are clear as ever and even warm for Colorado in November. I go to check the weather only to find I looked up the weather in Washington, DC. I have no family there, haven't been there, and basically have no reason to look up the weather there. We haven't run since.
41. Fully Freezing Up
I went to an educational seminar to learn about the new laws related to my industry. This was being conducted in a hotel ballroom. There had to be at least 200 people in the room. I can't recall whether the presenters all sat up front, in the audience, or a mix. This attorney gets to the podium and gets her papers together. Then disaster ensues.
She starts to talk but can't get a recognizable word out and completely froze up while everyone is watching. Another attorney had to get up and do the presentation for her. I felt so bad for her. Public speaking is difficult for most people and what happened to her had to be extremely embarrassing.
42. A Painful Misunderstanding
In middle school, we were doing presentations over basic stuff about different diseases. Just general stuff like symptoms, who's most likely to get it, things like that. My group got diabetes, so we got to work figuring it out. We kinda just got the basic idea that you get diabetes from eating a bunch of sugar so it was only fat people who have it.
I don't think I understood type one back then, and I barely do now. So, we thought it would be an absolute riot if we made fun of fat people with diabetes in our presentation. So, with each of us having huge grins on our faces during our presentation, I hit the clicker to go to the next slide and it's just full of morbidly obese people. I'm like, "And this is what a person with diabetes looks like".
I was expecting a roar of laughter, but everyone just sat there for what seemed like years. Our teacher didn't do anything, I think she was in shock. Then one girl just said, "That's not funny, my dad has diabetes". And we shut the presentation off and sat down.
43. Making The Grade
I took an abstract mathematics class as part of my undergrad work. Our professor was this stoic Russian lady with a thick accent. We are going over the answers for our first exam and one of the guys in class who apparently did not do very well starts arguing with her about how she graded one of his answers. Keep in mind that these are mathematical proofs, so how you came to the answer is more important than the answer itself.
At first, she says, "Let's talk at my office hours". He persists with his case that he actually got the problem correct. "Please, please let's talk outside of class". He does not want to talk outside class; he wants to talk about it right now. Finally, she says, "I'm sorry I don't know how to help you. You did so badly... I just don't know how to help you... Do not come to my office hours”. But that's not all.
Then she said, "I do not know how to help you. I can help anyone else in this room but you". Everyone is stunned. It was like she dropped an emotional nuke, because even though her comments were directed at one person, she hurt the feelings of everyone in the room. Dude just silently packs his things and leaves. He never came back to that class.
Shutterstock
44. And The Award Goes To…
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 pins and needles. 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. I still get embarrassed thinking about that.
45. For Her Eyes Only
I wasn't there when it happened, but I have residual embarrassment because I sent my wife a naughty photo of me. She opened her phone screen to show something to her family and basically said "Oh, I have a message from my honey, what could this be? OH GOD!"
46. And The Oscar Didn’t Go To…
I was a theater kid and didn't have stage fright or anything. But when I was a freshman in high school, I had my first freakout hours before I was to play The Goose in our production of Charlotte's Web. I also have chronic migraine, and it caused a big one, complete with excruciating pain, light and sound sensitivity, and lots of nausea. I had forgotten my prescription painkillers at home, so I was stuck with it. It was a bad day.
I tried to push through it all and got into costume and a full face of goose makeup. I'm feeling horrible, but the show must go on. As soon as I walk out for my first scene, bright stage lights are piercing into my head. A wave of nausea just courses through me. I had to be onstage for about five minutes for that first scene. I tried to swallow it down between lines. A lot of my classmates were out in the audience too.
I open my mouth to say my last line, and it's just "HUUURP". I vomit on the stage and all over my own lap in front of 300 people. The senior boy playing my counterpart, The Gander, accidentally whispered "Oh no" into his mic. Then he rubbed my back to try and calm me down.
Somehow I got offstage and puked the rest of my guts out in the bathroom. The drama club teacher was nice enough to let me know she wouldn't charge me for the pukey costume. 10 years later and it still haunts me.
Flickr, U.S. Fish and Wildlife Service Headquarters
47. Slipping And Sliding
I went to a KISS concert, and my friends were using the bathrooms before the show. I was waiting outside, and I was enjoying watching all the people dressed up and with painted faces. I love to people watch. I see this guy who just throws up and doesn't miss a beat walking like it was nothing! A large blond girl with big hair steps into the puke and slips and falls.
Her very skinny boyfriend is trying to help her up, and as she pulls him, he slips and falls on the puke too. It was the most hilarious thing ever. I felt so bad for those two.
Wikimedia.Commons
48. Busting A Move
There was this kid in my high school that was taking karate classes. He decided he wanted to fight a kid that was taunting him after school in the town park. A ton of people went. He got all pumped up before the fight. Instantly, once the fight started, he began doing karate moves in the air. Once he reached his rival, the first thing he decided to do was a very flashy "spinning backhand".
He missed by a mile and was knocked out immediately, but I felt really bad for him. He was always known for not being able to read situations very well and that, being his first normal fight, was just the absolute worst time to try that move out. Bullies suck. It was embarrassing for both of them.
Shutterstock
49. Belting It Out
I was in a small restaurant with my dad and brother and when I went to the bathroom, I decided to belt out the chorus to “Weird” Al’s The White Stuff in full volume thinking the bathroom would contain my vocals. When I walked out, the restaurant was weirdly quiet. I sat back down at our table, and my dad goes “what the heck was that"?
When he saw the confusion on my face he proceeded to explain to me that the ENTIRE restaurant heard me.
Shutterstock
50. Like Your Life Depends On It
I was outside of the Vatican and a nice Italian couple asked me to take a picture of them with their super nice camera. Then disaster struck. I dropped it and the lens shattered. While the wife was picking up the pieces and screaming, the husband looked at me and told me to run. So I did.
51. That Went Well
A few years ago, I went on a job interview. The interview went very well, and I met the entire department. After the interview, I went to a nearby fast food restaurant to meet some friends for lunch. After receiving my order, I turned to the condiment stand to get my napkins, straw and ketchup.
Unfortunately, I misjudged the counter height and ended up spilling my entire tray, including a very large drink, onto the line of people waiting to order...which included the entire department of people I had just interviewed with. Apparently they went out together for lunch as a department every Friday. I still got the job.
52. Gotta Go
I was walking out of one of those Cold Stone ice cream shops with my family one day. I walked over to the car, opened the passenger door, and sat down. I closed the door put my seatbelt on and then looked over to my mom. Only thing was, my mom wasn't in the car...it was a woman breastfeeding her child.
I looked at her, apologized, took off my seatbelt and ran back to my family's car. They were all just laughing at me.
Freepic
53. I’m An Art Goddess
My best friend in grade eight was absolutely convinced she was a musical genius. I will say that she was able to compose music later in life and did have quite a few talents with instruments, but singing was absolutely not one of them. We had a school assembly one day where everyone gathered in the gym to listen to some presentations.
For some reason, she convinced the principal that she absolutely has to perform for the school. She played a song on the piano and sang along to it, while everybody cringed. It was awful and when somebody told her that she should probably never do that again, she responded with, “You just can’t recognize talent”. We went to the same high school.
She was in strings but believed she was better than everybody in any major at their major. I eventually stopped being friends with her because she just wouldn’t let up that she was the smartest and most talented, let alone the coolest, person there. She eventually started calling herself a goddess, and completely believing it.
She changed her Facebook name to “first name The Lioness Goddess”. She believed everybody absolutely adored her, when in reality everybody was just sick and tired of her putting others down while complimenting herself. Eventually, she wanted to put some of her drawings in a visual arts show that we had throughout the school for only the visual arts majors.
When she came to the teacher that organized it to very snobbishly show him her work expecting compliments, she was basically laughed out of the room. She walked out, insulting everybody’s work that was in the show, stating that, “We just wouldn’t know talent if it hit us with a truck”.
54. What Happens After School
Back in high school one day, I accidentally left my backpack in my gym locker. I realized later that night that I didn’t have my stuff to do my homework, so I drove back to the school to grab it. When I walked into the men’s locker room, I heard girls’ voices and I legitimately thought I was going crazy. I entered the main locker room area—and my jaw DROPPED.
I saw about a dozen girls in the showers. Not going to lie, I kind of stared for a second longer than I should have while trying to figure out if I was actually going crazy or not. Then they noticed me and started shrieking and yelling at me to get out. Turns out there was a girls' basketball game that night and the opposing team used the men’s locker room for changing and showering after the game.
Shutterstock
55. Stuck In The Aftershow
I went to see some friends play at an unknown little club on a weeknight. That was fine, but afterward, there was a DJ playing, and he was awkwardly grooving, now and then blowing some fog, but it was QUIET. Nobody cared, nobody even looked like they had a good time or were talking, just completely stagnant. I want to believe he fogged up the place to hide, but he really seemed to cling to the hope that someone might start dancing.
Maybe there even was one person making an equally awkward effort, but it's been some years and I was drinking the pain away, so I’m not sure if I'm just imagining that part.
56. Five Star Service
After drinking too much one night, I stumbled into the first waiting car outside the bar, assuming it was a cab. It was in fact not a cab. It was a random girl waiting to pick up her brother. She still accepted my $20 and drove me home, though.
57. It’s The Journey, Not The Destination
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. It got so ugly, so fast. Without a tree in sight, I squatted next to the bus and literally a gallon of it came out. Once the relief left my body, I realized I had no toilet paper, like not even a freaking leaf.
I glanced up to the gods and saw a bus full 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. Like a penguin, pants to my knees, I shuffled over to it and held it tighter than I’ve ever held anything.
After cleaning up best I could, I climbed back onto the bus, head bowed, took my seat, and passed away.
58. Sweet Home Alabama
I was 17 and working my first job at KFC. This guy comes in, places his order, and says to me, "Sir, there is a large pair of women's panties behind you”. I look behind me and there was in fact, a large pair of women's panties behind me.
The night before, I washed my work uniform and some of our laundry had gotten mixed up. My mom's underwear must have gotten stuck in my pant leg and I didn't notice. Instead of explaining this in a rational, logical way, I just kind of blurted out, "Oh it's okay, those are my mom’s”.
The look on this poor dude's face said he thought he was going to Kentucky Fried Chicken, but ended up in Alabama.
59. Red As A Slushie
My mom took my brother and I to the circus when I was about five or six. We got slushie drinks during the circus that were pretty frozen. Trying to break up a big piece of ice, I jammed the straw to the bottom of the styrofoam cup, putting a hole in the bottom and getting cherry slushie all over me. I started to cry when everybody was quiet watching the tightrope walker do his thing.
Here I am screaming, covered in red stuff and a spotlight shines down on me. A lot of people gasped, thinking something really bad was happening. They stopped the show for a few minutes. The only thing redder than my shirt was my mom's face. I still think about that from time to time, and call my mom to apologize sometimes.
60. The Surprise Gift
15 years ago, I worked at a kiosk in a mall located right in front of Build-a-bear. One day, I watched a guy walk his blindfolded girlfriend through the mall. She’s excited for the big surprise. They stop in front of the Build-a-bear. He takes off her blindfold—and her face falls. Nope. The girl clearly thought they were going to a jeweler, and she was very not thrilled.
61. Was I The Only One??
I went to a tiny rural Midwest school. 7th and 8th grade combined was 16 people. Every other year, 7th and 8th grade went on a class trip to the state capital. We ate Shoney’s breakfast buffet early in the morning. I apparently got food poisoning from the breakfast because a few hours later, I vomited at the state patrol headquarters.
They were showing us "stop the knock" and everyone thought I just couldn't take the video...that is, until I vomited at the state legislative building, governor's mansion, and a scenic spot we stopped to eat lunch.
62. Not Again!
I flashed my bare chest 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 was my chest. Here's the thing, though. This was the second time I’ve flashed someone while trying to give a thumbs up. I don’t do that signal anymore.
63. It’s Been A While
I asked my cousin, who I hadn't seen in two decades, how long he and his girlfriend had been together while we were all at a get-together. He informed me that it was his daughter.
64. What A Warm Welcome
I was rehired at a job after six years. Most people still there remembered me, and were happy to see me back. Friday rolls around, and someone goes "Dave, come by the break room!" I wander in, and there's this cake at the end of table. Everyone is standing there. So I you say "You guys!" and blow out the candle, not noticing it said “Happy Birthday Julie"...yeah, I accidentally blew out Julie's birthday candles.
65. Monkeys On The Monkey Bars
I was eight years old and was hanging on the monkey bars. One of the younger boys a class lower than me in school thought it would be funny to come over and grab onto me. Thing was, he wasn't hanging onto me. He was hanging onto my pants. He kept hanging on, laughing, regardless of how much I struggled and told him to stop and let go. He refused.
The next thing I knew, my pants dropped, and I let go of the monkey bars. I landed right on top of him. But I didn't care. The damage was already done to me. My pants weren't the only thing that was slipped down around my ankles. My dignity was too.
66. The Hide And Seek Master
I hid from my mother in Macy’s or something when I was like seven. I thought I was being so funny as I jumped into different clothes racks. I remember the staff looking for me too and I hid inside a long jacket as they came by. I was sneaking around for about 20 minutes or so and I remember making my way back to my mom when I found a security guard talking to her as she started to get upset.
He said something like, “From what we can tell, he’s still in the store, he has been running between the coat racks hiding from everyone”. That’s when she burst out in tears. She yelled my name and I popped out right behind her and said, “You got me"! She turned around and grabbed me, and gave me a huge hug. I will never forget the face the security guard gave me when she hugged me.
It was like, “Yikes, you stupid kid, you’re in big trouble when you get home”. It never occurred to me that my mother may have thought that I got kidnapped... 20 years later and I’m still really good at hide-and-seek.
67. A Graceful Somersault
I watched a guy run across campus in sagging pants. The pants fall to his knees tripping him, and he manages to do a sort of half-somersault which launches the pants almost completely off of him. However, he’s somehow able to pull them up at a light jog pace while glancing around to make sure he wasn't seen before continuing to run off.
I was in my car that had tinted windows, so his secret is safe-ish with me. It was honestly impressive that he managed to save it from being the much more embarrassing pants-around-ankles, face-in-the-mud, and brightly colored boxer-briefs-in-the-wind it could have been.
68. It’s Going Down
I fell asleep on a plane one time. I had the aisle seat. I did that thing where you jump in your dream, and jerked myself awake. Only when I jumped, my legs flew out, and one of them flew into the aisle. It started a horrific domino effect. 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 jerk on Earth. The rest of the flight was terrible. I kept my head down, and didn’t make a peep.
69. Ignorance Is Bliss
My high school history teacher called me and the girl I was dating into her office. She asked us about the nature of our relationship. She then told us we were cousins, that she was our aunt, and that we should not be dating. We had no idea.
70. I Think You Forgot Something
When I was 11 or 12, 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 under the shower, I decided to run back and tell him. I was utterly oblivious to the fact that I wasn’t wearing clothes. There must have been 30-40 people starring and laughing at me. I didn’t want to live.
71. Learning A Lesson
Growing up, my parents reeeally wanted to make sure I wouldn't smoke—most of my grandparents passed from smoke-related illnesses, so this is understandable. Except they drilled it in my head a little too hard. One day in kindergarten, a classmate was absent. The next day she was there, and she was super sad. We asked her what happened, and she said that her grandma passed of lung cancer.
I told her it served her right. The teacher was not pleased. I apologized the next day as well as a five-year-old could, but that moment has stuck with me since.
Shutterstock
72. A Polite Food Fight
Some kid at my school tried to start a food fight one time during lunch. He jumped on the table in front of a thousand people, yelled "FOOD FIGHT," and threw a yogurt cup into the air which didn’t even come close to hitting anyone. Everyone just stared at him in silence as he climbed down off of the table and ran out of the cafeteria.
73. This Is MY Business
I was in primary school, and I would've been about 11 at the time. One day the deputy principal was having an intense discussion in his classroom during lunch break. He seemed to be acting as a mediator to sort out a conflict between a group of uncomfortable-looking kids who were all standing around him. I happened to be using one of the computers in the room nearby and listened in curiously as I overheard bits of whatever drama was unfolding between them.
To this day, I have no idea what came over me, but for some reason, I decided it was appropriate to walk over, lean down and slam my palms on the teacher's desk like I owned the place, say, "So, what's going on here"? and look around at each of them expectantly like they were actually about to recount the story to me in its entirety.
The deputy principal was this stern older guy who was not the type to mess with. He just looked at me with the most incredulous look on his face for a couple of seconds and blinked. He said "Wha-.... NONE OF YOUR BUSINESS"! Everyone stared at me in silence for several seconds and I walked off sheepishly. I still have no idea what came over me that day, this was not normal behavior for me.
I still cringe about it occasionally.
Shutterstock
74. MEP (Most Embarrassing Player)
One time in my school assembly, they were doing a review of the sports played over the term, including the Intra-school rugby competition. Not being very good at rugby myself, I was astounded to have actually scored a try in the competition that helped my team win. So the teacher was reading out the report, and goes on about “One special person on the team who really pulled through when times were tough”.
Being an idiot, I assumed he was talking about me, and so rose from the assembly floor slowly, arms raised, in a kind of Messiah-like pose. Cue 400 people looking at this kid who's just stood up with a grin on his face, which quickly disappeared, only for the guy reading the report to reveal he was talking about the captain of the team and not my lowly self.
I had 400 pairs of eyes on me, and I just sat back down and endured the next 60 minutes in agony. It still makes me bite my fist from embarrassment.
75. The Hangover
College. Sophomore year. I lived in the basement of a house where a bunch of other guys lived. One night we stayed up all night drinking. The next morning, I woke up really hungover. I went upstairs to use the restroom and vomit my brains out. In the living room on the way to the rest room, there were probably five guys and five girls in there watching a movie.
I kind of mumbled as I went past them. One dude I did not care for decided it would be hilarious to pants me. I was wearing pajama pants with nothing underneath. The thing is, he did it while I was mid stride...so before I knew what happened, I tripped on my own pants, hit my head on the wall, and passed out. Then I started vomiting.
So, long story short, I woke up pantsless from the waist down in a pool of my own vomit with a mild concussion with almost a dozen people watching me. Good times.
76. Public Service
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 front desk in HR, I saw many city officials on a daily basis, many of whom visited that same Starbucks every morning. I flashed the mayor.
77. The First Day Of School
The first day of 11th grade was a big deal to me, mainly because we had just moved to a new city. I really wanted to make a good impression like anyone would. Well anyways, before the first class started, I got a little lost looking for the bathroom. So of course, I go all the way upstairs to the one up there. I do my thing and go to wash my hands.
The thing is, they had the type of faucets that could launch a rocket. Basically, as I turned the faucet, everything just splashed onto my pants and streamed down to look exactly like I peed my pants. Some upperclassman walks by, and says, “how’s the first day going"? and I’m over here trying to cover it up, going, “Oh it’s going fine”.
After this, I’m late to class and as I open the door everyone just looks at me with wide eyes and smirks. It was quite embarrassing, but fortunately for me, it didn’t ruin anything for me.
78. Give Me A Hug
When I was in kindergarten waiting outside to be picked up by my mom, I saw her approaching. I closed my eyes and ran at her and hugged her. Opened my eyes and I apparently, I had not aimed correctly as I was hugging the wrong woman. One of my classmates yelled at me to stop hugging their mom. I still think about it today.
79. The Hot Teacher
There was a teacher that was into gym, so he was all muscular and fit, he was our math teacher, and many girls and boys had a thing for him. He was always first in the class, but one time, we got there and he wasn't. One girl got very happy cause she forgot her assignment and started dancing and celebrating saying "The hot teacher is absent"! over and over...She spoke a little too soon.
He arrived right as she was doing that. It took her a minute to realize, and she only did because she turned around. He was clearly holding his laughter, then she said, "Sorry Teacher" and sat down. He smiled, trying to hold it in and gave the class normally.
80. The Rock
I used to love rocks. When I was in New York one day I went to a national rock museum and as I was heading down the sidewalk I found a beautiful rock on the ground. I picked up the rock. Then I realized what it actually was. It was dog poop.
81. Silence Is Golden
I was standing next to a barbershop outside waiting to get a haircut. Standing next to me was a man whom I asked "Are you getting a haircut too?" He was bald.
82. Privacy Please!
I was dating a girl when we were both living with our parents. To have any privacy, we used to spend the night in hotel rooms. One night we rented a room while a bunch of students were celebrating graduation. They rented the entire wing of a hotel with joined rooms to have a huge party.
The front desk guy accidentally gave them the keys to our room. So right smack in the middle of us going at it, about 20 people burst into the room carrying drinks and wearing party hats.
83. Finders Keepers
My little village has a small annual dog show. We normally enter our little dog, who has won "friendliest dog," "waggiest tail" and "dog the judge would like to take home" in the past. This year she was unfortunately in season, so we didn't enter to prevent any “fuss” from the other dogs, but took her along to watch.
Halfway across the park she decided to do a number two, and I suddenly realized I'd forgotten a bag. There were loads of other people with dogs around due to the show, so I wandered away to to ask someone for a bag. I turned back and to my horror a lady was picking up my little dog's mess.
Not wanting to feel like one of those jerks that doesn't clean up, I ran towards her to tell her she didn't have to do that because I was going to get it. Instead, in a sort of panic, I waved my arms, and barked "NO, THAT'S MINE!" Please note that I did not say, "that is MY DOG'S". She physically jumped, then turned a deep red.
She sort of mumbled an apology, dropped it, and marched off with her dog. It was at that point that I looked to my left and saw my dog's waste sitting a few feet away from the lady's dog mess that she was attempting to pick up. I think about this at night sometimes.
84. How Many Condiments?!
I used to work at a bar that also served food. We had an absurd number of different condiments to go with the fries. That particular night, someone ordered all 32 condiments plus extra. There were two bars: one upstairs and one downstairs. This might’ve been the busiest night we’ve ever had. There was a tv crew there filming for a show and a big 10 rivalry game happening that night.
I’m talking arm-to-arm people busy. The server is weaving in and out of people carrying the tray of condiments over their head to not spill it. Someone bumps into them, and they dump the entire tray on themselves in front of the owner. They took it like a champ though. They were mildly embarrassed and was joking about it by the time they got upstairs.
85. The Substitute Teacher
In high school, there was this one teacher that barely anyone liked. She was a substitute for our English teacher that day. And that was something my class was excited for. As she was teaching us, she left us alone for a couple of minutes because she had to use the bathroom. She then came back, and she started turning around to write on the board.
Everyone started laughing and giggling. And she’d be confused and turn around and ask what’s wrong. No one answered her truthfully. This kept on going until the end of class. Everyone then left the classroom. And I felt so bad for her. I revealed to her that when she came back from the bathroom, her skirt was tucked in her panties and see-through leggings.
As a result, we could basically see half her behind and her panties covering it a bit. I saw the blood flush through her face, and she felt so embarrassed. She was also disappointed that no one had told her before. Being the quiet kid at the time, she did appreciate my honesty. She wasn’t a bad teacher though, my class just liked to pick on her.
86. Sneaking Around
I was at a sleepover in middle school. I had gotten new pajamas and everything. I was so excited because I really wanted to be friends with these girls. Except I woke up in the middle of the night to my worst nightmare. I had completely wet myself. I had to sneak into her sister’s room where we put our bags to find a change of pants. All I had were jeans. When everyone woke up, I told them I got cold...
My mom told me I smelled when I got in the car to go home. I told her their beagle smelled bad and slept with me all night.
87. Drive Me Off A Cliff
I ordered an Uber with my new boss on a business trip yesterday. I began making small talk with the driver to show my boss how great I am at talking to people. The driver was talking with his girlfriend on a headset.
88. This Is Awkward
A manager was working through a transaction with a couple. Whenever the man was asked a question, his wife would answer. He asked "Does she ever let you speak for yourself?" It was the exact wrong question. The wife responded with "No. Not since his stroke".
89. Ignorance Isn’t Bliss
In high school, I was hanging out with my group of friends at lunch. One of our friends walked up wearing a suit and started talking to my other friends. A few moments later he says, "Okay guys, I'm heading out now. I'll be back tomorrow". So I replied excitedly, "Alright man, have fun!” He gave me the weirdest scowl and look of betrayal I've ever seen.
Somehow it slipped past my radar that his girlfriend had developed a super rare disease and passed within the time span of a week. All my friends were looking at me with the widest eyes as he walked away, and in a chorus everyone was like "DUDE".
90. Collateral Damage
In grade nine, me and my friends would play this stupid game where we would try to sneak up on each other and smack the back of our heads as our way of saying hey. I spotted my buddy Rhys at the end of the hall, snuck up the best I could, and wound up a home run smack. He noticed at the last second and ducked.
I ended up smacking my teacher's chest as she turned the corner, really hard. After the smack, it felt like time was frozen. Kids in the hall all just stopped what they were doing, and the teacher stood there in shock. I was so embarrassed, I cried. In the hall. Surrounded by kids from my grade. Then I got sent to the principal's office where I got a one-day, in-school suspension for smacking a teacher.
I think the punishment was so light because the teacher felt sorry for me. The phone call to my parents explaining what happened sucked. My mom was just disappointed in me (in some ways that just made it worse) and my dad just kept laughing. I got called "boobie" for two freaking years.
91. The Singing Competition
Our class went on a field trip to be part of the in-crowd for the filming of "Like Mike" at the Forum in Los Angeles. During the lunch break before another shoot, they decided to have an Open Mic of some sort. Students from all districts that were there just started to make it a singing competition. Well, this girl from our school decided to try her luck, just took the mic, and went for it.
It was just horrible. Everybody just started laughing at her. Me and a friend of mine just looked at each other just with massive second-hand embarrassment. She didn't finish her set, dropped the mic, and just ran out there just in tears while others were just pointing and laughing at her. We finished off the day and went back to our school but couldn't help think about what that girl went through.
Shutterstock
92. Interrupting The Show
We were watching a Bill Nye video in 4th grade. I was in the last row of desks, and I had an absolutely horrifying cough/sneeze/gas combo that felt like my entire body was exploding. It sounded like a goose attacking a dog on top of a whoopee cushion. Everyone turned and stared and started laughing, and I put my head down and pretended to be part of my desk.
93. An Unexpected Hookup
A friend of mine once hooked up with a guy she matched with on Tinder. She was in a different city for a family reunion and hooked up with him two nights in a row, since she decided to stay there a couple of days before the event to check out the sights. You guessed it. The day of the family reunion arrives, and guess who's there?
The Tinder guy is there, who she quickly learns is her cousin on her father's side. She had never met him before. They both kept their cool for most of the event, but then his brother got too hammered and started gossiping to people about it. The whole thing ended with her and her parents leaving the reunion early, and her mother in tears.
94. Pity Points
I was a pole dancer at a new place. I gotten pretty tipsy during my shift and decided to try doing a trick on the spinning pole. 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 knocked myself out for a good few seconds and woke up to men rushing the stage to help me up.
It was so embarrassing, but I ended up making loads of money because people felt bad.
95. Well, Hello There!
One time I forgot to zip up my shorts after using the restroom at Panda Express. When I went to order my food I was COMPLETELY unaware that my stick 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 it out. I hastily put it back in, zipped my shorts, and literally ran out of the restaurant. I haven’t been back since.
96. Not So Happy Birthday
I got my wife an early birthday gift, her first ever smart phone. She'd been using some old indestructible Nokia forever and I wanted to bring her into the 21st century. Her actual birthday rolls around, and even though I got her the phone, I had nothing for the actual day.
After my morning out of bed ritual, I decide to naughty myself up. I have nothing on except oil all over me, tie, and some shirt cuffs. I was going for Chippendales dancer. She takes a picture with her new phone. The plot thickens. We go fishing, catch a few, head home, filet and cook the fish. It truly looks like a gourmet meal.
My wife takes a picture of the fish with the phone. Before she went to bed, she was uploading pictures to Facebook of fishing and the meal. Thinking it was the prepared fish filets, the first image she uploads is my naughty photo. She titled it "Dinner Yum!” My wife couldn't figure out how to delete this accidental post on the new phone.
She was screaming, running through the whole house to find me. We deleted the post. Mission successful...wrong. The post was deleted, not the photo albums. 13 hours later finding more comments of praise and family disgust, we realize what actually happened.
97. I’m Not Going Down There
When I was like seven or eight, I was staying over at a friend’s place for a sleepover. I had to go to the bathroom late at night, but it was down a super creepy dark corridor, and I was too spooked. My friend came up with an unfortunate scheme. He suggested I pee in one of his baby brother’s diapers and I was so desperate that I did.
His mom came in to find me holding a soaked diaper with pee all over the floor whilst he was laughing hysterically. I want to sink into the ground every time the memory comes back to me, which is at least twice a week.
Shutterstock
98. A Familiar Face…
Back in 1998, I was in the Air Force stationed in Germany. I was in a club with some friends and pretty smashed. I'm at the bar and I tell my friends I'm going to the bathroom. I walk through the crowd on the dance floor and make my way there. In the distance, I see someone that I recognize, so I give him a head nod and he does the same.
I get closer and see he's still walking in my direction and I can't pinpoint where I know this dude from. I end up bumping into him, and I tell him I'm sorry and step to the side. I take a step forward and I bump into him again. This time I loudly said, "YO! MOVE"! and some girl taps me on the shoulder and says, "Hey, are you ok"? That's when it suddenly dawns on me.
Turns out, I ran into a mirror. The guy was myself. My buddies never let me forget it either.
99. Let’s Not Talk About It
I was a teenager with a clunky mobile phone and a crush. Crush and I were getting super flirty, and in my hormone-fueled state, I constructed an elaborate, explicit text message. Quite chuffed with myself, I quickly sent it off to the lucky recipient. As I see the “message sending” I realize, with every shame cell in my body, that I have just sent my hormone-ravaged text to my wholesome, church-going Uncle. He and I have never spoken of this.
100. The Greatest Showman
I was on the phone to the tax office, and I'd been on hold for a good 20 minutes before I got overly bored. I decided I'd play my guitar to pass the time. For the next 15 minutes, I played and sang my heart out fairly loudly, merely because I could. Finally, a man took me off hold to tell me that the entire office thoroughly enjoyed my musical stylings, and that I made his day better.
I had no idea they could listen to that, and had completely forgotten what I phoned the tax office for.
101. Boy’s Night
I was sleeping over at a girlfriends house. In the middle of the night I needed to take a leak. So I got up and went about my business and went back to bed. In the morning I wake up next to a slender Burmese man. I was extremely confused and I look out the doorway and see her standing there, signaling me out. I slept with my girlfriend's dad.
Freepik
102. He Meant Well
This one happened over 10 years ago. I was 11 at the time and was riding on a streetcar. I get to my stop and am about to leave. I see this lady behind me with a stroller who looks like she's about to get off the streetcar as well. I offer to help and grab the front of the stroller to take it down the steps. There's just one big problem I haven't realized. The lady did not mean to leave the streetcar.
So there I am trying to pull the stroller out while the lady is pulling it back. The story ends when the driver closed the doors on my arms. I really have no idea why I did any of that. I like to think there's a family somewhere telling a story about how one time their kid almost got taken.
103. Walk Of Shame
A pilot was about to take off when they had word there was buzzing coming from below the plane. All passengers were seated and waiting so we're all watching the small commotion outside as the workers started unloading the luggage. They found a bag that was vibrating.
Next thing the passengers hear over the loudspeaker is a call for the owner of the bag they have pulled out to identify themselves. A woman stands up and proceeds to be escorted to her bag and has to pick through her belongings and pull out her vibrator... while the whole plane watches through their little windows.
104. A Family Affair
When I was 14, I was at a family friend’s Bar Mitzvah and I didn't know anyone. So, I was sitting there alone and then I saw this cute girl in the corner. I went over to talk to her and then we ended up just walking around this hotel and making out for about an hour (at 14, that was a big deal).
Then she went off to do something. About 15 minutes later I was sitting alone again when my mom called me over and said, "I didn't know she would be here, but this is my cousin and this is her daughter". I look at the girl and realize that my second cousin is the girl I had just made out with. A moment of horror as we look at each other and shake hands. She still hasn't made eye contact with me since then.
105. His Story Didn’t Ring A Bell
When I was five years old, my dad told me and my nine-year-old sister that telephone poles were actually trees that had been genetically engineered by the power companies to grow straight up into a perfect pole with two little arms on each side to hold the lines. It was just one of the many “dadisms” that he preached when Mom wasn't around.
One day, he brought my sister home earlier than usual from school. He explained to my mom that the principal had called him to come and pick her up. When she asked why he told her that a local power company worker had come to her class that day to talk about power line safety. The power company worker had asked the class, "Who knows how telephone poles are made?"
My sister raised her hand and proudly shared what my dad had told her. The worker laughed and said, "I think your dad lied to you". My sister's response completely threw him. She said, "I think you're a liar". We still quote her at family gatherings whenever we think someone is pulling our leg.
Shutterstock
106. I Got Jerked Around
My now ex-wife and I were doing fertility treatments, and they wanted a sperm sample to count. They gave me a script and told me to go to the local hospital for their lab. I walked into the hospital and gave the young pretty desk nurse my scrip, and she gave me a cup. She told me to go into the single-person bathroom in the waiting room and fill it.
I asked her again to make sure she meant that one, and she said yes. So, I made my way through the waiting room filled with various aged people into the single person waiting room and into the bathroom to fill the cup with my procreative fluids. I quickly filled it as fast as I could, washed my hands, and brought the cup back to the front nurse.
I sat down and waited about five minutes before she called my name. Walking up, I felt like everyone was staring at me, knowing what I had just done in the bathroom. But it was even worse than I thought. She looked at me and said there was a mix-up, and they don't do that here. She asked me if I wanted my sample back, and I declined and just turned around and left.
107. Leaving the Doctor in Stitches
Thankfully, this was only slightly insulting, not too horrifying. When I was about 18 years old, I went into the doctor’s office because I was experiencing some extreme nausea, among other things. He kept asking me if it was possible that I could be pregnant, over and over again. "So, uh, could you possibly be pregnant? Maybe we should run a pregnancy test".
"Pretty positive I'm not," I responded. He then asked, "When was the last time you had intercourse?" I replied, "Uh... never?" He started laughing and shouted out, "NEVER?!" At this point, he suddenly whipped his head around to face me from behind his clipboard. "Oh, haha, wow, I had no idea. That simplifies things a lot!"
Was that really necessary??
108. Starstruck
Once I was in line for a Neil Gaiman book signing. As soon as it was my turn to get my book signed, I was so starstruck I blurted out the most backward thing ever: "You are my biggest fan!" I immediately realized my mistake and apologized profusely, and Neil just laughed it off and signed the book. I was so flustered I didn't pay attention to what he scribbled in.
Only after I left the area and opened up my copy of the book to realize he'd signed it with, "From your biggest fan, Neil Gaiman".
109. Nip It In the Bud
This is funny now that I think of it, but at the time it happened it was quite embarrassing. I was put in the cheerleading class by mistake at the beginning of tenth grade. It was glorious at first, because I was the only guy in the middle of 20+ beautiful girls, all in tights, dancing around me. However, I started getting bored just sitting in a corner all class till the bell rang...
So I started playing with my left nipple for some reason without even noticing—till I saw like five of those beautiful girls looking at me and laughing. Then it hit me. I was holding my nipples with the tips of my fingers.
110. Revealing Too Much
On the day of an economics mid-term, all 300 students had to go to a big lecture hall to take the test. Because it was such a big group, the professor had to use a microphone to give us instructions. So after giving this whole speech about the exam, he bid us all good luck and left the lecture to go do some work in his office next door.
Well, he didn't realize one important thing: He had left his microphone on, so while the entire class was silently writing the exam, we listened to the events that unfolded inside his office. We heard the brief muffled conversation between him and the female TA of our class. Then that conversation stopped. We all realize that they’re being intimate.
The TA’s quieted moans were magnified on the speakers in the lecture hall. The entire class stayed silent. Then, the professor swore loudly and abruptly shut off the microphone. Later, as if nothing had happened, the professor came inside. He was fired a week later.
111. Higher Upchuck
I’d moved to New York for a big promotion. The most senior people at the company were feeding me drinks at my welcome party on an empty stomach, and I kept just obliging. I went with my former boss, new wife, and two other senior executives to a restaurant after the initial welcome drinks, and I was absolutely blasted.
I didn’t make it to the toilet and threw up all over the washroom. Then when I walked out, I walked into the kitchen by mistake. I walked back to our table then stumbled when I got there. Still, the worst was yet to come. My wife ordered me a burger. I took one bite and hurled, yes, fully hurled, into my dinner plate in front of the entire restaurant.
I spent the next three months being teased. It was definitely embarrassing but a good way to start with a story, I suppose.
112. Step Into My Office
Ever since I was a kid, I loved to fiddle around with staplers. Playing with the automatic ones and doing dumb stuff like any child would, opening the manual ones and swinging it around, stuff like that. One of my favorite things to do was to open up a new strip of staples and break them apart before putting them in. Running my fingers through the staples, counting them, and breaking them apart...I loved it.
There are 210 staples in a standard strip and sometimes I’d break off each individual one until my fingers hurt. I’ve even found strips with 209 and 211 a few times. This progressed from me messing around with staples in Ms. Grady’s second-grade class, to buying a box of staples every other payday to play with, to literally having a collection of different brands and sizes of staples in my college dorm to break apart.
I had a problem, but no one was hurt, so who cares? Well...Fast forward to present day. I am a functioning middle-class adult with a wife and two children. I have a home, a normal car, and an office job. I am by all accounts a normal human being, and I still love staples. Working in an office with a supply room full of staples was a problem.
I’d spend my lunch break in the room opening boxes and breaking apart staples to get my fix before returning to work. It got so bad over the course of a couple years that my boss changed our supplier because the boxes all had broken apart staples and were sometimes ripped. So I had to stop doing that...I turned to Amazon first, buying 10 boxes of staples at a time for about 20 bucks a pop. It wasn’t enough. I went to 20, then 40.
My wife got curious then and asked, “Why are you buying all of these boxes of staples,” but I brushed it off as a work issue that I’d get reimbursed for and knew I had to change my methods. Over the course of a few months I enabled myself. I started using cash only at different office supply stores around my town and neighboring towns.
I would sit in my car and break apart staples before going to the next store. I began to stay out late and tell my wife I would be home soon, so I could go buy more staples from different stores. I opened up a new credit card to put online so she wouldn’t know, but she caught it in the mail. She then got suspicious because things weren't adding up.
This past Thursday after one of my “late nights,” I get home with a trunk full of broken staples and 10 freshly broken boxes in my passenger seat to see my parents’ cars at my house. I walked in and everyone is sitting around like it’s an intervention. Because it is. My wife asked if there was anything I wanted to tell them, and to tell the truth about my problem.
I sat down and kept saying, “What are you talking about?” until my mom said, “Honey, we saw the pictures". Then my wife tells me that my late nights, excuses, and general weirdness about the credit card, and some other little things made her hire a private investigator. This man followed me around to office supply stores and watched me “do something” with what I had in the bag from multiple stores.
It basically looked like I was a drug runner for Office Depot who was using some of the product for myself. At this point, my wife started to cry and my dad shook his head. I had to come clean and all I could muster was, "I...I like staples". The “what the heck” looks I got afterward turned into disbelief, then concern, then fits of laughter when I showed them my car.
I came clean. I backed this up by showing my secret stash of used staples in my attic and explained the purchases on the card to my wife. Right now, my only concern is my dad. He didn’t laugh—just kind of shook his head continually in disappointment without saying a word. Believe it or not, I think therapy or addiction meetings may help, as my wife gave me these suggestions the day after. I was told that although the addiction is not typical in its damage regarding my mental or physical well-being, I do need help.
I am going to go through addiction counseling like any other addict would. Just tailored to my specific issue. Apparently, part of fixing my brain is to know that it is not okay to continue this level of staplephilia. That included cleaning out my car, attic, and not garnering more attention through memorializing pictures, and stuff like that.
My wife initially thought I was having an affair. She didn’t think I was doing substances until she got the pictures. The PI just told her what he saw, and she deduced that I had an undercover type distribution thing going with someone in the office supply business. She admitted that she didn’t think it all through, but her mind was racing and conclusions came as they did.
I do not have autism or any diagnosed mental disability. I am just an addict, and an idiot. I know how stupid the addiction is and so I tried to hide it. It’s not a big deal in the grand scheme of things I guess, but my embarrassing white lie just spiraled out of control.
