My Most Embarrassing Moments, Part I

I can’t exactly recall what set me down the path of recalling the most embarrassing moments of my childhood, but the more I thought it, the more I realized it could be vaguely therapeutic to list them here. I’m a big believer in self-deprecation and I can’t think of anything more enjoyable than reliving some of the most embarrassing experiences of my youth. My short list all seem to have happened at school. Frankly, the list could be hundreds of instances long. Seriously, I was that big of a douche bag. (I might still be.) But for the sake of tradition, I’ll limit it to the 10 most embarrassing. Here’s part 1 of 2:

10) The time I got pants’d in 5^th grade
I’m channeling the voice (and the rockin’ bod) of Sophia from Golden Girls when I say, “Picture it! Henderson (Ky.), 1984!” I was in fifth grade at East Heights Elementary School. It’s superfluous to this particular story, but I associate that year with my first real crush. Her name was Gretchen Enyart. She was a cheerleader for the mighty Cardinals of East Heights. All these years later I don’t mind letting the cat out of the bag because I assume she still has no idea who I am. She was only a year older, but decades hotter than I was in fifth grade. And that little nugget is pertinent to the story of my getting pants’d.

You see, I was a bit of a late bloomer. For the more mature boys, wearing sweat pants would have been needlessly reckless given the inherent lack of structural integrity in the groin area of most sweat pants, especially the velour kind my mom bought at JC Penney. (Why did every pair seem to be maroon?) For me, though, the cruel hand of puberty was not yet playing havoc with my loss of junk control, so I brazenly wore sweat pants, sometimes more than once a week. On one such day, some complete jackass dropped my sweat pants in the gym in front of what was maybe five people standing in our little group, but in my head it seemed like the crowd at an American Idol audition. Fortunately, this guy (and I can’t remember who it was) did not also drop by briefs. Those of the Fruit of the Loom variety. In hindsight, that would’ve been even more mortifying, especially if, somehow, miraculously, Gretchen had been looking at me longingly during that instant. She would not have been impressed and I suspect I would have literally died in the gym. An autopsy would have later confirmed the cause of death: embarrassment. The coroner's postmortem notes might also have referenced my freakishly tiny equipment downstairs.

9) The time some girl said I was gay
Eighth grade is a tough time for most boys and I was no exception. I liked lots of girls but had no idea how to talk to them. Karl from Slingblade would look like one of the Baldwins compared to the eighth grade me. French fried potaters would have been, intellectually speaking, a step up from whatever I spent most of my time talking to girls about. Probably Nintendo or the Beastie Boys. Anyway, I was in eighth grade when a particularly skanky girl took a shine to my 98-lb. frame. We all know the drill. She asked a friend to ask a friend to ask a friend to find out if I liked her. It’s a miracle I didn’t pee in my pants. I can remember be saucer-eyed, literally (well, actually figuratively) frozen in place. I’m sure I stammered something about similar to, “Sorry, I’m not interested. I’m really busy with the second Zelda just now. Check back after I beat this one.” Regardless of what I said, this wasn’t the answer my skanky lady was looking for. So, she started a rumor with a fairly wide circle of people that I was gay. I’m not sure how she supported this particular accusation but I don’t imagine it was “because he won’t go with me.” It probably involved me and another dude in a bathroom stall right after lunch. Who knows. All I know is the rumor followed me for a good six months and it was truly traumatic for me. Maybe it’s not a big deal for gay kids these days, but it was a helluva big deal for a straight kid in 1987.

8-7) The time I was in “A Computerized Christmas” (It’s a two-fer!)
Once upon a time I was in play called “A Computerized Christmas.” From the title alone you can surmise this wasn’t exactly Ibsen. As I recall, somehow a computer helped save Christmas by joining forces with Father Time and Santa Claus. Sounds riveting, I know. Yours truly landed the lead role of Father Time after several rounds of auditions where those going after the role were asked to sing the correct words loudly. I sang the most loud. (This was fourth grade and winning this role really helped set me apart from the other super geek in class.) Once all the parts were determined, we started rehearsing with the music teacher every afternoon in the amphitheater.

(Note: The amphitheater doubled as the room where we watched film strips for the last two weeks of school every year and where the boys and girls separately convened to discuss puberty in “health” class. I got a turquoise pamphlet w/ cartoons in it showing private parts. I bet my parents still have it.)

So, on day one of play practice (my God, this sounds so queer) I raised my hand and innocently asked the music teacher who had the most lines of anyone in the whole play. I already knew the answer, of course, but wanted her to affirm my awesome-ness. When she said, “Well, Chip, I guess you do” I followed it up with, “So, would you say I have the most important part in the play then?” At this point and as I’m typing this I’m cringing to the point of getting cramps in my stomach. I was such a complete tool bag. I can’t type anymore. It hurts too bad.

Fast forward about a week when we actually started rehearsing on the stage. One of the teachers volunteered to provide Father Time’s cane, you know, to make a three-foot fourth grader with a beard made of cotton seem more like a thousands-of-years-old time keeper. Apparently this particular cane had been hand-carved by her recently deceased father. She begged us all to be very careful with it. I broke it in half on the second day of practice while I was screwing around on stage. Now who’s laughing, cane lady?

6) The time I tried to say something funny
This one comes from all the way back in 1987. Ms. McCroskey’s science class. Mister funny guy always gotta be the class clown, always gotta say something funny. One sunny day on a Monday spring morning, Ms. McCroskey welcomed us all back to class and remarked to Mark Smith, one of my fellow seventh graders, that she’d seen him at the park with his dog over the weekend. Now, before I tell you what I said, I should point out that I had no business making fun of Mark Smith. He, along with me and a guy named Brian Crafton, was among the 3 shortest boys in our entire school. I shared a tiny kinship with Mark that should’ve been enough to keep me from trying to make a joke at his expense. (Fortunately, he never held it against me and we played tennis together many times once we got to high school.) Anyway, so Ms. McCroskey finishes with something like, “Hey, Mark. I saw you at the park this weekend with your little dog.” Then, from across the room, inspiration strikes the short kid in the corner and I say, “That wasn’t his dog, that was his sister.” All these years later, even if I pretend I don’t know what Mark’s reply was, this just isn’t funny. This is about as funny as when my daughter butchers the same knock-knock joke for the 35^th time, except she’s three and I was 12. No, what’s funny is what Mark said. Without raising his voice and with only the slightest hint of contempt, he said quietly, “My sister is dead.” Touche.