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Last updated on July 16th, 2017 at 12:45 pm
Don Hooper confesses:
I rode my bicycle through Iowa in July festooned with a Cycling
Against Global Warming” bike jersey
What’s the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done? Tell all in comments.
I saw The Who in Dallas, but I could swear it was in 1989. I do remember that it was sponsored by Miller Brewing Co. though, *belch* and that it was at The Cotton Bowl. Oh, it was also 104 degrees when we got to the stadium. People were passing out from the heat more than the beer.
It was a GREAT show. Daltrey was in fine scream.
Junior high. Went to my chorus concert with the flu. Standing on the top
bleacher, singing my heart out, I passed out and fell off the back.Couldn’t go to school for the rest of the week because of the embarrassment.
Elizabeth
Imperial KeeperPosted by Elizabeth Imperial Keeper on 2007 08 27 at 11:23 AM • permalink
#1. Iowahawk has set the bar quite high, but I once got drunk, picked up a young lady and drove us off a bridge, into the water at Chappaquidick. My wife never forgave me.
Now, that’s embarrassng.
Posted by Harry Bergeron on 2007 08 27 at 11:52 AM • permalink
When I was courting Mrs. Paco – and bear in mind, I was in many ways a mere North Carolina rube, and Mrs. Paco’s folk were highly-sophisticated and cultured Chilean expatriates – we were sitting around the table
one night (Mrs. Paco’s entire family) and I was invited to help myself to some pistachio nuts. Having never been exposed to anything in the nut family beyond peanuts and almonds, I scooped up a bunch of the red-shelled snacks, tossed ‘em in my mouth, and began chomping. My future in-laws stared at me as I commenced what turned out (to me) to be a surprisingly laborious exercise in chewing these tasty, but extremely hard, nuts. After a few moments, Mrs. Paco’s mother – who, incidentally, had been looking at me as if I’d taken a bite out of one of her Lalique knick-knacks – asked, in halting English, “How are they?” I said, “Fine, ma’am, just fine. A little crunchy, but very good.” Later, Mrs. Paco informed me that I was supposed to shell the things, first.My second most embarrassing moment occurred just a few years ago. I was attending a week-long conference involving several federal agencies, and on the second day, showed up and went to where the meeting had been held the day before. As I walked into the room, I was immediately collared by an elegantly-attired gentleman with a tony British accent, who introduced himself and began introducing to me a succession of Iraqi bankers, who had come to the U.S. to meet with State Dept. personnel at the same location where my conference was being held. I had no exit strategy for this gauntlet of glad-handing, and before I knew it, I had met (and promptly forgotten the names of) about a dozen people. Then everyone just stood there, apparently waiting for me to convene a meeting, and the only thing I could say, was, “Er, I think I’m in the wrong room.” Then I withdrew hastily, but in good order. It turned out, of course, that the location of my meeting had been changed to another room.
Once upon a time, I wanted to join the Air Force and become a pilot.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 08 27 at 12:03 PM • permalink
Tripped and split the crotch of my pants open from front to back in High School . This was during the early 70’s when “going commando” was very popular.
I suppose that I should add that the incident occurred in the morning and I had to wait until the afternoon to go home since I lived 30 miles away and was dependent on the school bus to get me back and forth.
In case you were left wondering, no it wasn’t the “short bus”.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 08 27 at 12:04 PM • permalink
But that was back in the days when the Air Force was a military organisation.
Cheers
Posted by J.M. Heinrichs on 2007 08 27 at 12:04 PM • permalink
Back in the mid-60’s. Just out of University. Working on west coast of Tasmania (embarassing enough for most people already).
I used to hitch-hike to Hobart on weekends for a bit of action. Nice break after working with inbred miners all week.
Was attracted to a young lady who’s father was a methodist minister. Things got a bit serious and was invited to meet parents over dinner.
I was very relaxed after roast lamb dinner when gf mom asked “Well, Jack, how did you like the dinner?”
“Fucking delicious”, I replied forgetting that I was not down at the Globe in Zeehan.
My memory is blank about what happened next.
Sorry, Mr IowahawkPosted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 08 27 at 12:10 PM • permalink
Obstinate denialism
The modern heresy! Iowa is full of herectics!
Posted by Wimpy Canadian on 2007 08 27 at 12:15 PM • permalink
#7 MareeS – That brings me back to a time I’d rather forget abot and certainly 2nd most embarrassing (hameful) experience.
In 1972, I was secretary of Cooma ALP branch and fought hard to get local rep (asshole called Bob Whan)and Whitless elected.
I am forever ashamed of my small contibution to the election of Australia’s worst government ever.
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 08 27 at 12:18 PM • permalink
Can we tell stories on other people?
A friend was invited to dinner by the parents of a school mate and, having been warned by his own parents to be on his best behavior, which in those days included eating atleast a bit of everything set before him, noticed little bowls of water set at every place. Remembering his mother’s advice, he picked up the bowl and drank the contents. It was weeks before his mother could bring herself to tell him what a finger-bowl was for.
…That brings me back to a time I’d rather forget about and certainly 2nd most embarrassing (shameful) experience.
Perview is my fiend
Posted by Jack from Montreal on 2007 08 27 at 12:21 PM • permalink
2nd most embarrassing experience: as a young reporter covering a meeting involving physically disabled persons. Wheelchairs, crutches etc. Offered a ride the couple of k’s back to the office by one of the participants, I declined airily (or air-headedly), saying “Thanks, but it’s such a beautiful day I think I’d rather walk.”
One of those occasions to cut your tongue out. Fortunately the person involved had a happy sense of humour.
I bought a brand new Morris 1100 in 1969, and actually drove it without wearing a disguise.
The horrible bloody thing had the decency to crash itself into tree at 60 mph, (close to its top
speed).I was not hurt, the skinful of Bundy rum I had at the time protected me.
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 08 27 at 12:44 PM • permalink
Well there was this once, at band camp…..
Naw, not really. In 1980 I was living in Sydney, in a magnificently shabby mansion (well, one particularly shabby rented room thereof) on Cremorne Point, and working in Martin Place in the city. My joy of joys was the daily routine of wandering down to the jetty, jump the next ferry to Circular Quay
and perch myself on the aft deck to read the Australian (newspaper) smoke and take in the views of one of the world’s most picturesque cities.Disembarking at the Quay, I’d stroll up Pitt St to work, hands deep in pockets and at peace with the world. People must have sensed my natural exultation, as everyone I passed was grinning from ear
to ear.It was only when I arrived at work did I discover the open fly…..held wide agape by pocketed hands. Wouldn’t you have thought some bastard’d say something?…
I voted for George McGovern and Jimmy Carter.
Please excuse me while I flagellate myself for my sins.
Posted by Urbs in Horto on 2007 08 27 at 01:21 PM • permalink
What, you didn’t vote for Mondale while you were at it?
Now that would have been truely unexcuseable.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 08 27 at 01:32 PM • permalink
#20: Wouldn’t you have thought some bastard’d say something?…
Olrence – it is part of the iron law of men: a man must avoid even the appearance of having looked in the direction of another man’s “business”. A fellow may pull you from a burning car, take a bullet for you, marry your ugly sister (not that you have one, of course; merely an example); but the “infield fly rule” is carved in stone.
In my college years, I worked part-time as a groundskeeper at an apartment complex. The maintenance shed was located in a kitty-corner, and a 25-year-old female tenant in one apartment liked to flash me. After a few weeks I was happily banging her on a regular basis. Until her boyfriend came to town unexpectedly. Her big, black boyfriend. Who played football for the Buffalo Bills.
I dove out a back window
buck-naked, huddled behind the shed until I could cat-burglar my way three buildings down to our basement office and a pair of stinky overalls we kept there for messy plumbing jobs.I don’t know what was worse – the naked sprint between buildings, or the two mile walk home barefoot looking like one of Dexy’s Midnight Runners.
Ooooo! Embarrassing bird moments!
A friend of mine – young bachelor dude – had a parrot that he’d taught to swear blue streaks. He was moving, and asked if he could station his bird in the music store
I worked at. No problemo, because the bird wasn’t used to crowds, and would clam up.Well, our store did a lot of business installing sound systems in churches, so various pastors were in and out of the place all the time. One quiet evening, right around closing time, a preacher came in in full-collar garb, and walked up to the bird and uttered the infamous send-off words, “Watca doin’?”
“Fuckin’ off, fuckin’ off, fuckin’ off, fuckin’ off!!!”
Every employee in the store was red faced… except for the preacher. He was positively doubled over with laughter.
St. Pat’s parade in NYC, eons ago. Just out of college and broke, but I had a car and enough gas so five of us went in my ‘72 Beetle. Had a pint of brown kickass, which I drank dry before the parade reached us in Midtown. Blacked. Lost the bottle cap in the middle of the street. There was this really big marching band coming, but that was my cap and I wanted it.
Dragged to the curb just as a pal comes out of this office building escorting his brand-new girlfriend. She was aghast but married him anyway. Her loss.
On the way home, we take the subway to Jersey City, where the car was. Took a leak. In the fountain. In front of the station. At rush hour. Woke up many hours later, half on an ottoman in the living room. Didn’t touch the brown stuff for decades after that.Posted by Gary from Jersey on 2007 08 27 at 02:00 PM • permalink
Here in Toronto we have an annual festival called Caravan, during which all nations are represented in little community centres, and you can go and sample the native cuisine, see indigenous dancers and musicians and whatnot.
You buy a “passport”, and each “country” gives you a stamp for it. It’s a fun way to spend an evening or two.
So once I was in the Finnish pavilion, and after a few drinks I saw a little baby in a carriage. It had a stamp on its forehead, and I said to its mother, “Why on earth would they stamp a baby’s forehead?” I looked a bit closer and saw that it was a rather nasty tumour, not a stamp.
I’ve never been even close to Scandinavia since. God, I wanted to die.
Posted by Mambo Bananapatch on 2007 08 27 at 02:16 PM • permalink
#9 Paco, my friend’s sister had a similar experience. She went to her boyfriend’s house and had shrimp for the first time – and you guessed it, they still had their shells and she didn’t know to peel them. Her family still gives her a hard time over that one. We Tar Heels
sure grow up sheltered, don’t we? 🙂Here are my personal embarrassments:
1. voted for Bill Clinton in 1992 (the first Presidential election I was old enough to vote in)
2. I was visiting my husband’s family for the first time in their new home. This was right after we were engaged. I was upstairs taking a shower while everyone else was downstairs in the basement watching
t.v. I am notorious for taking long showers and this one was long and luxurious. Anyway, when I get out of the shower, I noticed tons of water on the floor. Being an idiot, I had forgotten to put the curtain liner inside the tub and I flooded the bathroom and of course the water ended up going downstairs to the basement. When my future father-in-law starting searching for the culprit, I was too embarrassed to admit my guilt. Every time we visit them now they remind me to put the shower curtain liner inside the tub.
- Posted by Andrea Harris, Administrator on 2007 08 27 at 02:46 PM • permalink
I stuck my hand in a meat grinder. On purpose.
I still have my mangled fingers, though.
Oh, and I attempted to use an absentee ballot to vote for Carter (first election) but didn’t mail it in on time.
Posted by chunt31854 on 2007 08 27 at 03:09 PM • permalink
I voted for the provincial NDP here in Ontario for several elections running (embarassment #1), right up until, shock of shocks, they actually won an election, and made Bob Rae premier of the province. I realized on that morning that my vote was actually a protest vote, and that I never had any idea that they’d actually win. Nor did Rae and the NDP (Canada’s most vociferously leftist legitimate political party), and their subsequent tenure in office was an unqualified disaster that culminated in the public service unions, Rae’s historical allies, turning on him when he tried to solve a budge crisis by asking them to work several unpaid “Rae days”. The electorate, in their customary fashion
, swung back hard and elected a conservative government next with a clear majority, who were reviled even more harshly than Rae for their two terms in office, but actually managed to deal with the budget crisis more effectively than Rae and the NDP, having the license to actually cut public spending as part of their mandate.My votes rapidly drifted rightward over the next few years.
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2007 08 27 at 03:15 PM • permalink
(The Ontario NDP have withered since the 1990 election from their majority of 74 seats to a mere 7 today.)
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2007 08 27 at 03:18 PM • permalink
Voted for Clinton. TWICE.
Donated to Greenpeace AND the WWF.
I fell asleep at a very boring meeting between the Army and a bunch of Kuwaitis. I was the second senior officer at the table
.Took my “Class A” uniform to a civilian tailor to get my unit patch sewn on it (I lived nowhere near a base at that time), and didn’t check the work closely. When I put it on the morning of drill
, I realized it was crooked……after I arrived at the armory. Yes, my commander noticed, it was hard to miss. So did the entire battalion.At a business lunch, I once uttered the opinion that no one over the age of 60 should work (OK, I was stupid when I was younger). The division chief looked right at me and said, “I’m 62.” Bastard didn’t look a day over 55.
As a boy, I had a dream where I was peeing in my dresser drawer. When I woke up, I found that I really had. I then walked downstairs and announced this amazing feat in a loud voice to the family sitting at the table. (OK, so I was REALLY stupid when I was very young.)
I whooped my cookies in a Blackhawk filled with a bunch of local officials and the State Adjutant General. I was the lone Federal representative there; they were kind enough to drop me off at an old air strip where I could die in peace. I repeated this performance a few years laters with senior theater staffers in Kuwait. No, dramamine didn’t help, but I did last long enough to reach Camp Buerhing, where I hitched a car ride back to Arifjan, and eventual collapse in my bunk.
If I remember more, I’ll let you know!
Posted by The_Real_JeffS on 2007 08 27 at 03:24 PM • permalink
(Another footnote: My bad – “Rae days” were actually unpaid days off. The NDP lost its official party status when their number of seats dipped to below 12 in 1999. The conservatives, magnanimously, changed the rules for them, but they lost even more seats in 2003, going down to 7, and the Liberals then in power refused to change the rules again, denying them official party status. They regained it again in a 2004 by-election.)
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2007 08 27 at 03:28 PM • permalink
My first opportunity to make a difference at the ballot-box was in the referendum on whether Britain should join the EU (then fraudulently called the Common Market). Sounded good to me. One big country would obviously be more efficient than all these fiddly little ones. PM Ted Heath seemed a decent well-meaning chap, and if it was good enough for him it must be OK. Besides, I reasoned, this is a step towards the World Government which will one day unify all mankind, bringing an end to poverty and war.
Thanks for letting me share this with you. Perhaps now I can find closure.
Actually I cast my first vote for Richard Nixon.
Yeah, me too. [Hangs head.]
Posted by rightwingprof on 2007 08 27 at 03:44 PM • permalink
Recently? that would be something to be ashamed of. In 68? Not so much to be ashamed of.
Posted by joe bagadonuts on 2007 08 27 at 04:05 PM • permalink
- OK, I was about six or seven but I’ve never been able to get it out of my head. There was a new add on TV for some junk food, with the line, “Mmm, makes your mouth H2O.” A kid in the add asks what that means, and is told, “It’s science code for water.”
I was supposedly one of thenerdsbright kids, so this other boy asks me, “Do you think that’s really science code for water?” and I gave him a withering you stupid gullible fool look and said, “Oh yeah, as if. Christ you’re dumb, Brad.”
Nothing beats what my wife did in medical school (yep, that’s where we met). Picture ward rounds with a bunch of other students, just like on TV. We were with a cardiologist, who presented us with a rather strikingly developed adolescent girl (down, guys, it’s medicine) with a heart murmur. One at a time, we all had a listen to it with our stethoscopes. When it comes to Mrs Minor, she politely asks the girl to “Take a deep breast in for me, please.”
Actually, I did have one moment that stands out: Way back in the last century when my son was born, they forgot to give me an enema before taking me to the delivery room. So, when Baby Boy H was delivered, I also delivered a great big steaming pile of you guessed it on the delivery table. I would have been embarrassed, but they had drugged me to the eyeballs, and the doctor and nurse were both assholes anyway.
Well, let’s see. I have many embarrassing incidents to choose from, but this one seems to be on the top of the stack at the moment:
Once at work, I walked into the elevator (okay, the lift) carrying a very tall stack of boxes, over which I could not see, and fell right over a woman in a wheelchair, dropping the boxes all over her. Good thing the boxes were empty and she had a sense of humor!
Posted by Mary in LA on 2007 08 27 at 05:24 PM • permalink
My most embarrassing moment? Hmm.
Suffering from permanent foot in mouth would be the catlyst for many more embarrassing verbal emanations than I care to recall.
I only open my mouth to change feet. So please excuse me in advance for saying the wrong thing.
*
The worst would be after the suicide of ex-spouse’s uncle. My father in law found his brother after the suicide. I said to sister in law “Good thing he found him, at least he wouldn’t be wondering where he was…” Thinking he’d gone off into the scrub (nobody told me anything).
Turned out that he’d used a shot gun in the loungeroom of their temporarily shared house.
#52 As long as he hasn’t been a little sh1t ever since…
Mom visitng us from Texas for Thanksgiving when we lived around DC. Wife and I take Mom into DC to tour the White House (Reagan years, GOD I miss ‘em).
We waited in line for a while, then we get close to the entrance. Secret Service is of course keeping an eye on folks as they walk in. One of them says to me with a slight grin, “Kind of chilly out today, ain’t it?”.
I took a couple of more steps, kinda wondering why he made small talk with me of all people, then – yep – it hit me.
OPEN FLY.
Needless to say, it hasn’t happened since……
BUT EVEN BETTER THAN THAT ONE….When wife was pregnant with #2, went to a “class” with #1, then 3-1/2, so that they could learn all about what’s up with Mommy having a baby brother/sister.
The class included a discussion of what babies look like, including an explanation of what a penis was.
To which my daughter gleefully announced to the gathered assembly, “My Daddy’s got a penis in the back of his butt!!”
I immediately melted into my chair
…..Posted by Tex Lovera on 2007 08 27 at 06:02 PM • permalink
Thank you, El Cid! The day I became a registered user here was a happy day in my life. This and LGF are as good as it gets IMHO.
MB
Posted by Mambo Bananapatch on 2007 08 27 at 06:35 PM • permalink
My first ever ballot cast in a U.S. presidential election was for Gerald Ford via absentee ballot (I was away at school at the time.) Even though I was from GEORGIA and only 18, I knew better than to vote for Ol’ Jimmah.
Most embarrassing moment: I once spent 3 hours driving a very drunk and very
uglyappearance-challenged woman (that I had found in a DITCH) around in the wee hours trying to find her home, trying to find her home. She was too drunk to remember the precise location of said domicile and, in the end, I dropped her off with the local constabulary. The officer on duty (at 5am) gave me the dirtiest look.Posted by Daddy Binx on 2007 08 27 at 07:13 PM • permalink
I voted for Jimmy Carter. Twice.
I don’t feel too bad about the first time, in 1976. Jeez, his opponent was Gerald Ford, and I didn’t own a crystal ball.
How, or why, I voted for that f**k-knob in 1980 I cannot even begin to understand.
I do have to thank the Democrats in Congress in the early years of the Reagan presidency (1981, ‘82, or so)—they pretty much turned me into a life-long Republican. (I can count on one hand the number of Dems I’ve voted for in the last 25 years.)
Posted by David Crawford on 2007 08 27 at 07:16 PM • permalink
I have always acted with utmost propriety and good judgement.
Posted by Margos Maid on 2007 08 27 at 07:21 PM • permalink
I was just a bit young to vote for Gough but I wore my “Gough For PM” shirt with all the pride a 13 year old could muster. He was our local member after all. He even had a “residence” in his seat but he never seemed to be there funnily enough. I don’t think I ever saw him wandering the streets of Cabramatta.
“Urbs,
What, you didn’t vote for Mondale while you were at it?’‘
No, because by that time he was married to me, and he knew better 😉
BTW Rebecca, no need to be embarrassed about all the stuff that comes out in the delivery along with the baby. With or without an enema, there’s *always* something left in there and it’s *always* going to come out. The good thing about late-stage labor is that YOU DON’T CARE.
Posted by Sonetka’s Mom on 2007 08 27 at 07:49 PM • permalink
I once went to Scores in New York City with Col Allan. To the best of my recollection, neither anything embarrassing or untoward occurred. In fact it was just like any Australian pub on Saturday night. Embarrassingly, I apologised to my wife and keeper the next day for no good reason.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 08:08 PM • permalink
Wandered nekkid through the lobby of a Hyatt hotel once.
Hey, if they had a problem with it, they should have put the bar out by the pool, dammit.
Posted by richard mcenroe on 2007 08 27 at 08:17 PM • permalink
- Having spent quite a bit of time in hospital as the result of several crashing falls caused by a lifelong addiction to riding bad horses,
I thought I was well prepared for the pain of childbirth.Having been in labour for three hours (and not handling it well), I was hit by a monstrous wave of pain, almost blacked out from it.Then, the pain was gone!!! The baby’s arrived!!! I was thanking the Midwife, thanking the Doctor, telling my partner how much I loved him, blah, blah, then gasped, “what is it? Is it a boy or girl???”
“You haven’t had it yet!”
aaaaarrrrggghhhhh!!!!
Three more hours of ****ing agony!!
I voted for Ted Kennedy in the NY primary, why? Because the peanut farmer was a knuckleheaded buffoon? No, because Jimmy Carter wasn’t liberal enough. But, Iowahawk, you win.
Oh yeah, I practically cried when Reagan won. Then I “voted with my feet” and my life got better. I don’t know whether I am a Reagan Democrat or a Carter Republican, but here I am.
By the way Lobus Motls has a great post on Hansen null
I relieved that so far no one owns a Prius.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 08:31 PM • permalink
I relieved that other commenters understand pidgin too.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 08:32 PM • permalink
Years ago, when I was in med school and living in Philly, I had a hamster. At holidays when I would fly home to L.A. I had to smuggle the thing home with me so it wouldn’t starve to death. After a few trips I got the routine down pat. I had a little travel cage and just before the security check I’d step into the nearest ladies’ room, hide the hamster in my coat pocket, then after security go into the NEXT bathroom and get it back into its little cage. (This was well before 9/11; it was easier then.)
All went well until one night flight when apparently the door to the cage worked loose. I had fallen asleep and was awakened by a scream. A flight attendant was walking down the aisle, screaming. I knew what must have happened, but it took 5 mins. or so for me to work up the courage to look in my handbag; the cage was empty.
I went back to the galley and said, “Excuse me, did anyone find a hamster?” and was handed a paper bag with something squirming inside. The hamster was none the worse for wear, but I don’t think I’ve ever entirely recovered.
- A couple for you. When i was about 15 I was involved in a gymkhana (horse riding) event.
After the main event was over I decided to take my c grade horse over a few a grade jumps.
On about the 3rd jump I went foreward and blacked out, coming to as satans minions were using my ballbag as a pinata. I couldnt make ANY move at all, couldnt get the rains, sit up or even roll off. My bloody horse Corrawongi then trotted off the arena with me bouncing on said nutsack all the way.
After I was helped off, threw up and waited for about 20 minutes for the pain to go away I found out what had happened,one of my stirrups had snapped as I landed on the big jump, Mr pommel said hello to mr testicles and that was it.
Oh, and Ive also been kicked in the nuts by an emu.
Just as well I never wanted kids…Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 08 27 at 08:48 PM • permalink
Years ago I accidentally boarded the wrong bus. To my eternal chagrin I found myself in the midst of a team of Swedish netballers and Danish cheerleaders on their way to an all girl, nude sporting festival in a private commune. Naturally I was too embarrassed to admit my mistake and instead spent the next week engaging in activities and desires with these buxom and surprisingly open beauties beyond the realms of teenage sexual fantasy. To this day I am very careful which bus I board. Let my embarrassing mistake be a lesson to all.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 08:50 PM • permalink
Secretary. Drinking. Her home. Correction, her parents home. Somehow got under coffee table. Bum going up and down, lifting coffee table with it. Consequential crashing noises at 3 AM.
Sudden loud voices of large parents: “What are you doing to my daughter”.
Pantless flight.
All OK so far.
Real embarrassment: secretary’s little sister issues forth to deliver pants and drive my drunken self home (car misplaced somehow) laughing pitilessly whole while.
I used to work at the reference desk at a library. I saw an obviously blind elderly man and his wife looking for a book, so I went over and asked if I could help them with anything. They thanked me, but said, no, they were just browsing. I said, and I quote, “I see, well if you need any help, I’ll be over at the desk.” It wasn’t until I had sat back down and saw the grin on my deskmate’s face that I realized what I had just said.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 09:10 PM • permalink
Oh, and Ive had my nipple chewed by a sheep..
Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 08 27 at 09:13 PM • permalink
I also fell down a flight of stairs into the law school commencement ceremony. Some nitwit had left a water bottle on its side on the steps.
I accidentally grabbed a gorgeous woman’s breast. No, seriously, it was an accident. I was moving books at work and not paying enough attention. I was pulling books from my right, transferring them to my left hand, and placing them on the cart. Several of the books fell over on the cart, as they are wont to do. I had finished putting them back and, without looking, reached off to my right to grab the next book. Apparently, she wanted one of the books behind me and was waiting until I noticed her to ask. Oh, I noticed her all right.
I have caught several couples “in the act” on the upper floors of the library. The first time I did, I was about 20. To my eternal embarrassment, I instantly went into “little old man mode.” I quickly walked up behind them, said, “Knock that off!” and glared at them until they gathered up their clothes and went away.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 09:29 PM • permalink
#76 – Infidel, you need to start that comment off by saying, “I never believed the comments you recieved were true, until I had a mind-blowing experience I’d like to share with your readers…”
Which reminds me, my Dad caught me jerking off once. But I’m sure half the guys on this board were caught at least once…
If any of you ladies have been caught, please, do share.
- Kae, I think I handled the situation well. I said, “Oh, I’m sorry, I didn’t see you there, can I help you with anything?”
I have one more embarrassing story. My very first day alone at the reference desk. I was 19 and INSANELY shy. Working at the reference desk cured me of that, for the most part. Anyway, my first day. This drop-dead gorgeous blond woman comes up to the desk and says, “What’s the Georgia law that outlaws blowjobs?” I must have turned bright red. I just stared at her for several beats, then smiled and helped her find the law and explained that apparently it hadn’t been in force in quite some time. She seemed relieved.Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 09:38 PM • permalink
#83 – I’ve been caught jerking off a few times. I’m really impressed that MikeTheLibrarian didn’t out me in his story. In my experience it’s far more embarrassing for the witness than the jerker and you sure do develop sensitive hearing after it happens a few times!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 09:44 PM • permalink
MikeTheLibrarian – Is it just me and the writers of Forum or are libraries a hot bed of sex?
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 09:46 PM • permalink
Hoo boy, I seem to have a lot of these…. On a first date, the waiter accidentally dumped a pitcher of sweet tea onto my side and lap. The woman I was with thought it was hilarious, and to be honest, so did I. Really broke the ice.
I fell asleep during a first date with another girl. Boring movie, can’t even remember which one it was. She didn’t find it amusing. Wasn’t a second date.
Was complaining about “crazy patrons” to another librarian. Turns out her mother had been in and out of asylums for years. She wasn’t fond of the “crazy” label. Come to think of it, she wasn’t exactly Ms. Sanity herself. Librarians tend not to be, I have to admit.
I VERY rarely curse beyond “blast” or “drat”. Just a quirk I have. I had injured my foot rather badly a few weeks earlier and as I was getting into the elevator, a cart full of books (200+) ran RIGHT over my foot. I knew the woman who had run over my foot very well, so I said, “Ow! F%&k!” Little old lady I hadn’t noticed in the elevator glared at me the whole way down, all 7 floors. Felt really… really… small.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 09:50 PM • permalink
Infidel Tiger, I have caught many, many men (and a few women) doing… that… at the computers near the windows. Its amazing how jaded you get after a few years. The first few times, I would just go hide at the desk until they left. By year five at reference I would yell at them to “go do that somewhere private, you idiot!”
And, yes, a college library seems to be one of “those places” where daring or drunk students go to have sex in public with little chance of being discovered. As to the librarians, I don’t know what the rest of those loonies get up to.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 09:53 PM • permalink
TFM, unless you are a Kiwi, I think you should have kept #80 to yourself.
I prefer not to remember my many embarrassments but the above confessions have brought a couple to mind, despite my best efforts to repress them.
1. Back in the g.o.d. before 911, long-haul airline skippers were encouraged to go back into the cabin during rest periods and chat to the passengers. On this occasion I came first to a knight of the realm and his Lady in the front row of first class. It was hard going because the couple did not seem to be interested in my chat and the Lady was actually looking out the window as if fascinated by the clouds.
Two rows back, an American passenger made eye contact and asked me if I always walked through the cabin with my fly open. End of visit to the cabin. It’s a bit difficult to zip up your fly standing in the aisle while most of the passengers are staring and grinning. Paco, if the Seppo had obeyed the “infield fly rule”, I may have been able to entertain a few more passengers.
2. On rare daylight sectors the tech crew would sometimes send a bird-dog back into the cabin. His mission was to find the prettiest passenger and bring her back to the flight deck for a visit.
I found a gorgeous one and started chatting her up, but started to get some strange vibes while I was talking to her. I decided to look further for a better chick. As I walked further aft, an airline security guy grabbed my arm to tell me that he was on board to watch the passenger I had been chatting up. Turned out it was a deportee transvestite. This explained why the cabin crew were roflao. I retired red-faced to the sharp end to find that my crew had been advised of what the skipper was doing in the cabin. They had locked the flight-deck door from the inside and I had to convince them that I had returned without the tranny before they would let me in.
Back when I was a student worker at the library (yeah, I’ve worked there a LONG time) I was chatting up a lovely young women who worked the next department over while shelving The Reader’s Guide to Current Periodicals. Big books, big heavy books, big heavy books kept on the top shelf. As I’m talking to her, the shelf gives way and all twenty of the blasted things fall right on my head, bruising me and breaking my glasses.
Once ran over a guy with my bookcart. Not his feet. Him. He was sleeping on the floor between rows.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 10:00 PM • permalink
- Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 08 27 at 10:52 PM • permalink
- Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 27 at 11:02 PM • permalink
Back in High School, I bought Al Gore’s “Earth in the Balance”. I thought it was good. I believe all sorts of nonsense back then.
Posted by MikeTheLibrarian on 2007 08 27 at 11:07 PM • permalink
Well just last night I got as pissed as all get out on Long Island Ice Teas at Orchard Towers in Singapore. When I crashed into bed I passed out, I had a dream that I was at the Gents and of course peed the bed. That would have been very embarassing were it not for the fact that the Indonesian hooker in the bed along with me was just as drunk as I was so I woke her up with a howl of outrage and demanded to know what the hell she was doing.
The poor lass was so embarassed she gave me a large discount.
Posted by Harry Flashman on 2007 08 27 at 11:27 PM • permalink
It was at the old Goodyear factory, in Akron, Ohio. FMC Corporation, makers of fine Missile Launching Systems. I was part of a high-flown German technical delegation, discussing some very sensitive stuff.
All the notes had to be on butchers paper, which would be shredded, pulped, and burnt afterwards. No pens, too easy to conceal things in those, everything in pencil. Certainly no whiteboards.
There we were, in the enormous walnut-paneled directors room, cavernous, impressive, and a huge oak table fully 40 feet long.
I noticed a mistake in one of the many diagrams I’d just drawn.
“Has anyone got a Rubber?” I asked. The silence was deafening, as all the top-level US defence scientists present just froze. The German ones just looked at them quizzically.
Then I corrected myself “ERASER!!!…. I meant Eraser….” and wished the floor would open underneath me.
The second most embarressing thing was when I changed sex. Involuntarily. Actually, that one turned out pretty well…
- I had been seeing a girl for a few weeks and we had decided we should become more involved as boyfriend/girlfriend and I found myself going to her family home for Christmas lunch to meet her brother, sister and family.
My heart started beating like a freight train when I got introduced to her auntie and her tough looking husband as we had a hot first night fling and also a wicked weekend away to the south coast the previous year after picking up the auntie in a sydney nightspot.
The fact she had twin boys there aged about four indicated that she been a naughty girl telling me she was single.
I never spoke to her all afternoon but it was pretty damned awkward for both of us.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2007 08 27 at 11:52 PM • permalink
- As a student nurse following an anatomy lesson a fellow student and I took the beef femur we had been using and decided to pay back another student for messing up my room. We tied it into her wardrobe and closed the door not realising she had packed before the lecture to go on leave for 2 weeks as were we all. When she got back her room had been opened by the Home sister when complaints were made because of the rotten smell.
Non of us dared own up and the recipient though she guessed, kept quiet. We all got grounded for a month and no late passes for 3 months. Could have been thrown out- fortunately home sister had a sense of humour and I heard her laughing about our discomfort later on.The second and worse was when I was asked to go and prep a young Turkish 19 yr old for an appendicectomy. I was nineteen very shy and unworldly a girl and tried to get out of the job saying I had never shaved a man before and was told I better learn quickly.I went to the hapless young man who was a Muslim to boot and proceeded to try and the task. I did not want my hand to touch his organ so use gauze swabs to move his penis out of the way-The inevitable occurred and I just could not manage the job.
The boy was crimson and I a deeper shade.
I went to the Charge Sister and asked to speak privately as a Senior surgeon was in the office.She said no -what is the problem I explained I was not able to the job and said, almost in tears ‘he is very hard and rigid’ ‘what is the problem.’ The surgeon and the sister were rolling about almost on the floor with fits of laughing and I was wishing death would come quickly. The Dr then put his arms round my shoulder and apologised and said still laughing it was nice to meet someone unsullied by the world. That was 1960 and I still cringe when I think about it.I never went near the boy after that and wonder if he still remembers it.
#100 & 102 – Harry Flashman & Hank Reardon
Pickles and I are forming a club of Blair’s bad boys that we have imaginatively titled the “Wildboys”, you are both requested, nay, demanded to join.
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 28 at 12:09 AM • permalink
Yep. Doing a comatose wee on the renter and putting a few through Auntie qualify. No worries.
As for the other “Bless Me Father For I have Sinned”, I’m afraid none come near the depravity of:
I rode my bicycle through Iowa in July festooned with a “Cycling Against Global Warming” bike jersey.Now that’s bent.
- A bit O/T, but Ubique at #105 will probably know this one.
On the night that Goof Witless was elected PM, the Duntroon street that housed the Commandant and senior officers married quarters had its sign changed to “Wilfred Burchett Drive”. (Burchett was a well known Communist journalist)
It was up for nearly two weeks before some visiting politician complained and the sign was removed.The young gentlemen of the Corps of Staff Cadets wisely disclaimed all knowledge of the sign susbstitution.Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2007 08 28 at 01:07 AM • permalink
1. “Joh for PM” sticker onthe Austin 1800 back in the late Eighties when at I was at Uni.
2. Uncontrolled diarrhea while giving orders to my troop. I thought I was going to do a fart but it just exploded all down the back of my legs. The effing BASB had given us contaminated water from open stave tanks that had then been dusted with churned up bull dust. The entire Battlegroup was crook.
I was 18, fresh out of bootcamp that day. My father had driven down to MCRD San Diego for the graduation and we stopped over in Los Angeles for the night on the way back home.
We were at this really big, multi story book store. I was still in my dress green (Alphas). I still had the bootcamp type stance and walking style (like marching but stiffer and a lot less relaxed).
I’m moving down this aile (sp? the area of clear floor between book shelves) and there is this middle aged lady half hunkered down looking at book titles on the bottom shelf.
Here I am striding down the line and in usual form and habit, in a loud and commanding voice, I say: “Make A Hole!”.
Silly heathen didn’t know that meant get out of the way. Dang near had to step on her.
I deserve no credit, just in the
wrongright place at thewrongright time. 🙂The best one I’ve ever heard about and heard from the horses mouth though was a schoolmate of a friend I was living with on the North Shore while his parents were on a world trip.
His name was Dave, and he was providing some regular extra-marital activity to this married woman in Beauty Point. One Friday while enjoying some afternoon delight the husband pulls into the garage, home early. Dave frantically put his trousers and shirt back on and couldn’t find his shoes in time and desperately attempted to get out the glass door from the kitchen to the backyard. Only problem for Dave though was that the door was key locked.
With nowhere to go the only thing he could think to do was pick up a tee-towel from the kitchen and pretend to be someone the wife had hired to clean the windows or something.
Seconds later the husband walks in and asks Dave who he was and what was he doing there. Upon Dave spewing out what must have sounded so feable an excuse the husband was screaming “What’s going on here” and began chasing him around the downstairs part of their house.
Dave ended up bolting out the front door and back to his car and took off.
When he was telling us about it a few days after it had happened we were in stitches because he had been doing regular laps past the womans house with the view to seeing her so he could get his good shoes back.Posted by Hank Reardon on 2007 08 28 at 01:38 AM • permalink
AKA – Allan Allcock ?
A bit long as it were..but worth it
- There is a shopping mall with a Japanese food court were I’m a regular. After ordering my Spicy Beef Bowl I went to the restroom which is located through a fire door in the back hall. Being a carpenter I noticed the self-closing hinges on the fire door had broken causing the door to spring open rather than close. When I was returning I let go of the door, and quickly reached behind me to grab the handle before it went out of range. As I pulled it closed behind me I froze in a Willy Coyote off of the cliff edge pose, as I realized I was standing amongst a crowd of people who were waiting for seating, with my hand firmly gripping the crotch of a rather fetching, conservative looking Caribbean nursing student. She didn’t say a word, and then proceeded to sit next to me. What is this feeling… is, is it love?
The really embarrassing part was I didn’t say anything and left after my meal. So pathetic!
No ones face looks too special during the vinegar strokes, but having the olds watching would add a lovely new contortion!
Posted by Infidel Tiger on 2007 08 28 at 01:51 AM • permalink
I was completing the final stages of a 10 Km cross country run. In those days we could take our dogs to the unit. While running down the road past the old Company Lines my dog spotted a 28 parrot sitting on the front lawn behind the chain link fence. Quick as a flash he tore off, back up the road to the open gate, back down to where the bird was, and promptly chomped it up and spat it out.
Right in front of the RSM who had drawn level with me. I thought “There go my stripes”, but he just said “Fucking Good Dog!”
Posted by deadparrot on 2007 08 28 at 02:45 AM • permalink
#90, Skeeter, you could open a huge wing of a library with stories written by westerners that began with the words “This one time, in Thailand …”, and that mentioned kathoeys.
Posted by David Crawford on 2007 08 28 at 03:11 AM • permalink
- I’m embarrassed that I have NOT fallen in love with Tim B!
After all he’s practically a delicious biscuit!Posted by carpefraise on 2007 08 28 at 03:25 AM • permalink
New multiplex opened last year. First time there, I needed to hit the john before the flick started, saw the sign above the door – MEN – and walked in.
Good news – it was empty.
Bad news – not a urinal in sight.The dickheads put up curved signs. Said MEN if you looked at it from the right. If I’d come from the other direction, I would have seen a stick figure with a skirt, and WO.
I was the 6th man on our high school’s varsity basketball team back in the mid-70’s. Lynrd Skynrd!!! Anyway, the starting guard fouled out with about 40 seconds to play and we’re down by 1. Coach tells me to feed the inbounds pass to the forward streaking down the court. I heave it for all it’s worth and………..it tails off into the corner of the gym and knocks a fire extinguisher off the wall, exploding as it hits the floor. Forty minutes later, after the mess is cleaned up, we lose by 5.
Jeez, i’ve been taking crap for that for 32 years.
Posted by Holden McGroyn on 2007 08 28 at 03:52 AM • permalink
- Not me but I did help set it up. I was a woolpresser when one of the shearers stopped and began punching a sheep under the ribs. I gave him a funny look and he tipped a wink and said “go and get smeg”
Smeg was a uni student who was roustabouting on his holidays for a few bob. Hed caught Craig (the shearer) cheating at cards and Craig had been looking for an opportunity to get even for ages.
I went and got smeg and Craig called to him “Smeg, do you know CPR”…
Smeg knew everything and said “yes” so Craig called out “come on we’ve got to save this sheep”.
Smeg got down and began to give the blue tongued, snotty faced, hours dead sheep mouth to mouth while everything else in the shed stopped.
With perfect timing the station owners daughter walked in (nice too!!), had a look and walked out shaking her head.
Craig kept him going for about 5 minutes before telling him it “was too late the sheep was gone”.
Best thing was smeg didnt even know hed been had till the end of the day.
Worst this was, he was doing economics, so is probably a milionare by now…Posted by thefrollickingmole on 2007 08 28 at 04:16 AM • permalink
One of my more embarrassing moments occurred in my first year of my first fulltime job for a large government agency.
There was a meeting for the entire Division (about 100 people). Given the large number of people, they had the meeting in a room which was mainly used for staff functions so the chairs were arranged in a circle around a central point.
I arrived a little late and the Division Head was standing in the middle of this circle and had already started speaking. Naturally all the seats towards the back had been taken so I had to push past everyone to get to a free seat in the front row. This meant that everyone noticed me walking in late. It was deathly quiet since the Division Head was quite the disciplinarian.
I hadn’t had much sleep that night and the Division Head was one of the most boring men in the universe (it was rumoured that our Division received more funding than others because other executives gave in to the Division Head’s demands rather than have to listen to him talk), so after a short amount of time, I started to nod off to sleep.
However, as soon as my chin hit my chest, I woke up with a start and yelled out “blaaaaaah” (or something similar). Of course everyone was staring at me with a mixture of horror and amusement.
Posted by Art Vandelay on 2007 08 28 at 04:19 AM • permalink
I went out with a girl and called her the wrong name all night. She kept correcting me and 2 minutes later I would get it wrong again and again. no second date.
A caravan of 4 women bring me stacks of paper I need to take back to work. I declare that I’ll carry them all out in one trip. I balance the stack, punch the code to get out the door, step through the door and somehow trip over my own feet. I twist in to the wall to try to hold myself up but I fall on my face dumping everything. Oh, did I mention that if the door isn’t shut in 45 seconds then an alarm goes off? The first people who show up are the same people who I assured I’d have no trouble making it in only 1 trip. The door needs to be shut for them to turn off the alarm but the door way (and part of the hallway) is filled with papers. They couldn’t help pick up because they were too busy laughing
I was a freshman in high school, exceptionally dorky, and a girl I knew had a baby. A few months later at a mutual friends house she brought the kid over to show everyone. Everyone else, including her parents and my friends parents, said things like ‘what a beautiful baby’, ‘looks just like his father’ etc. I said (and not very quietly) the first thing that came to my mind which was “oh my god, that came out of your vagina!?” (it was a rhetorical question)
Posted by Col. Milquetoast on 2007 08 28 at 04:41 AM • permalink
I hand out how to vote cards for the ALP.
There, I said it.
It is a marriage saving thing.
My Father-In-Law is a sitting State ALP member. He is actually a good bloke and his seat isn’t marginal. My Parents, who are members of the Liberal Party, hand out how-to-votes for the Libs in their seat in the morning and then come and hand out ALP how-to-votes in the afternoon.
That is my shame.
(The WA Libs and Nats are a shower of shit and don’t deserve to be elected at the moment . . . I can come up with a few more justifications if you want.)
30 years ago in Spain, two Americans and I caught a bus in the middle of nowhere, going nowhere. The trip was a few hours and it gathered a number of school children and miscellaneous others. We had been drinking all day until the bus ride and sitting in the far back of the bus we were into the shenanigans that young hitch hikers did in their early 20’s. So when a young Spanish turned to look at us or a bunch of them giggled and turned towards us each of us would try and out do the other by saying totally immature things like ….. well you can imagine the language was unjustifiably foul to the extreme. This went on for the whole trip until just before the bus stopped one of the Yanks turned to me and asked how we would be going from the railway station to the jetty for the trip to Tosa de la mer, when the lovely old lady in front of us said ‘well if you would like to follow me I’ll take you there’. Cringe effing cringe.
I can count on one hand the number of Dems I’ve voted for in the last 25 years.
Local elections, too? I don’t much care about party in local elections—hell, in this last primary, I wrote our Democrat Sheriff’s name in on my Republican ballot. If it ain’t broke, don’t fix it, and as county sheriffs go, it’s hard to beat ours.
Posted by rightwingprof on 2007 08 28 at 10:17 AM • permalink
I had just graduated college and had my first teaching job. I was teaching at a high school in Jacksonville, N.C. which is home to Camp Lejeune Marine Corps base. I was sharing a classroom with another teacher who was a retired marine. We were chatting and somehow I ended up making a completely idiotic, inappropriate comment about how all these marines go off and marry Asian women because they are so docile, etc. The next day his wife, a lovely lady from Vietnam came in to say hello. The nicer she was to me, the more I felt like crawling under my desk.
In my early twenties. Driving through midtown Atlanta after a Braves game after many beers, with two buddies. On the dark sidewalk I spot a female hitchhiker—cute young thing, long blond hair, great body—and I insist we pick her up. So we do. We’re driving along, she and I in the back seat, and my two buddies in the front have a case of the giggles—I don’t know why, but I’m busy making small talk with her, one part of my brain thinking about all the possibilities, and it turns out I’m the only one not sober enough to realize that she was a he, and at that moment of my belated discovery we let “her” out, before anything eventuated, fortunately. Thank gawd I didn’t have to figure it out the hard way, so to speak…of course my buddies have never let me forget this most excruciatingly memorable moment.
Based upon MikeTheLibrarian’s comments maybe we should change that old quote about get a room
!” to “find a library!”.
Well there was this time in my army days when…wait, are you still reading this thread? Nevermind.
Posted by dean martin on 2007 08 29 at 08:46 AM • permalink
Janice – you are right, I am a man. Marriage is about compromise, but nobody said it was about selling one’s soul.
Once I asked her what she wanted for her birthday she said nothing. So, I got her nothing, no card, nix. She didn’t talk to me for three days.
She didn’t talk to me for two days when I first found out her old man ws running for parliament and I said I wouldn’t campaign against him, but couldn’t support him.
Passed out “Ted Kennedy for President” materials in 1980.
Contest over.