Baring my soul...
To make you chuckle.
I'm going to list the 5 most embarrassing moments of my life. The reason I'm doing this is to tell you all the last item, which happened recently, and to give you some context of why this recent event was so humiliating to me. This kind of post would make an interesting meme, but since I've adopted a "I don't pass along memes" policy, it will be up to you readers to steal it and post it in your own blogs. And by "steal" I mean, "would you please consider doing it because I would find your 5 things interesting to read, but I'm not going to tag you with it." NOTE: there will probably be several references to Jade, my childhood friend from Hometown, USA. I don't mean to pay her disproportionate attention, but she knows things about some of these incidents, and I have to shout-out to her when reminiscing about them.
1. In fourth grade, I made it to my elementary school's spelling bee finals. I was always a good speller in school, and really enjoyed the competition of the qualifying round in my class. The finals were onstage in front of the whole school, and I think with parents present. In my memory it all went wrong on the first word I was given, although I may have repressed several successfully-spelled words that came before The Word. The Word was "juice". "J-U-I-C-E". "Juice" I panicked and said "Juice. J-I-U-C-E. Juice" I knew it was wrong as soon as it left my mouth. I had to sit on the stage for the rest of the bee, where I spelled every other word in the competition correctly in my head. Jade, Super Extra Bonus Points to you if you can remember who won the bee. (I do remember, and I distinctly remember seeing Gunnar Cahoon celebrating at the moment of victory).
2. I played youth basketball as a kid, and I stunk. It was never a favorite sport of mine, but my parents put me and my brother into the recreation sports leagues to get us out of the house, so there wasn't much choice involved on my part. I think I defended well, but I was not what you'd call a scoring threat. I remember one year before the last game of the season my coach pulled me aside to motivate me to play more aggressively. He showed me a stat sheet that showed the total points I had scored up to that point in the season. I believe the amount was "2". To emphasize the degree of my ineptitude, he also showed me the point total of one of my teammates. This teammate was a large, slow girl. Her point total was "4". Definitely a low moment, but during that game I also remember making a pass from the top of the key, driving the lane, getting the ball back and laying it in; a perfect give-and-go. Jade, I won't say the girl's name, but I'll give you this hint: In 7th grade, when we were rehearsing our Wizard of Oz spoof, she couldn't make it because she had made "previous plans." The plans turned out to be riding lessons, which you and I dubbed as "previous plans to kill a horse."
3. I took French for 2 years in middle school and all 4 years of high school. As you can imagine, I saw a lot of the same people in those classes. There were usually two sessions of French, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. One day during Sophomore year there was going to be a French test. I was in the afternoon class and had spoken with someone from the morning class about the test. I was told that the test wasn't that bad. This made me happy. On my way to said French class to take said test, I saw one of my French compatriots, Cara Williams, at her locker. While walking by I said to Cara, "Cara, I heard the French test isn't that bad." Cara replied "Really?" As I continued down the hall I remembered that Cara was not in my French class anymore. In fact, though I had been in French classes with her for the last three years, that year she had left French and moved to Spanish. I felt like SUCH an idiot. It doesn't sound bad, but it really hit me hard when it happened. It still gets to me when I try to imagine what she must have been thinking when she heard me and replied as if she knew what I was talking about. She was probably thinking something like, "So what, you dork!"
4. I was standing at the time, which was unusual, and concentrating, which was not unusual. I was a Sophomore in college, and in my dorm room. I heard a click at the door and my heart leapt, my adrenaline surged. I didn't have time to put it away, let alone zip up, so I crouched and covered myself. In walked my roommate. In a somber voice, I asked him to please close the door. He did, and got a worried look on his face. "Are you okay, are you hurt? he asked. "No, I'm not hurt," I replied. After a few seconds of silence the light of realization shone down on him, and a knowing grin spread wide upon his face. He left the room for a moment to let me compose myself, and then laid into me with ridicule the way best friends so effectively do. I would have put this at the top of the list had the topic of masturbation and sex not been such a frequent conversation piece for us. On the Scarring Scale I'd put this one at about a 5.
5. I love hockey. I love playing hockey. My preferred position is to play goalie. I think I'm a pretty good goalie. I play in a floor hockey league. Last week I didn't play so well, although my team won handily. This past week I was determined to play better. During warm-up I was feeling good, even intentionally picking off shots, out of the air, with the thin part of my stick above my blocker glove. During gameplay, though, I sucked. Really sucked. No, I mean rrrreeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyy SUCKED! They were beating me low to both sides, over my catching glove, leaving me sprawling on the floor during breakaways while they traipsed around and gently tapped the ball in the net. The guy who NEVER EVER EVER scores scored on me. All told I think I let in 13 goals. I was feeling bad about letting so many in, and made apologies to my teammates, who didn't seem overly annoyed at my performance. Late in the second half, though, one of the players on my team informed me that my leg pads were mixed up and on the wrong legs. I haven't felt that level of shame in a long time. I wanted to leave and never come back.
Not a good day, that one. Live and learn.
BTW, I saw a show on ABC tonight that I really enjoyed. It's called My Kind of Town, and it's a really interesting and entertaining concept, and well-executed to boot. I've never heard of it before, but apparently tonight's episode was the second (you've failed me, Entertainment Weekly!) Check out the website to learn about the show, because I'm too tired to go into it all right now. Sorry.
I taped The Office "marathon" NBC showed this week and watched the shows Saturday night. I love it. It's a really funny show, but the "Diversity Day" episode was just uncomfortable, almost painful, to watch. It was funny, but it was hard to laugh at it.
I'm going to list the 5 most embarrassing moments of my life. The reason I'm doing this is to tell you all the last item, which happened recently, and to give you some context of why this recent event was so humiliating to me. This kind of post would make an interesting meme, but since I've adopted a "I don't pass along memes" policy, it will be up to you readers to steal it and post it in your own blogs. And by "steal" I mean, "would you please consider doing it because I would find your 5 things interesting to read, but I'm not going to tag you with it." NOTE: there will probably be several references to Jade, my childhood friend from Hometown, USA. I don't mean to pay her disproportionate attention, but she knows things about some of these incidents, and I have to shout-out to her when reminiscing about them.
1. In fourth grade, I made it to my elementary school's spelling bee finals. I was always a good speller in school, and really enjoyed the competition of the qualifying round in my class. The finals were onstage in front of the whole school, and I think with parents present. In my memory it all went wrong on the first word I was given, although I may have repressed several successfully-spelled words that came before The Word. The Word was "juice". "J-U-I-C-E". "Juice" I panicked and said "Juice. J-I-U-C-E. Juice" I knew it was wrong as soon as it left my mouth. I had to sit on the stage for the rest of the bee, where I spelled every other word in the competition correctly in my head. Jade, Super Extra Bonus Points to you if you can remember who won the bee. (I do remember, and I distinctly remember seeing Gunnar Cahoon celebrating at the moment of victory).
2. I played youth basketball as a kid, and I stunk. It was never a favorite sport of mine, but my parents put me and my brother into the recreation sports leagues to get us out of the house, so there wasn't much choice involved on my part. I think I defended well, but I was not what you'd call a scoring threat. I remember one year before the last game of the season my coach pulled me aside to motivate me to play more aggressively. He showed me a stat sheet that showed the total points I had scored up to that point in the season. I believe the amount was "2". To emphasize the degree of my ineptitude, he also showed me the point total of one of my teammates. This teammate was a large, slow girl. Her point total was "4". Definitely a low moment, but during that game I also remember making a pass from the top of the key, driving the lane, getting the ball back and laying it in; a perfect give-and-go. Jade, I won't say the girl's name, but I'll give you this hint: In 7th grade, when we were rehearsing our Wizard of Oz spoof, she couldn't make it because she had made "previous plans." The plans turned out to be riding lessons, which you and I dubbed as "previous plans to kill a horse."
3. I took French for 2 years in middle school and all 4 years of high school. As you can imagine, I saw a lot of the same people in those classes. There were usually two sessions of French, one in the morning and one in the afternoon. One day during Sophomore year there was going to be a French test. I was in the afternoon class and had spoken with someone from the morning class about the test. I was told that the test wasn't that bad. This made me happy. On my way to said French class to take said test, I saw one of my French compatriots, Cara Williams, at her locker. While walking by I said to Cara, "Cara, I heard the French test isn't that bad." Cara replied "Really?" As I continued down the hall I remembered that Cara was not in my French class anymore. In fact, though I had been in French classes with her for the last three years, that year she had left French and moved to Spanish. I felt like SUCH an idiot. It doesn't sound bad, but it really hit me hard when it happened. It still gets to me when I try to imagine what she must have been thinking when she heard me and replied as if she knew what I was talking about. She was probably thinking something like, "So what, you dork!"
4. I was standing at the time, which was unusual, and concentrating, which was not unusual. I was a Sophomore in college, and in my dorm room. I heard a click at the door and my heart leapt, my adrenaline surged. I didn't have time to put it away, let alone zip up, so I crouched and covered myself. In walked my roommate. In a somber voice, I asked him to please close the door. He did, and got a worried look on his face. "Are you okay, are you hurt? he asked. "No, I'm not hurt," I replied. After a few seconds of silence the light of realization shone down on him, and a knowing grin spread wide upon his face. He left the room for a moment to let me compose myself, and then laid into me with ridicule the way best friends so effectively do. I would have put this at the top of the list had the topic of masturbation and sex not been such a frequent conversation piece for us. On the Scarring Scale I'd put this one at about a 5.
5. I love hockey. I love playing hockey. My preferred position is to play goalie. I think I'm a pretty good goalie. I play in a floor hockey league. Last week I didn't play so well, although my team won handily. This past week I was determined to play better. During warm-up I was feeling good, even intentionally picking off shots, out of the air, with the thin part of my stick above my blocker glove. During gameplay, though, I sucked. Really sucked. No, I mean rrrreeeeaaaaaallllllyyyyy SUCKED! They were beating me low to both sides, over my catching glove, leaving me sprawling on the floor during breakaways while they traipsed around and gently tapped the ball in the net. The guy who NEVER EVER EVER scores scored on me. All told I think I let in 13 goals. I was feeling bad about letting so many in, and made apologies to my teammates, who didn't seem overly annoyed at my performance. Late in the second half, though, one of the players on my team informed me that my leg pads were mixed up and on the wrong legs. I haven't felt that level of shame in a long time. I wanted to leave and never come back.
Not a good day, that one. Live and learn.
BTW, I saw a show on ABC tonight that I really enjoyed. It's called My Kind of Town, and it's a really interesting and entertaining concept, and well-executed to boot. I've never heard of it before, but apparently tonight's episode was the second (you've failed me, Entertainment Weekly!) Check out the website to learn about the show, because I'm too tired to go into it all right now. Sorry.
I taped The Office "marathon" NBC showed this week and watched the shows Saturday night. I love it. It's a really funny show, but the "Diversity Day" episode was just uncomfortable, almost painful, to watch. It was funny, but it was hard to laugh at it.
posted by CBK at
9:13 PM
