wow, you opened comments back up. awesome...

why the change?

I was going up the escalator, coming out of the subway station, during morning rush hour. While I was standing there, I felt something slip down my leg. I have no idea what it is, so I shake my leg and look down, What do I see? A pair of my underwear rolls out of my pant leg onto the foot of the guy behind me....

Apparently, static cling worked its evil magic and the undies had been clinging to the inside of my pant leg all morning.

I just pretended it didn't come from me and just walked away --- very quickly.

I once called one of my teachers a lesbian and she was standing right behind me. She and I had to have a serious conversation about sexuality, even though I'm gay and I've been there. It was awful.

Happy Birthday, Lady Dooce.

until i actually got it, i thought that when you were on your period you just peed blood, and that's why you had to wear 'diapers'....yeah.

When I was a teenager, I played the side drum in a marching bagpipes band. Yeah, I know, dorksville. But it was fun.
Anyway, one day we were waiting our turn to march in an Australia Day parade. All the different floats and marching bands were on this huge sports oval, and as each group joined the parade, they would march down the middle of the oval, then out onto the road where the parade was.
Anyway, I am stuffing around with my friends when I hear my evil nemesis, Country Music. I turn around to see that the next "float" is a truck with a Country and Western band on the back of it, and behind and in front of the truck is boot scooters. Being a teenager, and a bitch, I start to heckle. I am slapping my thigh, and screaming yeah-hah, while all my friends laugh. I am so loud and raukous that everyone on the oval is looking at me. So to take the heckiling up a notch, I jump into the air to click my heels. Just as the heels are clicking, a gust of wind blows my kilt up around my face, leaving my HOT PINK undies for all to see. I die of embarrassment, EVERYONE ELSE dies of laughter.

Office Christmas Party. Skirt caught up in my waistband after I went to the bathroom right after I arrived. Nobody told ME about it until the next day. Then EVERYBODY thought I should know.

I think my most embarrassing moment revolves around farting at school too. I was in the tried grade and we were having an indoor recess because of bad weather. I was working a puzzle off to the side and out of nowhere I farted *incredibly* loud. They all laughed at me and I'll admit, I cried a little. Cut me some slack on the crying; I was eight!

Similar to Alex, I was at a business meeting when a colleague sneezed. Trying to be a gentleman I offered her the handkerchief that was in my suit pocket.

Unfortunately, it wasn't a hanky after all, but instead they were my fiance's pantyhose which she took off at a wedding reception ("These things ARE KILLING ME!") and gave to me to put in my pocket. I had a hard time explaining why I had an extra pair of nylons in my suit pocket.

Blog-related and VERY recent:

I started seeing this guy here in Europe and through his blog found his girlfriend's blog (what! girlfriend?) back in the States and started to read it almost obsessively. Then the other day I found a post on her site about me obsessively lurking- she had tracked me through statcounter. Yikes! So I revealed myself and now we're like, friendly, so whatever. But still.

Also: farted during a performance review at a job, years ago. Loud, but not stinky.

I was not exactly the best athlete in high school, but I did like to try. I played soccer as a freshman...During one game a ball went flying into the air with an arc that made it clear I was going to have to try to get it with my head. The really unfortunate thing was that the ball and I were going to have to do this right in front of the bleachers, which were packed with people - including BOYS. Well, the inevitable happened: I jumped up to head the ball, and missed it entirely, which is probably one of the most awkward looking movements known to man. While the people in the bleachers laughed I tried to run it off like I wasn't embarrassed. As Miss Heather probably knows, it is damned tough being a gangly tall teenage girl (but we get some benefits out of it later, don't we Dooce?).

I was teaching a class when I was a graduate student. After class, one of my students came up to me:

"Ms. Blanchard, you know how you told us to tell you if you ever got chalk on your face?"

"Yes?"

"Well, your skirt's not zipped all the way up."

I reached around to my butt and zipped my skirt up. The good news is that I had on underwear. The bad news is that it was some of my ugliest granny bloomers I owned, white with little blue flowers on it.

That was about 5 years ago. I always check my zipper before class. (My husband just pointed out that before we were married and he was visiting me in NC from LA, I walked around the airport with my skirt tucked into my thong.)

Honestly, I have tons of embarrassing moments. Like milking my own boob at work on Friday because I forgot my breast pump. The butt trumps the boob though because I didn't milk my boob in class or in an airport.

Here's two for the price of one, both from high school because, you know, that's when you do the most embarrassing stuff. Anyway.

There was a very, very, very hot and young teacher in my highschool, Mr. D. Almost every hormonal high school girl had a crush on him. One day, in a hurry (as I often was--I was constantly flattening people against the lockers as I tore through the hallways), I blazed by the Guidance office door just as Mr. D was coming out. Not only did I body slam him, but also, red with embarrasment and trying to run away, I realized that I had my wrist stuck through the lanyard on his keychain, which was hanging out his back pocket. Read as: my wrist was on his ass.

#2: a ski story, to follow the theme: I had an epic crush on a boy named Adam from about fourth grade until sophomore year of high school. In eighth grade, we were on a school ski trip and waiting for the chair lift to go up the measly mountain. I stepped forward, but for some unknown reason, Adam hung back. Maybe he wanted to wait for someone else, maybe he just didn't want to ride with me, but I decided I would wait, too. I sidestepped, thinking I'd avoiding the path of the chair. Next thing I knew, I was flat on my face, the incoming chair having RUN ME OVER. They had to stop the lift, then Adam and I had to ride up the mountain together and it was not romantic at all.

Happy anniversary!

This is probably not the most embarrassing moment, but for some reason the most memorable. When I was about 10 I was a cheerleader on one of those squads for kids. It was already pretty embarrassing that I was the tallest and largest girl on the squad. Anyway, we had to do this cute little cheer where we kicked our leg up in the air. In a 10 year old pure adrenaline rush I kicked as hard as I could and my shoe flew off and ended up hitting someone in the stands.

As a preteen, I took gymnastics. I was pretty good and could do back handsprings and eleven thousand cartwheels in a row.

Most of the girls in my gymnastics class had slim, athletic bodies.
They didn't bother wearing a bra under their t-shirts to class, so I figured I shouldn't have to, either. This was a mistake because I had boobs.

During mat practice, I ran across the mat and turned a cartwheel. My t-shirt flew up, exposing my chest to the entire gymnasium.

My instructor, a man whose name I have blocked from memory since that day, said, "Hey, Danielle, you might want to think about WEARING A BRA TO CLASS FROM NOW ON!"

If I knew the word "motherfucker" back then, I'm sure I would have called him one.

Instead, I ran to the locker room, sobbing, and never returned. It was the worst, most embarrassing moment of my life and I still have boob issues to this day because of it.

Over the years, though, I've honed the skill of embarrassing myself in public to a fine art form.

I was at Costco w/ my hubby browsing through the books, completely unaware of my surroundings. Without looking up, I moved closer to my husband who was nearby and gently leaned my head on his shoulder.

Problem: It wasn't my husband. (!) Unbeknownst to me, my real hubby had gone around the isle of books and was now at the opposite end, on the other side of the store!

The man I had just gotten cozy with jumped 3 feet into the air, looked at me like I had the plague, said "You've completely lost it lady!" and fled.

If no one else had witnessed this, I probably could have laughed my way out of it, but *several* people, including my hubby saw the whole thing and laughed their asses off.

I was completely mortified. This happened over 15 years ago but to this day, whenever I think about it, I do a little heebie dance inside.

*shudder*

In other more happy news: Happy Blogiversary, Dooce! Here's to many, many more!