Heater, Mother of Lance
Heather B. Armstrong
Hi. I’m Heather B. Armstrong, and this used to be called mommy blogging. But then they started calling it Influencer Marketing: hashtag ad, hashtag sponsored, hashtag you know you want me to slap your product on my kid and exploit her for millions and millions of dollars. That’s how this shit works. Now? Well… sit back, buckle up, and enjoy the ride.
Maggie
2005/02/27 at 11:23 pmFirst day of school in High School. I was very excited because I was amped up to be the most studious person in the entire world. So I get to my first class, which is English, and I’m told has the most harsh grading teacher. Everyone is silent as student by student goes up and reads an essay explaining who they were and what they liked, etc. So I go up to the teachers desk very quietly and ask if I can use a pen because I didn’t bring one..she glared at me and said “no”. Then as I turn around to head back to my seat, my foot gets caught around the wire to her desk lamp. Sending it crashing across her desk, and shattering the lovely picture of her and her fiance’ into a million pieces. Her coffe mug splattered across her white skirt, her glasses got crushed, and one student had to go to the nurse to have a piece of light buld removed from her leg.
I was tormented all the way up until I surrendered to home schooling.
Avey
2005/02/27 at 10:43 pmHa.. I feel silly putting my moment in here.
Comments are actually open on this post!
burdanilex
2005/02/27 at 10:07 pmI was in junior high (grade 9) and was expiramental. My friend and I decided that we really wanted to know what it was like to kiss another girl and to fool around with another girl. So we decide that the schools nurses room is the best place for our expiramenting. So we go in there a few times and make out. Each time we went in there we got more courageous and did more and more things. We would take turns as to who was lying down with pants down and who was on top. I happened to be on top this particular day when suddenly the door unlocks. A teacher came in and froze. I had sat up and she was still lying there.
Of course our parents were called. We had thankfully discussed what we’d say if we were ever caught. We figured we’d have enough time to sit up before the teacher saw one leaning over the other. We were wrong.
The excuse was that she needed someone to talk to. I was that someone. However when asked why I was leaning over her and her pants were down I came up with “I was giving her a hug and her pants were down because she has a bladder problem (which thankfully she did) and was letting her pants dry without being on her”.
My parents believed the story (my stepmom doubted it and didn’t want me to have sleepovers after that but dad vetoed her and I was able to still) and I think hers did too but I very much doubt the teachers did.
Going to school and seeing those teachers (and secretary who knew about it) was a very hard thing to do.
LeChico
2005/02/27 at 9:42 pmThis is not THE most embarassing moment… but will do for now. cant talk abt THE moment yet.
A friend of mine acted in a play a couple of years ago. I landed up at the matinee half hour late and terribly hungover from the prev night. I could barely keep my eyes open and dozed off several times.. it was a bad play to make thgs worse.
Anyway..after the play was FINALLY over I ran on stage to see my friend, found her, threw my arms around her and saiD “that was FABULOUS” only to find her looking extremely embarassed. It was only then that I realised that everyone in the auditorium was singing the national anthem!
Paula
2005/02/27 at 9:38 pmMy most embarrassing moment is not sexual in nature but then again I am still pretty young, I have plenty of time.
I’m Catholic, and I cantor at Mass a lot, usually at least once a month. A few years ago, in the summer, I was singing a mass and it was getting to the end, and I was sitting there off to the side in front of the congregation facing the priest in my cute little summer dress and my cute little white slides as my old, traditional, and very Irish priest stands to say his announcements. The church is nice and quiet and the priest is going on and I shift a little, and I go to cross my legs. My feet (in their cute little slides) were sweaty, because I live in Georgia and it’s hot in the summer. So, somehow, beyond all scientific probability, in mid-cross I kick off my shoe. Not just knock it off my foot. I KICK MY SHOE OFF. It flies in a perfect parabolic arc halfway across the front of the church, slams into the floor and bounces the rest of the way across in a thundering cacophony of my destroyed dignity until it slows to a stop about a foot away from the priest.
Father Redden stops in mid sentence. He looks at the shoe. He looks at me. He looks at the congregation. I sit in abject horror. They stare in bewildered shock.
“They’re throwing shoes at me now,” he says, and the congregation explodes with laughter.
I know that it is a scientific impossibility to die of shame, but I really thought I was going to. I thought I would blush so hard I would spontaneously combust. It’s been years and I still haven’t heard the end of it. We recently got a new priest, and that’s the first thing they warned him about. Beware the flying shoes.
tallulah
2005/02/27 at 8:56 pmThanks, Dooce, for sharing your life with us. Happy Blog Birthday.
And as for embarrassing: This doesn’t top anyone’s but it was mortifying all the same. I was in college and was having what at the time I thought was amazing sex, only to fall off the bed. Quite unceremoniously. Not at all like “oh, this is so wild, now we’re having sex on the floor”, but more like “woah, wooaahh” thud.
Kupferkopf
2005/02/27 at 9:07 pmHoly shit, you people are killing me. Great stories…
burdanilex
2005/02/27 at 9:19 pmI’m pretty certain I have many embarassing moments. I just can’t seem to come up with them right now. So here is a mildly embarassing one.
I was in high school and was wearing a long skirt. My friends and I were acting like kids and were turning in circles really fast until we were so dizzy we would fall down. Well when I fell my feet went up. Up enough for my skirt to going flying over my head. As I lay there I kept hoping that I fell facing the school. Finally when I sit up I realize that I was facing the football field where the senior guys football team had just gone out to for practise. I flashed the entire football team other than one coach and one player that had gone to the field late.
Michael
2005/02/27 at 8:45 pmFIRST!
Henrykm_
2005/02/27 at 8:53 pmO M G!! What have I been missing to-day. I cant wait to get back home and peruse well!
Henrykm_
2005/02/27 at 8:55 pmNo you are not!
CherryValance
2005/02/27 at 8:44 pmNewly married. Bought new bedroom set with wedding gift $. Bedroom set arrives, but damaged. Send everything back but the bed. 8 weeks later, delivery guy shows up to take old bed and replace with new bed and perfect bedroom set. Forgot he was coming, left dirty clothes in room. Quickly pick up unmentionables as he takes apart bed. Then he removes the mattress, and the bed frame is like a picture frame, with my HUGE PINK DILDO in the middle. I grabbed it and threw it in the closet. Ran downstairs and waited for him to unload the rest of the furniture. It was years before I told that story to anyone but my husband.
There was also another time when I got us (dh, who was my boyfriend) kicked out of a porno shop. I was 19, and didn’t know you couldn’t say ‘bong’. Apparently, it’s a water tabbacco pipe. Whatever, we all know it’s a bong.
romy
2005/02/27 at 8:39 pmyay happy blogibirthday dooce! 🙂
here’s to the next four years.
do we get a “state of the internet” address??
Nilbo
2005/02/27 at 8:36 pmI was 15, deeply in love with a girl named Brenda, who did not know I existed. To remedy that, I decided to impress her by diving off the ten metre board at the Olympic-sized swimming pool built for the Pan-Am Games in my home town.
Oh, she was impressed, alright. Partly by the skin-splitting *SMACK* as my over-rotated body hit the water back first; partly by the sight of my swimming trunks gently floating to the surface and off to the shallow end; and partly by the sight of me being dragged, gasping for air and bare-assed naked, from the pool by the FEMALE LIFEGUARDS WHO WOULD NOT STOP GIGGLING.
Oh, she knew I existed after that day.
CanadianAmy
2005/02/27 at 8:06 pmAs for embarrassing moments… This is such a vague memory for me, but my mom made sure I knew every detail after the fact.
When I was sixteen I had appendicitis. And the pain had me half out of my mind. My mom and I were in the examination room at the hospital, and they hadn’t figured out what was wrong with me yet.
The doc thought maybe it was a ruptured ovarian cyst. Whatever. I was like the hunchback of notre dame, drooling and cursing and asking for euthanasia. He said we should do an internal exam.
My mom said, “But she’s ON HER PERIOD.”
He said, “Oh well, we can still INVESTIGATE.” He turned to me. “Do you have a tampon in right now? Because if you do, you will need to take it out.”
I looked at him through the blur of pain. “Okay.” I said. I hopped off the table, pulled off my shorts, bent over and yanked out the tampon.
“Here.” I held it out to him, justa swingin’ side to side like a bloody amulet.
My mother, who worked at this same hospital, almost fainted. He was an old doctor. He left the room.
I ended up getting surgery without the internal first.
Shaunta
2005/02/27 at 7:59 pmI just posted my most embarassing moment on my own blog a couple of days ago. It involves girl scout camp and donkeys.
Drew Barrymore
2005/02/27 at 7:25 pmScarlett – I saw that but it was NOTHING compared to how I couldn’t stop moving my head emphatically through my whole introduction speech!
Paris Hilton
2005/02/27 at 7:33 pmAnd I farted right before Jeremy Irons gave his intro, and it was so loud it echoed throughout the auditorium!
I wasn’t embarrassed though. Nicole said it was hot.
Nicole Richie
2005/02/27 at 7:47 pmThat’s hot.
Renee Zanorexicweger
2005/02/27 at 7:53 pmI am so proud of myself for not passing out, even though I only had cotton balls in consomme for dinner, I don’t have any embarrassing moments.
I looked fucking great in my red dress, I thought. From the side you couldn’t even see me!
Avey
2005/02/27 at 7:17 pmTo Caroline…
Yep, William Clayton Williams III.
That is why he went by his middle name… Clayton.
Spurious Plum
2005/02/27 at 7:19 pmThe embarassing moments are kiiiiillling me. You guys are all so funny!
Scarlett Johansson
2005/02/27 at 7:23 pmEarlier I introduced Academy Award nominees and swung my arms uncontrollably the whole time. On National TV. I was mortified!
heather
2005/02/27 at 7:17 pmI was in 7th or 8th grade, and my friend was having a pool party for her birthday… I had just gotten my period and I didn’t want to miss out on all the fun of swimming and have to explain to everyone..”i have my period” …so I decided to use a tampon for the first time…after all the swimming, everyone was jumping on the girl’s trampoline…all was going fine and well…when someone started screaming..”oh my god!! what is that!!” ….my tampon had fell out as i was jumping…and started bouncing around on the trampoline with us…i grabbed that thing and ran inside the girls house as everyone was totally grossed out..and I was humiliated…..(btw..my first post, I read everyday though 🙂
LadyBug
2005/02/27 at 6:59 pmDooce, you re-opened the comments!
And I spent all weekend planning my Colins for Comments campaign to follow Metro and Amanda B’s Butts for Butterflies campaign…
Lovely pic, by the way.
Caroline
2005/02/27 at 6:45 pmAvey, your boyfriend’s name was William Williams? That’s hilarious.
val
2005/02/27 at 6:43 pm#106 is waay funny. #118 is good too.
my story is :
i was a 12th grader at the talent show in my high school. i have no talent whatsoever, but this was a competition between four groups and there needed to be an acting portion (like, acting out a scene from a play) and i got dragged into it.
so there i am, on stage, with hundreds of people watching, camcorders, etc, and i do my lines, and the policeman that was arresting me comes in and arrests me. and then this girl, damn her, was supposed to come into the scene and do her lines and then it would all be over. but she didn’t hear her cue, and then when she missed it she was too embarrassed to come on stage. so there i am, on the middle of the stage, with nothing to say and shooting murderous glances at this girl that wouldn’t come onstage. we repeated our lines, i struggled with the policeman, i stared blankly at the audience… it dragged on FOREVER! and then some MERCIFUL creature closed the curtain.
Bee
2005/02/27 at 6:05 pmProbably the most humiliating thing that ever happened to me was when I was in fifth grade.
I was trying to be cool and nonchalant by tipping my chair back on two legs and reclining/balancing, when I sneezed–and farted at the same time!
Not sure whether it was the force of having air shoot out both ends, or just the shock of it all, but it knocked me on my ass–no, really, it did. So here I am sprawled out in the floor, having just sneezed, farted, and tipped over my chair in front of my entire fifth grade class, and what do I do? Deny it, of course.
“What are you laughing at?”
“Dude, you just sneezed and farted at the same time.”
“What? No way, I just lost my balance!”
“Riiight.”
Even my teacher was laughing. Oh, the shame. My cheeks are burning just thinking of it!
Mary In Sacramento
2005/02/27 at 5:13 pmOkay, this one time in Drama class our fruity-hippy Clown College graduate teacher was making us jog in a circle and catch a ball that we would bounce to each other while still jogging in a circle. And we had to yell something really retarded before throwing the ball, I forget what it was, but it evolved into people just making the randomest noises, like “Bululugillylughuh!” and then throwing the ball. And it set us all laughing. And, of course, I “laughed so hard I pissed my pants.” Right there in front of my crush, a senior and oh so pretty. I was mortified, and to this day still have nightmares about him laughing at me with the teacher, Miss “Fruity Clown College” whose clown name was “Bo”, how UN-original is “Bo the Clown,” you hippy nightmare from Hell. MAY YOU BE DOOMED TO ONLY PERFORM SHITTY CHILDRENS PARTIES FOR THE REST OF YOUR LIFE, YOU CLOWN!
See, I’m still bitter.
-MiS
tom
2005/02/27 at 4:37 pmWay to go Girl A! Scream!
Avey
2005/02/27 at 5:07 pmEveryone seems to like the sex stories best, so here it goes!
16 years of age, 9 years ago…
Early spring is a cold, cold place in Pennsylvania indeed. My boyfriend (William Clayton Williams) and I had done the deed when and where we could. This mostly was in snowy baseball fields late at night or other uncomfortable outdoors situations. Well, we decided that we wanted to know what the experience was like somewhere warm (and perhaps soft) so we made plans for a late night hump in the finished basement of my family home. There were couches and heat and… It was underneath the front part of the house away for family slumbers and there was an easily open window.
The one part we didn’t take into consideration was my parent’s ancient crappy Old English sheepdog, Maggie.
Well, sex is just being done and then the light comes on leading downstairs and my parents open the basement door. Clayton jumps unclothed behind the couch and I cover up with a blanket after quickly hiding all loose clothes-items.
My parents ask what I am doing in the basement at this time of night, and I say that I was going to sleep down there for a change of pace. Suddenly, that damn dog bolts from behind my parents and jump over me and the couch and on top of Clayton biting him on the arm. He screams, jumps up, grabs a shirt and wraps it about his waist, bolts past my parents and upstairs and out of the door with only his shirt about his bits and white socks on into the snowy night.
The rest of the night is a blur and I am grounded for no less than the whole entire season of spring.
I found out later that the dog had gone to my parent’s room and dragged them downstairs, Lassie style straight to the basement!
Clayton and I broke up soon after the basement thing happened, but with him the story does not end so simple. He later believed he could not live without me and called in a bomb threat to my school just so that he could see me! He was found out and was sent away for a while…
As for me, the dog and I only made friends again years later when I took care of her before she died… and I never had sex in my parents’ house again.
Peter Hentges
2005/02/27 at 4:01 pmThe embarrassing moment that still haunts me in moments of weekness occurred in 9th grade. For some reason, my school really got into squirt guns that year and all sorts of various methods of projecting water for distance. I had, thanks to a diabetic aunt, acquired a syringe. I broke the needle off and it was my favorite stealth squirter. People would feel this tiny stream of water hitting them and completely freak out, not knowing where it was coming from.
Well, in science class out teacher had to step out for a minute. I took this opportunity to fill my syringe from the taps in the lab portion of the classroom. As I was focused on sucking water from the moving stream into the syringe, my fellow classmates started saying, very loudly “Hello, Mr. Cretian,” that being our teacher’s name. No fool, I figured they were trying to make me scramble back to my seat.
Was I ever embarrassed when the teacher’s voice asked what I was doing! (He confiscated my syringe, too, darn it all.)
koof
2005/02/27 at 3:30 pmi was going to go into an embarrassing story, but #106 is pretty fucking funny, i don’t think i can top that.
that-andrea
2005/02/27 at 3:35 pm~ I walked onto the dance floor at a wedding reception with my dress tucked into the back of my pantyhose.
~ I opened my mouth to answer a question in 8th grade English and instead of words, chunky vomit violently exploded forth, covering my arms, desk, and the girl sitting next to me.
Dawn
2005/02/27 at 3:56 pmThis was just this past weekend. In a International law moot court competition, Jessup Moot Court, I’m compiting againt several different law schools, from several different states. In one of the rounds, I was making my argument. Part of my argument deals with ‘unhabitated sandbars’ that the opposing side was trying to sue ‘my client’ for economic damages to this area. CANT BE DONE! THEY DONT OWN IT.
So, I’m in front of a panel of 3 ‘excellencies’, making my points and answering their questions. I hit home the point that they are ‘uninhibited sand bars’ UNINHIBITED! These sandbars really got their grove on! Thank god that during the argument I had NO CLUE what I said, because I would have started to laugh. My team-mates, on the other hard….well, lets just say uninhibited was the ‘laugh til you wet’ word all night.
the shmoops
2005/02/27 at 3:18 pmhappy blog birthday heather!
I think my most embarrassing moment was the time in 5th grade when I lost control of my bladder in the middle of class (I was often subject to bladder infections until my early teens). My jeans were soaked through, so I got sent to the office where the only change of clothes they could rustle up for me were a pair of sweat pants they found at the bottom of the lost and found box, which I had to wear for the rest of the day.
Oh and I’ve only been on a ski hill once. I was 16 and did a LOT of falling. They had to stop the t-bar lift for me ’cause no one told me I wasn’t supposed to sit on the bar. That’s also the time my first boyfriend decided the best way to motivate me to ski more and fall less was to yell at me how embarrasing I was being. That’s also the time I told him to go fuck himself and hobbled over to the chalet to drown my sorrows in hot chocolate whilst all my friends kept skiing.
heathabee
2005/02/27 at 3:15 pm#106 – that is the highlight of my life.. and I’ve saved it on my computer. lol I have never heard anything like that – not even in the “embarassing moments” thing in Cosmo! :-O
**knock on wood** I don’t have any embarrassing stories yet! woohoo!
veg4me
2005/02/27 at 2:55 pmIn fact, I am a loose atheist.
I told myself it was the 100+ city blocks I walked that day that forced that sucker outta me.
At least if it had fallen to the ground, no one would’ve noticed in NYC…
Julie
2005/02/27 at 2:58 pm#106 – Best. Story. EVER. I almost peed. No, honestly.
Amanda B.
2005/02/27 at 2:55 pmHappy VD again Dooce! I’m sure glad you stuck with your blog over these years because it’s brought me a lot of giggles, thoughtful moments, and even a few tears. You are a sexy beeotch.
The other day as a joke I asked this British kid how old the Queen Mum was. And whoops, I forgot she was deceased. Then this other kid said, “Hey dumbass. The Queen Mum is dead.” That sucked ass. I felt like a big tool. Damn kids.
Murphy
2005/02/27 at 2:48 pmveg4 me: it appears you might be loose.
this commenter couldn’t help pointing that out. i’m loose too but that has stuff to do with other things that i’m sure you’re too catholic to know about.
my whole life is a lesson in cover up after cover up.
i would pick one but i’m too hungover.
A regular doocer - wouldn't you like to know who
2005/02/27 at 2:48 pmHappy Blog Birthday!
So, I’m not sure if this is my *most* embarrassing story. But because of my tender young age, I was more embarrassed than I would have been later perhaps…ok, maybe not.
When I was __teen, I was on a camping trip with my mom and her boyfriend and his two kids. My mom invited my boyfriend along because I wasn’t excited about going and my boyfriend was about to move away. It was my mom’s boyfriend’s birthday weekend.
In the RV, there was a cake my mom had made for her boyfriend’s birthday.
Everyone decided to go on a hike for a couple of hours, except my boyfriend and I stayed behind. We ended up bumping uglies in the RV. My boyfriend was working up to his big finish when he yelled “SCREAM! SCREAM NOW!” So, I screamed. Really fucking loud. Why not, we were in the wilderness, no campsites near ours.
I had never seen any porn movies, so I screamed like a chick would in a B-Horror flick. (blink. what?)
Well, at that moment, the hikers had returned to camp. They heard me screaming. My mom’s boyfriend busted into the RV, just at the culmination of my scream, startling my boyfriend mid-wad-blowing, which prompted him to lose control of his weiner and accidentally squirt both the birthday cake and my mother’s boyfriend. Right square in the “I’m a #1 Dad” t-shirt.
MrsDoF
2005/02/27 at 2:46 pmA lovely picture of the sky and the moon, a calm scene, yes-yes.
Someone mentioned the Diva Cup here awhile back, and, well, I ordered one, and mentioned the Dooce.com Comments section as my reference source. The Google ads might play catch-up.
robin
2005/02/27 at 2:41 pmI woke up in the middle of the night after partying, having to go to the bathroom. I thought I was walking to the bathroom, but really I walked right out of the apartment…naked! I got locked out, and it took me a good 20 minutes to wake my roommate up with all of my knocking. Luckily nobody saw me. But it was damn embarrassing!
veg4me
2005/02/27 at 2:20 pmWhile walking back to my dorm after a long day in Greenwich Village my tampon fell out. Thankfully, it was the 80’s and I was wearing my trademark black leggings which lodged that nasty thing right against my upper left thigh, vs. it falling all the way out. A valuable lesson in gravity, maximum absorbancy of an OB tampon and the importance of Kegel exercises.
Lushlife
2005/02/27 at 2:11 pmHappy Blog Birthday – love the snow shots – you sound in your posts that your in a very good place in your life and its great to be you, that combined with the smiley snow shots makes me glad for you too!
cathi
2005/02/27 at 1:27 pmAustin doesn’t transfer well — that was creepy. Sorry all.
ashik
2005/02/27 at 1:59 pmWhen I first came to the states, in middle school, I was mercilessly teased. A particular group of girls in my class took pleasure in coming up with particularly nasty words and asking me whether I was that word. (i.e. Stupid. Are you stupid, ashik?) To which I always feld the need to reply, and always would shake my head in violent protest and say “No!!” A dignified silence would have worked just as well, I suppose, but um, I was 12, and trying to fit in.
Anyway, one day, they, in the midst of a fit of giggling asked me whether I was a virgin. I knew two things: 1) I had no idea what this word meant and 2) Past experience suggested that it was something bad. Without skipping a beat, I said very loudly. “NO! Of course not!”
ah. the things that happen to 12-year olds.
cathi
2005/02/27 at 1:18 pmDoes this picture make you horny, Spoony?
Jon Eben Field
2005/02/27 at 1:22 pmThe picture is beautiful. The moon has profound effects on our lives. You’ve captured part of that power.