Embarrassing things happen to everyone. Whether it's tucking your dress into your underwear accidentally after using the bathroom (Guys, you know what I'm talking about), walking into a sliding glass door in front of all of your friends, tripping in a public place, or the good-old-fashioned nip-slip; no one is excluded from the glory that is embarrassment.
I suffer from a special brand of embarrassing stories. Most people are embarrassed by things they do when they are inebriated, but, since I don't drink, I don't have that luxury. Rather, I tend to embarrass the crap out of myself stone-cold sober. It's a skill, really. I've spent my whole life so far perfecting it.
Exhibit A: My first loose tooth.
When you're six years old and you get your first loose tooth, it's pretty much the equivalent of losing your virginity to the number one person on your celebrity To Do List (Hi, Natalie Portman! Call me). It's the most fuckin' awesome thing since sliced bread. You get to wiggle it and shit, and gross people out, and if you're lucky (like I was with some of my loose teeth), turn it all the way around without it falling out. Loose teeth are the bomb. They're like developing boobies or driving a car for the first time. Six year-old you is growing up. It's the first sign that in fifteen years you're going to be a shit-show passed out in the bathroom of your local Denny's at four in the morning (I am feeling very optimistic today); otherwise known as adulthood.
There are fables associated with losing teeth. Like the tooth-fairy (On a completely unrelated note: the movie with Dwayne "The Rock" Johnson pissed me off not because he was playing a tooth-fairy, but because he is a black man supposedly in the NHL. For those of you who don't know, there are six of them. Total. Six. In the entire league. SO IT WAS NEARLY STATISTICALLY IMPOSSIBLE THAT THE ROCK WOULD BE BOTH A TOOTH FAIRY AND AN NHL PLAYER. YOU CAN'T BE BOTH. Sorry, rant over). Or that keeping them will do something magical. Or that having dreams about losing teeth really means that--if this isn't poetic justice, I don't know what is--you have a fear of being embarrassed or making a fool of yourself in some situation. (Don't worry, I'll explain how it's poetic and justified and freakin' weird in a second) And then there are the methods of losing teeth. For example, the good old-fashioned yank (That's what she said). Or having a friend do it for you (See previous parenthetical statement). Or letting it dangle until it falls out (Giggle).
The method I chose to use for the ceremonious Removal of the First Loose Tooth was a method that I don't even remember learning about, but everyone knows. When you get a loose tooth, a fun way to lose it would be to, oh, I don't know, tie a string around your tooth, then around a doorknob. Then, you have a trusted buddy (Or family member, or violent associate, or the hobo you met on the street, or the nice man who offered you candy to get in his van) slam the door, and--holy shit!--your tooth comes out!
Well, being an engineer's daughter, I thought I would give this method a try. However, being six and pretty fucking stupid, I didn't use string. Nope. Not string, not dental floss, not thread, not even a god-damn ribbon. No, being the genius I was, I decided to use...
Wait for it...
Waaaaaaiiit for it...
...
A rubber-band.
Stop laughing at me.
I thought it a brilliant idea, since no string could be found, to tie two rubber-bands together and attempt to follow that method. This is an ingenious example of my inability to follow even the simplest recipes or instructions to the letter. STRING. Rubber-bands, for those of you who don't know, aren't string. Anyway, I had cut and tied these two bands together to make a stretchy string to help rid me of my tooth. I looped one end of this now-humongous rubber-band around my loose tooth, and then I looped the other around the doorknob to my bedroom door. Then I took a few steps back, to help facilitate the stretching of the band. My badass older brother Justin was there as my assistant. Instead of warning me of my immediate peril, he was snickering and encouraging my debauchery. I asked him to shut the door. He did.
WHAM--the rubber-band sprang back from the door and smacked me right in the kisser. For those of you who have never been snapped by a rubber-band, it hurts like a bitch. Like a rabid bitch. And I got hit in the face. Of course, since I was six years old and had no other mechanisms for coping yet (Like alcoholic binges or eating my feelings), I started sobbing. My brother laughed hysterically in the hallway while I cried like a baby (Granted, I am the baby) and held my stinging face.
The worst part of it is, I didn't even lose the God-damned tooth.
Told you that the tooth-losing dream interpretation was poetic justice. At. Its. Finest.
Exhibit B: My patriotism.
Up until my parent's raging divorce, I was a staunch Republican. I watched Fox News on a nightly basis (No lie. I still kind of miss Shepherd Smith's caked-on make-up and Bill O'Reilly's weird-ass rants), read Ann Coulter books for fun (Not because they're hilarious and trashy, but because I wanted to learn. Now I know better), thought President Bush was the shit (Not just a shit. Don't get me wrong. I like him, he just should never have been President), and pretty much wanted to grow up and be Ronald Reagan (I even did a project on him in fourth grade).
Also, for those of you who don't know me, I don't sing very well. I can do character voices, but actual, legitimate singing is, well, not fucking happening.
Anyway. I was also extremely guilty of singing in the shower. I mean, come on. Everybody does it. Kind of like how everybody pees in the shower (Am I right? NOD, DAMNIT). So there I was, a twelve year-old budding Conservative Republican taking a shower. And, since I was SO incredibly in love with This Great Nation (Not understanding that there's a shit ton that needs to be done to make this a This Pretty-Decent Nation), that I decided to sing the National Anthem in the shower. Everyday.
On this particular day, I was taking a shower at night. I don't really know why. It wasn't even night, more like 4 p.m. But damnit, I needed a shower. So I was lathering my twelve year-old body (Pedobear says "Hi") and belting, or should I say, wailing the National Anthem. I hit the high note (No, I missed it entirely, but I WAS singing up there in the notes, I swear) for "the land of the free" [insert glass shattering] and felt proud of myself. I finished rinsing out my conditioner, got out of the shower, dried myself, got dressed, blah blah blah.
Then I headed downstairs.
My mother and brother Justin (who always seems to be present at my embarrassing adventures) were sitting on the couch. As I walked into the family room, they burst into enthusiastic applause. And Laughter.
Justin said, "Nice high note." More cruel laughter.
To this day, I can't hear the National Anthem without crying a little on the inside for my lost dreams of becoming an opera Soprano (Is it irrelevant to note that I am, in fact, an alto?)
Exhibit C: I'm clumsy as shit.
And this is where I wish I could say all of these happened while inebriated: I am guilty of being completely sober, watching where I am going, and walking smack-dab into a telephone pole or sign post. Not because I temporarily looked away, but because I figured it would move for me.
I'm a genius, don't deny it.
