Thursday, May 1, 2008

The Most Embarassing Moment In My Life


Ugh, it’s so awful, I can’t even look.

Tip Of The Day: It’s time once again, ladies and gents, for Group Therapy Thursday! This week’s topic, your most embarrassing moment of all time. Please, share with the group.

Tip For Tomorrow: Inexpensive Spring Rituals. Since the weather in MN won’t cooperate for more than a day, we’ll just ignore it. Let’s discuss the cheap and fabulous ways we get ready for Spring. Even though it feels like Winter.

Further Elucidation Of My Cheap Deal: Welcome to Group Therapy Thursday – your cheapest form of psychological assistance. And you don’t need insurance or a co-pay to join. This week’s topic? Our most embarrassing moments.

The Date – Spring 1986
The Place – Richfield Junior High, Richfield, MN
The Scene – Picture it; Two nerdy eighth graders decide to perform a dance routine at their Junior High Talent Show.

If your eighth grade experience was anything like mine, it was a string of painful, embarrassing, humiliating moments, linked together by bitchy classmates, mean-spirited and oblivious teachers, bad hair, and worse fashion choices. I was just lucky enough to get out alive and (relatively) intact mentally and emotionally.

At the end of that fateful school year back in 1986, when the completion of my suffering was drawing nigh, the 8th grade held its annual Talent Show. All the 7th and 8th graders were invited to display their skills, whatever they might be, for the audience’s titillation.

I can not for the life of me remember who normally performed in the show. All I remember from my 8th grade year is a trio of girls who did a very cool dance to Push It. They knew how to pop and lock, yo.

Now, if you know me for more than five seconds, you realize that I am a performing monkey. I was one of those annoying kids yelling, “look at me! look at me!” every five seconds. Who am I kidding? I still am that annoying kid. Only 35. Whatever.

So when they announced the Talent Show, I was DETERMINED to be in it. Right about now, warning bells should be sounding loudly in your ears, as I have no discernable talent for any type of performance. However, I would not be denied.

Oddly enough, my BFF Lou ALSO wanted to perform. To this day, I have no idea why. She’s usually so much smarter, and sees the future consequences of our actions better than I. Perhaps the siren call of the stage was too great for her to resist. Perhaps she longed for the thrill of a standing ovation.

Perhaps she was deluded. Like me.

Anyhoo, Lou and I skibbled off to put together a dance routine that would blow the scrunched-down-pulled-over-the-pinned-jeans socks off our fellow eighth graders. Our song of choice? That classic 80’s hit – Tarzan Boy.

What? You’ve never heard of Tarzan Boy? You really need to hear the song first, to get the full effect of my tale. Go here and watch the video. I’ll wait:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=v8pYwJ8fKMY

Yeah. The 80’s were weird.

Working hard, Lou and I choreographed a KILLER routine to this ode to The King Of The Jungle. However, the dance required more than two participants, so we hit up our friends to see if they, too, wanted to tread the boards at the 8th Grade Talent Show.

Needless to say, everyone we knew back then (which includes Larue) backed away in horror when approached with the idea. Clearly they recognized that by performing in a talent show, an 8th grade one at that, they risked opening their selves up to endless ridicule and derision. Why this hadn’t occurred to Lou and I remains one of the great mysteries of our time, like why people think John Mayer can sing well.

Lou and I found two hapless 7th graders to join in the fun – one of whom will hereby be known as The Girl Who Should Never Dance Again. Me, Lou, Random 7th Grader and TGWSNDA rehearsed for whole MINUTES before the show, donned our “costumes,” and then took the stage.

What happened next has been forever erased from my memory. All I know is that TGWSNDA leapt across the stage at a critical moment, landed with a tremendous THUD, and posed ala John Travolta, circa Saturday Night Fever. Sans white suit.

The rest of the dance is lost in the ether. I don’t remember a single step, and it was never filmed. Thank you, Jesus.

Unfortunately, the now-infamous Tarzan Boy Dance lives on in the memories of every 7th and 8th grader from Richfield Junior High, Classes of 86 and 87. Also? Somewhere, out there, there is photographic evidence of the debacle. If you encounter such a photo, please feel free to run from it, screaming into the night. I know I would.

After the horror of the show was over, my nightmare was just beginning. I knew, just KNEW, there was no way I was going to avoid being teased mercilessly by everyone I knew, had heard of, or was just passing by. You doubt me? Let me tell you THIS – at my 10 year reunion, folks STILL brought up that performance to me. It remains the one thing I will never live down. Ever. Even when I DIE, someone will bring it up at my funeral.

Okay, I showed you mine. Now it’s time to show me yours. What is your single most embarrassing moment of ALL TIME? Trust me, it feels good to get this off your chest.

9 comments:

Anonymous said...

Bwah! I remember that performance! And to this day you can't listen to Tarzan Boy without cringing.

My most embarrassing moment? Hmm. Probably when I showed up at my OWN apartment that I shared with 2 friends, only to discover that 4 guys I had dated were there. And I was there with my NEW boyfriend. I left VERY quickly.

Lesson? Never date guys who know each other. EVER. I believe there IS photographic evidence of that party. I hid in the pantry at one point.

Anonymous said...

I remember that song! Haha. Oh, that sounds bad.

I can't choose a most embarrassing moment, it feels like my life has been nothing but a long series of them. Childhood moments are the worst, because you're not yet mastered selective memory.

When I was in first or second grade, I wore a wrap skirt to school that my mom made for me. I ended up wearing this to gym, and we had this game called "cat and mouse" where all the kids would hold the edges of a big parachute. One kid would be on top - the cat - and one would be the mouse underneath. The idea is for the cat to chase after the mouse and catch him.

Well, I was the cat on top, and the kids were really flapping the parachute up and down so I wouldn't catch the mouse kid. Somewhere in the confusion and rolling around, I managed to have my skirt unwrap and fall off. All the kids (except the mouse) saw me flailing around in my Wonder Woman underwear, trying to find my skirt. The teacher swiftly stepped in and helped me find it and put it back on. I was SO. EMBARRASSED.

Kids brought that up for years. I think until Junior high, and maybe into that too. Nobody would let me forget. Kids can be so mean!

Michelle said...

Ah! That was a great song choice!:) I actually had a similar experience with my 8th grade talent show. Being the budding writer and actress, I wrote a skit that I found hilarious and conned some of my friends to be in it with me. The day of the show, two girls quit because they thought the skit was lame. I managed to replace them, but our performance was a train wreck. People forgot lines and my classmates laughed at me and not with me. I was sooo angry. I didn't talk to the other performers for two days because I was so mad. Ahhh...junior high drama. Fortunately, I managed to leave that in my past.

Anonymous said...

who were those 7th graders anyway? Ah memories! Thanks for making me laugh with this one. I think I even have a picture of it...oh my!



The other MEM (most embarrassing moment) would be when I got aunt flo in an 8th grade math class, wearing white pants and the teacher would not let go to the nurse - what an ASS he was. Remember the teacher with the messed up Nose? I think he was into hockey or something... what was his name? maybe it was social science? I've drank my memory away!

Nikki said...

You will feel for me when you read my most embarassing moment. It just recently happened. It's posted on my blog under the April 28, 2008 posting, but I'll copy and paste it for you here.

Sorry, it's a bit long....

TITLE: Crotch Cowlick...WHAT???

Something happened to me a while ago and I'm finally past the PTSD stage and can talk about it. One fine day, I drove myself over to a nice salon in Eden Prairie for a bikini wax. I had an appointment with a girl that I had seen previously for the same service. Should have been no big deal.

WELL, something happened. After she finished, which btw, she literally took about 5 minutes or less as if she was in some sort of hurry, I got home and realized it was, well, crooked. Like, OBVIOUSLY crooked; the kind of crooked I couldn't fix myself with a razor. So, I reluctantly called the salon, explained the situation, and they said that "Jane" (fake name) had an opening right now if I could swing back over. So I did.

Jane was apparently none too pleased at having to do a re-do. I was friendly and didn't make a deal out of it. Well, as she was fixing her error, she said quite snottily to me "It's not MY fault that it's crooked. You have a crotch cowlick." I almost flew off the table. A WHAT????? What is that??? Like what you get in your bangs???? Yes, she said. I was so horrified/embarrassed/upset/you name it, I couldn't even respond. How come no one told me this before?????

A few months later (and well past the due date for a bikini wax), I got up the urge to go in for another bikini wax. This time, I went to a different salon. Before getting undressed, I talked to the aesthetician about my previous experience. She had never heard of a crotch cowlick, and after waxing me, assured me I don't have one. It was just an excuse that nasty girl in Eden Prairie came up with to explain her shotty work!

The Cheap Chick said...

Okay, new favorite phrase ever - crotch cowlick. LOVE. IT.

Anonymous said...

So I was in this play (for school), and it was the first time I had ever acted in anything. Anyway, on opening night, I was delivering my Big Speech, and as I was finishing it up, I reached across this prop table next to me since I *think* I was supposed to pick up something off of it (I don't remember). Well, the prop table was a heavy metal folding table with a tablecloth over it that hadn't been properly set up and as I was leaning on it and reaching across it, it completely collapsed with a horribly loud crash. Since I was leaning on it, I started going down with the table too! I really don't remember the rest of the play, except I must have gone out there and finished it. I think.

Anonymous said...

And, yes, I am pretty sure I cursed very audibly as the table crashed and I fell.

Anonymous said...

My most embarrassing moment? Another 8th-grade episode. (Jeez, I'm 53, and I still get red when I think about it.)

We still had to wear dresses to school. During visits from "Aunt Flo," we wore those REALLY maxi pads with a little belt because the kind with adhesive weren't invented yet. (THOSE were the good ol' days.)

I hadn't been a "grown woman" all that long, so I was a little uncomfy wearin' that icky pad. I was slouching in an unladylike fashion at my desk, with my butt hanging off the edge of my chair, knees apart, daydreaming in class, when the boy who sat in front of me turned around abruptly and glared at me: "Could you please close your legs?"

Well, that made me sit right up. That boy is now a Catholic priest. Ewwww.