I thought I would share a few moments from my life that were not exactly my best days. All of these are things that embarrassed me and all were pretty much self inflicted. Except for number 3 and that was totally out of my control.
1. My kindergarten Christmas program was a night time production complete with costumes, sets music and spotlights. The teacher cast each student and I was terribly disappointed to be a toy soldier. I really wanted to be an angel or a doll. Nope I got to be a stinking toy soldier.
The night of the performance came and I was ready with age appropriate stage makeup and my costume. The soldiers were all in line waiting to go onstage when I had to go to the restroom. One of the helpers (not my teacher) would not let me go and told me to just hold it. She must not have been terribly familiar with 5 year old bladders because after waiting an eternity to go one stage, and doing the "I gotta go " dance, holding it was no longer an option. We have a photo taken while we were on stage. All of the little drummer boys looks so cute, and then there is me with a tell tale wet leg. To this day I do not ever want to be on a stage and I intensely dislike the song "The Little Drummer Boy"
2.When I was in the first grade all girls had to wear dresses or skirts to school every day. Mom made all of my clothes and I went to school each day in a cute dress. Most of them were fitted to the waist, buttoned up in the back and had a sash that was tied in a bow. Though I did not wear a crinoline underneath it, I still wore a petticoat that fluffed the skirt out a little.
As a kid I was a little bit of a tomboy and at recess I preferred to play tag or hide and go seek rather than playing jump rope. At least once a week during the game I would be running from whoever was it, when they would grab the skirt of my dress to "catch" me. Riiiiiiiip! The skirt would come apart from the bodice
and I would have to leave the playground to go to the office for a repair. I have no idea how many times during that year I finished the rest of the day with my dress held together by safety pins. It was the beginning of my lifetime as a fashionista__Not!
3. In the 4th grade my best friend's little brother had a birthday party on the local Bozo show. She was too old to be on the show and I was there because my mother made me go with her, so she would not be the only older kid there. Sadly when I was in the 4th grade I was as tall as I am today, and even though we were the same age I was about 6 inches taller that her. As if that were not humiliating enough, Bozo picked me to be Butchie Boy. I had to march around the circus tent waving a stupid flag. Until that moment I had no idea Bozo was a sadist!
My only consolation was that the show was aimed at a very young audience and none of my school friends would see me. Except the next day in class the guy who sat next to me leaned over and said "Hey Butchie". Wouldn't you know he would have to have 2 younger sisters who watched it every day and that particular day he saw the opening march. If I could have disappeared into a crack in the floor I would have.
4. I was a good student in high school but sometimes I just would not do assigned reading on time, particularly if it was a book I was not interested in. One of my English teachers had particular sets of chapters to be read each week. My theory was why read it in sections when I could just read the entire book the weekend before the test. I read fast even as a teen and I would much rather cram read, especially if I did not like it. This particular book "Lord Jim" did not inspire any advance reading, and one day in class when the book should have been read, we had a pop test on the assigned chapters. Crap! Not only had I not read all the chapters I had not even bought the book, so my chances of bluffing were severely limited, especially since there was only one question__Describe the incident at Bangkok.
Where to begin? I spun a lovely incident report about an orderly running down a pier with a man in a wheelchair, whom he then dumped into the sea. The man was fished out of the drink by Thai sailors and he paid them handsomely (I remember using that word specifically __like that would help) to track down the orderly and bring him to justice. Lots of shenanigans including 2 floozies and a mime on stilts happened before they caught the orderly finally bringing him before the now soaking wet man in the wheelchair. (In my invented novel the chapter ended there and justice was found in the next chapter)
The next day the teacher declared she had something to share with the class, and read what I had written. She was filled with praise for it and I was grinning from ear to ear, possibly even beaming thinking I had pulled a rabbit out of a hat.
Then she looked at me with a dead pan face asking what really good story telling would get you on a pop test. She held up the paper so everyone could see the grade_A Big Fat Red Zero! Not only did I flunk the quiz about as badly as one can flunk anything, but I got a big lesson in humility.
5. I am not by nature a very graceful person. I always have a bruise on my shoulder where I have run into something, and have been known to stumble over absolutely nothing. But usually, I manage to correct myself and do not fall.
Several years ago we were walking through the church parking lot after the service was over. I had on a new pair of shoes, and the pavement was slightly damp. A wet surface, new shoes, and my usual graceful walk was a recipe for disaster. Somehow or another, mid step, I managed to start to fall and for about 10 feet I was doing the windmill arm thing while trying to regain my balance. It proved to be an effort in futility and I proceeded to fall face first, sliding another 5 or so feet before stopping. One of our friends was in front of me and saw the entire thing, probably because I almost slid into him.
To this day he occasionally reminds me of it, and of course I laugh at his first reaction.
He squatted down a bit, put his hands together chest high with his elbows out, swung both arms straight out to the side and yelled "Safe".
And you might ask what TheHub and sons who were walking with me did. Nothing__ after they saw I was not hurt they were too busy laughing their heads off to help.
My mother should have named me Grace.
