If you have a long memory, you had better get yourself a tall beer.
This piece is based on a Quora Question. Link on the last page.
1/9. One day, a couple notes went around my 5th grade classroom with two girls names on them, asking people to place a checkmark beside the girl who was prettier.
Everyone saw them and voted, and when the teacher found out, we had to sit around while she angrily insisted that we weren’t going anywhere until the person who wrote the notes came forward.
Finally, a girl started crying and got up and admitted that she had written the note because she wanted to see if people thought she was pretty. To make matters worse, the girl had lost by a huge margin.
That girl was me.
-Amy Hansen
2/9. I once went to see Iron Maiden play at the Hammersmith Odeon. Being very metal at the time, I decided to don some extremely dapper and in no way silly leather trousers (the kind with laces up the sides for ‘additional pirate-ability’).
The thing to remember about leather strides is of course, that they have lining shorts built in, and being a bold young man I saw no harm in going commando (you can see where this is going…)
The band started up and the crowd bounced around, and eventually some crowd-surfing started up. Now, I’m a fairly big guy so I don’t often get the chance to partake in that sort of thing. But thought why not, got a leg up and was soon happily being passed around in front of the stage.
So far, so good.
Until one crowd member, trying to pass me on, put his hand up between my legs and got slightly snagged. As he yanked his arm free he managed to take out the stitching and ripped my trousers open along the inner seam from knee to knee. (continued…)
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Still on top of the crowd and utterly helpless to get down, I spent the next five minutes giving 4000 people a prime view of the family jewels, before dive-bombing, upside-down and junk out onto the wall of bouncers in front of the stage.
They weren’t impressed. And nether was I later when a coachload of people outside shouting ‘Hey, nice balls’ at me.
-Matt Owen
3/9. It was the night of my prom, and I was spending the night at my friend’s house. I came home hours earlier than my curfew because my date tried to become “more than friends” with me, but, that’s not even as awkward a situation as what happened.
I knocked on her parents’ closed, bedroom door to let them know I was home, and could have sworn my friend’s dad said, “Come in!” So I came in. He had actually said, “Don’t come in!” That one word can make all the difference.
All I remember is the mom saying, “Nonononono,” andpillows flying everywhere. I actually didn’t even understand WHAT they were doing at the time. I had to look it up in a book. (It was a “number” thing.)
I ran to my friend’s room and got into bed really, really quickly. Her mom came in to check on me and we both pretended it never happened. For 20+ years.
I think about it any time I see them and I’ve still never told my friend what happened. I never will. So embarrassing.
-Michelle Roses
4/9. When I was 17, I was working as a waitress in a hotel restaurant. I was clumsy as all hell and uncomfortably trying to serve people. I started out as a kitchen hand so I was used to being in the back, safe from patrons.
One day a group of four from England came in wanting to be seated. We only had one table available and we hadn’t cleared it yet, so as they walked toward the table I was panicking about getting it prepared for them.
One of their party was a gentlemen probably in his 40s and very handsome. So, in retrospect, maybe I was a little *ahem*distracted. (continued)
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So I apologize to his group but they’re really gracious about it. Lovely, lovely people.
So just as I’m removing a water jug from the table and one of the other girls is wiping it down, I bang into the hunky guy as I’m turning and spill water all down the front of his shirt and all over his trousers.
I’m instantly horrified and I’m pretty sure I actually stopped breathing.
He just says “oops.”
He grabs a serviette and dabs at his shirt and without thinking and TRYING to be helpful I also grab a serviette and dab it on his crotch.
Realizing the mistake I’ve made, I just drop the serviette and walk away back into the kitchen followed by the other waitress who is peeing herself laughing.
I’m nearly crying.
I had to return to give them their cutlery and as I’m laying it on the table my hands are visibly shaking from shame and embarrassment.
But his whole table is so friendly and laughing and joking that I feel less crappy about accidentally grabbing that guy’s junk.
-Frances Meredith
5/9. A long, long time ago I used to play this collectible card game called Yu-Gi-Oh. A good friend of mine who came from a fairly wealthy family always had the best cards because his parents would regularly buy him booster packs. As a result, I could never compete with him, and had to rely on clever strategies rather than better cards.
Well, we were both obsessed with this one secret rare card called “Yata Garasu” that came out in 2003, and at one point sold for $150. We would would go to the card shop and just stare at Yata Garasu through the glass, imagining all the brilliant decks we’d make if we could ever save up enough to get the card.
As fate would have it, we didn’t need to save up– my friend found Yata Garasu in a booster pack one day and he was ecstatic. He invited me to his house for a sleepover so that we could brainstorm ideas together.
We took turns playing with it against each other, delicately refining our strategies, imagining all the future victories we would have at local tournaments. But after he fell asleep,I was so jealous that he got that card that I decided to steal it. (continued…)
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I slipped it into a card protector, and went to sleep.
He woke up the next morning, and frantically looked everywhere for the card, but couldn’t find it. He was desperate, “please help me look for the card! It’s really important.” I panicked and tried to get out of the situation. I pretended to look for a while, and eventually told him that I had to go. He pleaded with me to stay and help look for it just a bit longer, but I insisted that I had to leave.
And then he looked at me with tears in his eyes, and said, “But I wanted to give the card to you.”
-Evan DeFilippis
6/9. I work in an emergency room. A patient came in after a road accident with terrible injuries. Terrible, but survivable.
I was told that his wife was on her way, and shortly afterwards that she was in our relative room.
As I walked out of the resuscitation area moments later, I found a young woman crying and asking about him, she told me she was his partner and I took her to see him, so that she could be reassured.
She was standing holding his hand and stroking his hair as a colleague brought his wife through the door.
The first woman was a colleague with whom he was having an affair.
Awkward!
-Lou Davis
7/9. It was the 7th grade. My teacher would only allow people to go to the bathroom based on a sign up sheet that she kept at her desk. Like most boys, I didn’t plan on the urgency of my need to pee until I felt the pressure of Hoover Dam on my bladder.
I went to her desk to sign up for a hall pass; there where 5 kids in front of me. Damn! It’ll be okay, I thought. I just have to practice taking my mind off of the urgency of my bladder and allow distraction to take my mind off of peeing.
For 15 minutes, that worked pretty well. (continued…)
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However, minute 16 came, and my bladder rang the alarm like a faulty fire alarm. It was equal parts unbearable and unavoidable! The pain and pressure was so great that I could barely walk or form complete sentences.
I return to my teacher’s desk:
Me: Mrs. (I forgot now), can I PULLLEASE go to the restroom? It’s an emergency!!!!
Mrs. What’s-her-face: You can go as soon as (random kid with hall pass) returns. If it was that important, you should have signed up earlier in the day.
But that little jerk had been gone for 15 minutes now.
Meanwhile, I’m about to bust like a can of biscuits, and I have NEVER felt this kind of pain/pressure before. It’s so bad, that I couldn’t even return to my seat. I made a U-turn to the teacher’s desk doing the “Pee Dance” so she’d know this is not a drill.
On my final attempt, she just lets me go. “Finally!!!!!” I thought, and was tap dancing my way down the hall. The distance from the classroom to the bathroom was no more than 50 feet, but I didn’t make it more than 20 before the dam just burst. Urine flowed down my pants and I couldn’t run, walk, or move.
I felt an interesting mix of emotions, yet, in chronological sequence. It felt like the orgasmic ecstasy of finally getting release in waves, followed by an overwhelming sense of shock and horror at when and how this happened.
My pants had a thick, dark, damp trail from my zipper all the way to my ankle. I tried to triage my pants by hurrying to the bathroom and using a combination of paper towels and the air dryer to conceal the evidence. No luck.
Mom picked me up and took me home early. Later, we got a call from my teacher apologizing profusely for not allowing me to get to the restroom sooner. She and the rest of my classmates realized what had happened when they walked out of class and saw this 50 meter long pee trail and no sign of me.
-Desmond Hardy
8/9. I was driving from San Francisco to LA, passing by this little town called Gilroy. There was a section of rural road, and there was a hitchhiking woman trying to get a ride by the side of the road. (continued…)
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I noticed her but just drove by – I didn’t feel like offering a ride because I was not feeling very well due to the rash in the inner part of my thigh which was very itchy. When I drove by her, I was thinking about the rash and recalled what the doctor told me: I needed to apply the prescribed cream on the rash area every morning and I didn’t do it on that particular morning.
Thus, I stopped my car by the road, got the prescribed cream out of my backpack in the car, and start to apply the cream on the inner part of my thigh. However, I did not stop very far away from the girl, so she thought I stopped to offer her a ride. She was all excited and ran to my car, only to see a man with his right hand in his pants, rubbing and massaging between his two legs.
I completely didn’t realize what happened, until I moved my head up, and saw this girl standing by my car’s door, completely shocked. She then gave me the finger and walked away. I had no way of explaining what happened, and had to just drive away in shame and embarrassment.
-Shiyu Zhao
9/9. I started working out in late 2011. On my second visit to the gym, I had a nice lunch, and then decided I would go learn how to do squats because I had VERY skinny legs.
I decided I would only put 10kg on each side of the squat bar to start. I also employed the help of one of the trainers at the gym to teach me how to use the squat rack.
I did my first squat very well, too well in fact, and the trainer added more weight to each side of the bar. With the trainer standing behind me and spotting me, I bent down into my first squat of the higher weight bar.
As I got to the bottom of my squat, I magically pooped. A smelly mess started to accumulate on my sock and ankle. The trainer was disgusted, as was everyone else in the gym. I, a 19 year old, had pooped myself in front of the entire fitness club. Needless to say, I canceled my membership, and found another location to train at.
-Anonymous