I Don’t Even Blush Anymore

This is not a challenge, just an acknowledgement

Every so often, I would have us all answer a question in our circle in Drama class. Call it working on storytelling skills. What is something really good happening right now? What’s something positive about today? But once I asked them to tell an embarrassing story. They got to pick the story, so it didn’t have to be something utterly mortifying, just something ridiculous that they did, or someone else did. Now the good thing about this is it lets us all laugh with the person and also lets us all relate, because we’ve all done or experienced embarrassing stuff. We can bond over a recognition of ourselves in someone else.

One girl, the last, said she literally couldn’t think of anything. Not a single embarrassing moment in her whole entire life. That’s either a lie, a total lack of self-awareness, or the very embarrassing thing she’s been missing. Granted, she was sixteen and hadn’t had the sheer amount of time I, for instance, have had to be embarrassed af over and over, but all the other sixteen year olds remembered going into the wrong-gendered bathroom (something that used to be a big deal, even just a decade ago) or tickling a guy they ran into at the mall and realizing it was a total stranger, or walking up to talk to a cute guy they liked sitting in a desk and realizing their adorable Laura Ashley flowered onesy had one button undone. At pubic level, otherwise known as his eye level. Both of them screamed, she ran, and then he told everyone what color underwear she was wearing.

I am not revealing their stories. These are but the tip of the iceberg of indignities that have happened to me.

They asked me if I had a story. I said, “You want to hear about something I did this week?” Because my life is chock full of humiliating. I have long given up the concept of dignity because I can’t have that nice thing. Somewhere between coughing such that I pee on myself, throw up, and go temporarily blind in one eye, and standing up in a packed movie theatre to answer Ralph Fiennes saying “You know you want it.” with a screamed “I never said I didn’t!” I lost all claim to classy.

I’ve put my foot in my mouth often; fallen down a whole helluva lot, sometimes with pee (are you sensing an unsanitary theme?); thrown up on a guy I had a crush on while trying to keep orange juice from coming out my nose; laughed in the face of three high-schoolers when my phone vibrated in my breast pocket and made me giggle. I bit my father once on the Tower of Terror. On the arm. For no reason I could explain then or now. I’ve told random people “I love you,” when ending a call. I have more than once asked people I was talking to on my phone if they knew where my phone was. I burst into tears the first time I got up to sing in singing class, making that even worse, which I hadn’t thought possible. I forgot a monologue in a play once – I really had known it, my brain just froze – and that was my whole role. I just had to sit down without saying a word.

That last does come in handy when I have a stage-frightened actor. I’ve lived the worst actor nightmare. And that’s usually all they need to know: I lived. It is possible to survive utter mortification. Clearly. I’m still here.

But one of my best/worst embarrassing stories is that of the surprise party thrown for me for my 14th birthday.

Summer after 8th grade. That was a big summer for me. Literally the best of times (TAG, where I learned it was okay to be me) and the worst (Drill Team camp and HellisChristianCamp which is a story for another day and where I learned it is sometimes imperative to be very quiet about who you are).

My friend Candy, one day that summer, asked me to go to the mall. That’s what we did back then: go to the mall, wander around, talk, window shop. It was Ardmore – so there’s already a decided lack of fun activities especially before we could drive – and the 80’s. Ours didn’t even have a food court or an Orange Julius. Sure, fine, whatever. We’ll have fun because she was always fun. My mother insisted I make some effort to look nice, which was strange. I have always been a shorts/jeans, t-shirt/sweater kind of girl. I had few “outfits” – one more reason being betrayed by my Laura Ashley number was brutal – and only wore make-up or did more than wash and brush my hair when coerced or bribed. But sure, fine, whatever.

At the mall, we checked out the card shop. This guy I knew was at the check-out counter, saw me, and ran pell-mell out of the store. I just shrugged this off. Boys are weird. Candy laughed. We saw a few other people around, all of whom fled at the sight of us. Honestly, I didn’t find it particularly odd. I really don’t take things personally unless forced to. Eventually her mom picked us up. My family were members of the Dornick Hills country club in Ardmore – let that percolate. It was a great golf course, apparently, but seriously. “Country club” is not what you probably think of, though I’m sure there were people who took it very seriously. We were rarely there. Candy’s folks weren’t members, but when we got in the car, her mom said she needed to go by Dornick and pick something up. Weird, and vague, but sure, fine, whatever. She drove to the parking lot, I got out and looked down the hill to the pool. It was chock full of people, all people I knew. Some, people I had just seen acting like loons at the mall. My parents were standing at the entrance. With balloons. It looked like a birthday party.

I walked down the hill to ask what my parents were doing there - like I say, it wasn’t a usual place they hung-out - and by the time I reached the bottom of the hill there is a sort of confused silence hanging over them and everyone in the pool. I see the poster next to them that says “Happy Birthday Emily!” I wonder who I know named Emily whose birthday it is. I didn’t get it until my dad said, really slowly, “Happy Birthday.” I think I said something like “Oh MY birthday!”

Worst surprise party ever. I was totally credulous the whole damn day, despite going to the mall, getting dressed up to go to the mall, seeing people acting bizarre around me, driving out to the country club, my parents, a party, a birthday. I really took the wind out of their sails – no one yelled “Happy Birthday!” or “Surprise!” because I think everyone was concerned I’d had a stroke. I was known as a smart kid; doubts were raised.

In my own defense, it wasn’t actually my birthday. That had happened while I was in HellisChristianCamp, the cherry on the top of that fiasco. But still. Who else would my parents be throwing a birthday party for in summer? No one has tried to surprise me again – it’s just too easy and sad, really. Day to day, I’m not too suspicious. But I am often to be found embarrassed.