Everyone is pretty much embarrassed all the time – that’s a secret you learn as you get older – it just isn’t so bad once you’re an adult. But it could be soul-crushing when we were kids, and pretty much everyone has that one childhood embarrassment that we just never get over. And sometimes the best way to deal with those memories is to post them on the internet for everyone else to enjoy, just like these AskReddit users did:
1. Arnold Schwarzenegger.
I was around 7 and was watching Oprah, she had on the cast of Batman and Robin. First comes George Clooney, then comes Chris O’Donnell, then Arnold Schwarzenegger. As Arnold comes walking out I loudly proclaim “Now THATS a man!!” Well my mom lost it and was in splits. Ever since she’s thought I have the biggest crush on him… when in fact I meant in comparison to the other guys, Arnold being all buff seemed way more manly to my younger self. It’s been twenty years and I have yet to live it down.
2. Bless you.
When I was about 7 or so, I was getting up from the dinner table and I felt a sneeze coming on. I sneezed so hard that my head went down and bashed into the back on my dining room chair.
3. Bra malfunction.
When I was 12, I “borrowed” my mom’s bra, put on a white t-shirt and went up to the cute guy on the next street over. He looked at me and said “Oh look! Shelly has boobies!” and poked me in one. Being a bra and not having anything to fill it, it sunk in and stayed in. I ran away mortified.
4. Terrible teacher.
My 6th grade teacher used to make fun of me for reading. I’m dyslexic, so I would practice reading constantly to keep up with my peers (I eventually got better at it than most of my peers because of all the practice). Because I was ten and had attention problems (not a disorder, but the over-active thought process of a kid), I would sometimes read more than one book at once. This – and a lack of readily-available bookmarks – meant that while I was reading one, I would have two others laying open (face-down, just saving my page) on my desk.
Mr. Parker saw this one day and decided that he wanted to take a picture of me with the books. I thought he was giving me praise, so I let him take the picture and put it up on the bulletin board.
Then he started making snide comments about it later: “Oh, she can’t be without a book for TWO SECONDS”, that sort of thing. It was humiliating because the rest of the class picked up on his mocking tone of voice and started making fun of me for reading. I had to join the other class for assigned reading groups, because my class would constantly berate me if I read ahead. It got to the point where I would purposefully read the books that my class was assigned (before they were assigned) so that I could take refuge in the other class under the pretext of “I’ve already read all of those”.
I grew up to be a writer in spite of all of that, though, so it worked out in the end.
5. Run, Forest, run.
I’ve always been an awkward person. Well, picture awkward me as a child. My sister is two years younger than I am. I had to go to her classroom while she was absent to retrieve her homework in elementary school. I was running down the hall with a grocery bag in my hand. The bag was filling with air while I ran, and I felt like a magician. My sister’s teacher made me show her class this! They still talk about this, and it was 25+ years ago!
Also, I had a very odd way of running. I would only move one arm back and forth while I ran. I’d pump that arm and keep the other one still. My family still brings this up!
6. The Virgin Mary.
A classmate asked me if I was a virgin. I said no rather emphatically because I thought a virgin was someone who had never sinned at all. (The only context I had was the Virgin Mary.) Years later I was embarrassed in retrospect!
7. Going Golfing
My dad and uncles let me go golfing with them. I was about 10-11 years old at the time. We got a golf cart and they let me drive. I was thrilled! They were getting drinks at the beer cart and told me to drive ahead. As I was driving I saw this really handsome young man teeing off at anther hole, so cute.
Next thing I know the same young man was waking me up. I was pretty dazed, not entirely sure if I was dreaming or what. Turns out I hit a tree, and the cart rolled down an embankment. My dad and uncles watched the whole thing, and would not stop laughing. I wrecked the cart, got a pretty nasty goose egg, and quite a few bruises from the cart rolling over me. I never did catch the boys name though. First and last time they let me go golfing, but I got to hear about it for years after.
8. The Cycle
I have several but this one has to top the cake. This happened back when I was in 5th grade (2000) where in the US, I lived in TX at the time, that we have 5th grade field days to celebrate near the end of the school year.. Now first off, I got my period in the 4th grade and damn near thought I was dying cause I didn’t really learn about it until the 5th grade. My mom ran into the room and laughed and basically gave me a pad and pain medication. She didn’t really explain it to me about what was going on, just that it would happen every month.
So anyways, 5th grade field day you get tons of goodies and candy, and they had this big jug of brand new Starburst tropical flavors and regular flavors in this tub, all you had to do to get it, was guess how many was in there. I got the closest number and was so excited because I never won anything before and free candy! Everything went great until it was time to head home and on the bus ride home, my pad leaked. Needless to say my great amazing day was ruined when kids noticed my shorts getting off the bus.
9. Girl Scouts
When I was in second grade, I was a Girl Scout. We had this day camp that we went to to earn badges. Girl Scouts from all over the state came to this camp. They split us all up and we had to do these skits about compassion and things like that… My groups skit was the DUMBEST skit ever. We sat around in a circle and sang “Kumbaya” and held hands while we sang. After the song was over we had to get up and hug one another, and it wasn’t just like a quick hug. It was one of those super long lingering hugs. I am not one to get embarrassed easily but when I had to hug another girl that I didn’t know, in front of HUNDREDS of people I’d never met, for an extended period, my face turned BRIGHT RED. When we all hugged each other, the crowd started laughing. I was so embarrassed, I was sweating and shaking (on top of being bright red).
I cried when we got off stage and my mom tried to stifle her laughter as she was consoling me which made it even worse! I quit Girl Scouts shortly thereafter.
10. Shooting Star
In 5th grade, we were having science class and my teacher asked us what we thought a ‘shooting star’ was…I knew this but…my answer was so stupid. I said I like to think it’s a unicorn granting wishes or something stupid like that. Never been more embarrassed. The whole class laughed and as soon as it left my mouth my brain caught up.
11. Dance Performance
I took tap dance for 3 years, starting when I was 7 years old. The first 2 years were fun, the class I was in had maybe 10-15 girls at various abilities. I wasn’t very good, honestly my heart wasn’t really in it. I wanted to take ballet really bad, but my mom thought tap would be better. Our instructor was patient and kind and figured out a way for everyone to participate (because we paid$$$).
At the end of the season we would order matching dance costumes and perform with dance classes from all over San Diego.
There were always hundreds of people and it was very exciting. By the 3rd and last year that I participated our dance teacher had enough of us losers making her look bad so she decided that the students who weren’t very good. The few of us she split from the main group were given a different routine.
We didn’t have nice costumes, just sort of pieced together DIY stuff. And on the day of the big recital, on the stage in front of 400 plus parents and kids, the three of us went out on the stage to do our routine. Being singled out and abandoned was bad enough but 9 year old me mostly blacked out from stage fright. All I remember was the sound of hundreds of people laughing at us. It was one of the most humiliating experiences of my childhood (and I have many).I could barely get my mom to stop laughing to tell me later that we were all doing our own thing and none of it was remotely close to the routine. Needless to say, I’ve been scarred for life.
12. Billy Ray Cyrus
I used to tell people Billy Ray Cyrus was my real dad!! Back when achy breaky heart had just come out, had recently been taught that “when two people love each other very much, that’s how you were born” then I’d heard my mum say “oh, I love Billy Ray” so I just presumed he must be my real dad.
13. Multipurpose socks
I needed a pencil case for school. Things were tough financially. So, an old, grey sock was provided.
14. Popcorn
I was returning a bag of popcorn to a drugstore once when I was about 12 because I accidentally bought kettle corn. She told me to go by the cosmetics counter, and I kept trying to tell her it was popcorn not cosmetics. Finally she escorted me to the cosmetics section where there was a cashier waiting to process my return. I was mortified.
Another time when I was ten we were working on a school project on economics and my mother told me if we lived in Hawaii on my dads salary we would have to be on food stamps. I then asked her if they came in different flavors. I thought food stamps were like wafer rations they sent in the mail. I also thought rations from wartimes were the same thing. She has never let me live it down.
15. The nose knows
Probably talking to the boy I liked not knowing there was a huge blob of snot coming out of my nose.
16. Helicopter
When I was 5 or 6, everyone was doing silly dances in the playground trying to make each other laugh. I thought it would be hilarious if I whipped down my trousers and did a bit of a helicopter.
No one laughed, just stunned, horrified expressions and no one forgot until the end of high school.
17. Childhood Crush
I had a little crush on this girl. During recess, the guys would play soccer, and the girls would… I don’t know, no idea, never really saw them. Except for Courtney. Courtney would play soccer with us and she was good. And she was so cute. She was so cute and so good at soccer and I loved her and we were going to get married.
Well, all of us guys tried to impress her, so we’d do stupid stuff to get her attention.
We were in a tight game, the field was wet from the rain from the day before, so it was also a bit messy. People were slipping around, but if anyone hasn’t played in these kind of conditions before, it’s actually really fun.
Anyway, I scored a goal and in celebration, I tried my hand at one of those fancy celebrations. It was a great kick, a great goal, and she was standing right there. The conditions were right.
So I ran and tried to slide on my knees, but I somehow slipped right when I was going down and landed awkwardly on my butt. And getting up, I noticed my nether regions feeling remarkably cool.
It was because my shorts had split. And I was wearing tighty whiteys. And because of the wet field, there was some mud. So now my tighty whiteys were more like tighty brownies.
These people. They said that I had diarrhead my pants. I had not! But that is what they said. And they all laughed. At me. The hero who just scored a great goal.
Courtney and I did not get married.
18. Never wear white after labor day.
I was wearing my favourite white trousers the day my first period started.
19. Lesson learned.
When I was 4 in preschool, little kid me thought he was a god. I would run to other kids and just push them down, constantly. Wait, for them to get up, then do it again. Eventually I kept pushing my little cousin, and she was going to have none of that stuff. So she bit my arm, and latched onto me for about a good 40 seconds.
Needles to say, I cried like a baby.
20. “Needless to say, I was not invited back to her house again.”
Doing a science project with a girl who was cute. Had a bloody nose earlier in the day, but it scabbed over. Had a ferocious sneeze which made me bleed anew, and I accidentally sneezed on the girl. The moment of shock on her was realized in full when she realized she looked like she got spray painted in half a second from her hair to her waist.
Needless to say, I was not invited back to her house again.
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