Because Embarrassing Is Less Painful When It's Shared--Just Ask The Bloggess

"And then that one time on twitter we all just became human and I laughed until I gave myself a headache" --Jenny Lawson

A twitter confessional, that's what Jenny Lawson The Bloggess gave us last week when she tweeted out an awkward moment at the airport:

She started an abashment avalanche on twitter, and we were snowed under in the best case of cabin-fever delirium by 452,000 of Jenny's followers telling of their own mortifying moments.

I of course had no shortage of red-faced moments to add to the ones on twitter already. Like the time I called our police station and asked what their hours were and they answered, "Ma'am--we're a police station. We never close."

I tweeted out three or four more, but here's a more complete list of painful cheek burning moments that I would give a pretty penny to, if offered a chance for a do over:

--The time I thought that a red tube top on my 5 foot 5 inch 94 pound thirteen year old body would look good. It looked not just the opposite of good. It made me Olive Oyl's identical twin if she were wrapped in sausage casing.

--When I walked into Victoria's Secret, assuming they'd have a bra in my size and when I asked for 32A (a cup size that truly exists, Victoria) I was told it was 'impossible' to be that size. And yet, I stood before them.

 

 --A July afternoon when I attempted the community pool with a six-month-old baby and a two-year-old toddler and I thought I could change out of my wet suit but then the toddler took off from the bench I had him on and I had to run out into the pool because topless or not, I'll take pendulous breasts bared in public over a child jumping into a pool any day. Breasts? Life? I'll choose their life.

--When I was 15 years old and positive as anyone could be, that matte red lipstick, black mascara'd eyebrows, gold hoop earrings, and a spiral perm would be my look.

--There was a day in high school, that I wrote a six-page-long hand written letter dotted with my salty fat tears letter to my true love boyfriend, Gary. I told him I understood what happened with Margaret at the party on Saturday night and how I knew it wasn't his fault. Then I mailed it. To Margaret.

--When I called in to a new hair salon that was all the rage in Milwaukee at the time. I was told they staffed a curly hair specialist. This salon was so high end you had a phone consult with your designer before your appointment. On the phone, I told her that I had curly hair but that I didn't want to look like Rosanne Rosannadanna, because I hated those wedge haircuts that turned your head into an arrow. I made my appointment and on the day I went to meet my designer, she looked like an arrow.

--Out on a date with a community theater guy who picked me up and then told me had to stay in character for that weekend's "The Taming of the Shrew" and spoke like Shakespeare-In-The-Park the rest of the night, and I suffered through and didn't ask to go home.

 --When I went to my college boyfriend's house for dinner and his polish grandmother set a platter of cauliflower in the center of the table. Since cauliflower and fresh vegetables were scarce in my college days, I heaped a pile on my dinner plate while everyone stared. I laughed, "I know it looks like I'm taking a lot of these, but I LOVE these!" and then I shoveled gobs of cauliflower rosettes that were actually hand-whipped BUTTER mounds into my mouth.

 

Gramma Lucy didn't take to the oleo-loving Hispanic.

 

This is life in the face of flustering circumstances, caused by our own hand. We don't think we'll survive. We want the earth to open up and swallow us whole, take us far away from the scene of our crime, or at the very least, make us disappear. But without these moments, we wouldn't have the fun of sharing these stories of awkward human-ness. Laughing together and soothing the mental unease, it really does make it hurt less.

 

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