Grace and Beauty
Amanda - When I was in college and late for a math class, I BAILED in front of like fifty other students. Just imagine a 300 pound woman running (which is bad enough in the first place) and then tripping on the curb and then just FACE PLANTING on the sidewalk. The sad part was that I was hurt and my knees were bleeding and NO ONE stopped to help me. It was just too much of a spectacle for anyone to handle.
Vicky Bach - I once knocked down all the line separator pillars at the bank by trying to hop the velvet rope instead of going around. Those suckers are LOUD when they fall like dominoes....BONG, BONG, BONGGGGGGG!!!
Rbelle - Last week I was trying a case in family court. I could explain to you the dynamics of the floor, and how it was NOT my fault, but the reality is that I fell. In open court. Considering I am not a lightweight at 5'11, it was not a dainty fall, it was NOT quiet, and it was NOT discreet.

I laugh in the face of embarassment!
Erin-erin-bo-berin - Hah! Nothing embarasses me! I am an open book.
Lin - Many little things that happened as a kid, but I am almost embarrassed to say that as an adult I don't really embarrass. Sometimes I feel some discomfort and frequently I'm unhappy with myself or decisions I've made, but that's about it.

Oh! Excuse me.
Liz - Well gosh, that's a tough one to choose -- they're so many! -- but, I the first thing that comes to mind is the time I commuted to New York City with my husband, while I was pregnant with our first child, where we would switch trains in Newark's PATH station and take it directly into the World Trade Center. I was about seven months pregnant and feeling pretty, well, you know. Anyhow, my husband would give me most awesome back rubs every night and, while waiting on the platform for our next train, I grabbed his hand...put it on my belly...and said:
Thanks for last night, Babe, TO AN ABSOLUTE STRANGER!!!
Needless to say -- I wanted to die -- I grabbed the wrong guy's hand and he responded with:
It was my pleasure, I think.
My husband laughed his ass off the rest of our commute.
Chris - Oh gosh, I don't know if I even want to share it so great is my humiliation still. Sigh... I was just finishing up grad school and dating the man who would become my husband. He had just graduated and accepted an intern position at the company he hoped would offer him a full time job. Really really hoping. We were invited to a cocktail party at the house of one of the partners. Did I mention we didn't know these people at all and were hoping to put our best foot forward? Anyway, to make a long horrible story short, I had the worst stomach upset I have ever had in my entire life. And had explosive diarreah, in their only downstairs powder room, over and over again. I kept having to go back to the bathroom and there was always a line of people outside the door. I wanted to cry every time I opened the bathroom door to find some poor unsuspecting soul standing there waiting their turn. And then, as if this wasn't bad enough, the hosts opened all the wondows in the house and the back door to air it out. In the winter.

Those school years were painful, man.
Mary Tsao - Probably when I got head lice in 3rd grade and my mom cut my hair in a crew cut and the kids on the school bus called me bald eagle.
Marla Good - Well, the time in fifth grade that I sneezed into my hands, leaving them runny and slick with great ropes of mucousy snot, then had to raise one...okay, them joined together by the definitely visible viscous webbing, in order to ask to be excused from class to go and wash them - then had to walk the long walk across the front of the classroom to the door, and then wait helplessly cuffed with slime for the doorknob to be turned by the cutest boy in school (of course) - well that still kind of prickles. But only because I’ve totally and completely blanked out the utterly horrific time in tenth grade I pounced on and straddled the guy I had a crush on in an attempt to start one of those mad ticklefights that leads to first tentative and breathless and then passionate soul-tingling kissing...and happened to look down at my pants (okay, my crotch) to find that my protection had failed me...then at the two bright red crescents on his white t-shirt. So I mean, my protection failed us. But I don’t remember that, and neither does he. Oh for the love of all things good and holy in this world, please promise me he doesn’t.
Deana - In high school, I'd just finished taking the SAT and was sitting in the car with my best friend, Christy. She made some comment about this cute guy that had been in our testing room. I said I knew him, he went to another high school, and his name was Gary. And what a nice change, I'd joked, a guy with a two syllable name, not like the guys we'd been dating. It had been a running joke, that we dated Bill, Matt, Don, Dave...never more than one syllable. "And he's cute!" she'd add and I'd agree, oh yes, cute! And she'd make an oblique name crack, leading me to make fun of my current boyfriend's name--Matt. Doormat. Etc. And then Matt emerged from the hatchback of my 82 Citation. Where she KNEW he was hiding. Bitch.
Mary, mom to many - All I'll say is that I was 16 and it involved white pants, a certain obliviousness to the monthly calendar, a jacket around the waist, and an unexpected need for a cab ride home from school. 'Nuff said.

It came out all WRONG
Holli - I took "best in state" at piano competitions several years running. I taught piano lessons. I used to play at large fund raisers and concerts... "used to" being the key words here. These things all happened to me at a very young age. I started to dread playing the piano and I just couldn't handle the stress. I started to get sick to my stomach before performing, scared to death I would make a mistake and look like a fool.. so I just quit playing all together - first in front of people, then by myself. Which really is a crying shame.
However, years later my family insisted I play for my cousin's wedding and they literally would not take "no" for an answer, no matter how much I protested. Just thinking about it now I'm getting upset. I didn't want to think about it beforehand because I was so stressed - so I didn't practice, thus causing the worst-case scenario possible: My cousin is walking down the aisle in her beautiful gown and veil, blah blah blah.. to what? I'll tell you.. to a jumbled mess of the only thing I could recall in that moment - circus music. Circus music!!
I had brought a date to this fiasco, plus my entire EXTENDED family was there. My family may think this is something they can forever give me grief about - but it's something I will forever hold a grudge about. Because they traumatized me!!
GAH!!!!!

The night started off with a few cocktails, and sort of spiraled
Busy Mom - It involved champagne, a shopping cart and a low chain fence.
BaseballMom - The most embarrassing thing that ever happened to me occurred when I was a freshman in college. I went to a frat party and met a guy, and fell asleep in his room after too much to drink. When I woke up later, it was like 5 in the morning and I didn't know how to get out of the frat house. I even contemplated climbing down a drainpipe, but finally braved opening the door and facing whatever guys were out there. Luckily, everyone was sleeping and I snuck out and walked back to my dorm. Later I was happy that I didn't get killed walking back in the dark by myself!
Lisa - At a fancy dinner for my husband's previous company I got drunk and laughed during the President's overview of the company speech. The laughter wasn't nearly as embarrassing as the wine that shot out of my nose during the laughter. This was followed by dancing that included me searching out the President, who couldn't stand me or the air around me, and performing a stripper type dance in which I was the dancer and his body was the pole. The evening ended with Husband dragging me to the car and me crying at
the injustice of his actions. Good times.
MegaMom - I'll have to go with trying to figure out how to get out of the girl's bathroom in college after I'd been busted. You see, my friend and I cut the line pretending that I had to get sick and then some girl opened the door while my friend was merely peeing. Some beer throwing ensued and then we found ourselves "mortifyingly" stuck wondering how we'd get past all those nasty girls :)

Really, take your pick.
Mamacita - Where to begin. . . . . would it be the time I taught all morning with a broken bra strap hanging down my back? Or the many, many times a square of dryer fabric softener fell out of my pants? Or the time I wore new slacks to school with the long transparent SIZE TAPE shining down the leg? That time back in college when a tampon fell out of my purse and rolled down a long, long aisle to come to rest at the professor's feet in a huge lecture class? The family reunion where my precious innocent two-year-old put her hands on her hips and said ""Oh mommy, I wish I could say 'shit?'"" How about when I lost a bet with a student and had to dye my hair orange? (actually, I didn't mind that one all that much, as long as I was at school. At the grocery store, people thought I'd done it because I thought it was beautiful. ) Or when I was told that I'd sung ""Gangster's Paradise"" all through surgery? It might have been the time I used the word 'intercourse' in casual conversation, to mean ""interaction;"" unfortunately, the crowd I was with didn't know ""intercourse"" had any other meaning. Humiliating myself in public is one of my specialties, and I've got a million of them. However, I think the shining Star of Humiliation would have to be a tie between the time I had a new white bikini and wore it all summer before someone told me it turned transparent when it got wet, and the time I jumped off the high diving board and lost my swimsuit top and it floated to the surface before I did..

Oh, now. It could have been much worse.
Danielle - My most embarrassing incident would have to be driving off this morning with my purse on the trunk of my car.
Donna Schwartz Mills - Requesting this email and not being able to think of anything really good to write!

Ah, Dignity.
Amber - It's hard to narrow it down to 'the most' but this one ranks pretty high... A few years ago when we were buying our house, Len and I had to go for medicals for insurance purposes. I hadn't put a huge amount of forethought into what to wear that day, and certainly hadn't remembered that here in Europe you're not issued little cotton gowns to cover your 'bits'. I walked into the Drs office and she started by asking me to strip down to my 'frillies' (my word not hers) - I glanced around looking for the little cubical/curtained off area to change (strip) in... none. I confirmed with the Dr that I was to take everything off bar the panties and she said yes. Here? Yes. Standing there shirtless, bra-less, shoe-less, sock-less, I started peeling off the jeans... and remembered my 'frilly du jour' was a tres skimpy black G-string, which did nothing for my figure. I swallowed my dignity and trundled (most ungracefully, I'm sure) in my little g-string over to the examining table. Forty-five minutes later, after THE most thorough exam I have ever had (she took my pulse in my ankle people!!) she told me I could pop off the table. She came around to where I was standing to tell me (I hoped) to get dressed... but noooo... she asked me to raise my arms out to the sides at shoulder height... boobs swaying... and she started poking me - dressed only in my scants, my very almost not there scants... THEN, then people... she asked me to bend over and TOUCH MY TOES!!! THEN (omgomgomgomgomg) she bent down behind me and started poking all.the.way.down.my.butt.thighs.and.legs!!

Yeah, that one ranks pretty high on my most embarrassing list!

La Leche League would be stoked
Margalit - When my twins were still nursing, I took them to an art exhibit at a modern art museum, which was featuring very large twig installations. One of the rooms contained a piece that was displayed in a very dark corner. A corner I thought would be a safe place to nurse the twins. They latched onto the girls, and were quietly eating in the dim light when all of a sudden the lights switched on and we were spotlighted as part of the exhibit. There was a crowd of people moving into the corner and
there I was, on the floor with a babe in each arm and the girls exposed for the world to see. Oy.

If you think we aren't going to hold her down and tickle her until she spills the whole story...
Jenijen - Inhaling my own hair during sex. (that's all I'm gonna say)

Too sexy for her shirt
Jerri Ann Reason - Fresh out of a marriage that was broken from the beginning, I was working and commuting almost 50 miles one way. One morning I spotted a very nice looking man traveling in the lane beside me. I would look at him sexy (as sexy as 6 AM would let me anyway) and he would smile back. Finally, he smiled really big and took off. I was so excited, I had already formulated a plan to meet up with him another morning just like that. My previous husband wouldn't work so I was excited just thinking he probably had a job if he was commuting that early as well. Finally, after filling my own head with great and wonderful thoughts about Mr.Perfect in the other lane, I looked down to see that I still had my napkin tucked in my shirt from eating and driving. I felt like such an idiot. No wonder the guy was smiling so big at me, he was plain ol' laughing.