Cringeworthy moments ....

[pearl]

..... and give us all a laugh. Nothing unsuitable for a family forum, mind

 

Ok here's mine. My last job interview: suit on, hair looking lovely, 3" heels, full makeup, I rocked.

 

When I went to the ladies afterwards & looked in the mirror I discovered there was a bogey hanging from my nose.

 

No, I didn't get the job

[Kathryn]

Blame it on the bogie..

 

 

K x

[baddad]

I've had a few, but I think one of my worst was when I met a guy I knew through work in a nightclub and when I went over to say hello I said;

Hi chris - nice to see you... and this must be your lovely wife...

 

The girl he was with slapped him across the face and ran from the club while we both just looked at each other - him dumbstruck by my 'stupidity(?), and me dumbstruck by my stupidity!

He ran after her after about thirty seconds while i just did this (for about three days if memory serves correctly)

 

I still cringe thinking about it but guess he did deserve it.

 

[bid]

I was very young, at the Meet and Greet party for my MA course...

 

I was talking to a fellow student from Belize, when I dropped a cocktail sausage which landed...in the turn-up of her trousers!!

 

Did I ignore it and tactfully slip away to speak to someone else? Did I say 'Goodness, you appear to have a sausage in your trousers??' Did I even apologise and explain my social gaffe???

 

No...

 

I burst into such hysterical laughter that I was unable to speak, whilst scrabbling around the poor woman's ankles trying to retrieve said sausage

 

She never really did take to me...

 

Boho

[pearl]

I once pretended I was pregnant when someone asked me when it was due, rather than admit that my child was 6 months old & I was still fat

[Mumble]

We have some English language learners staying with us at the moment and one often carries a dictionary round with him to translate things word for word.

 

Sounds like a good idea - unfortunately, he was translating the menu for his fellow students tonight and the pudding was 'Spotted Dick'. I didn't correct his obvious word for word literal translation (even I could read that facial expression/body language). :lol:

 

[baddad]

I once pretended I was pregnant when someone asked me when it was due, rather than admit that my child was 6 months old & I was still fat

 

I had the flipside of that when I congratulated one of the mums I hadn't seen for ages and asked when it was due

 

Another one: years ago a big fight broke out in a local pub... a couple of nights later soemeone said 'christ - did you see that bloke pick up a table and throw it?' I quipped - 'see it? i was hiding underneath it at the time!'... i was really pleased with my quick wit until weeks later i realised it was being circulated as a 'TRUE' STORY

 

[frogslegs]

When I was at uni, I once went to see a play presented by the drama group. In the hall I met by chance a girl from my course that I did not know all that well and we decided to sit next to each other. There I was reading the programme which included the list of actors. I said that the one who had the lead was horrible and gave loads of details as to why he was horrible (physically and other) and then she calmly announced that he was her fiance. Oops!

[Kathryn]

Ouch frogslegs!

 

I had a very similar experience at uni which was so embarrassing I go hot and cold thinking of it even now, many years on.

 

As a student I took part in a drama festival which brought many people, professional and amateur performers, and tourists, to our small university town. The talk was always about what shows were worth seeing, what was rubbish, etc. One day, sitting in the audience waiting for a play to start, I saw a fellow student (call him Tom) in the row in front and we started comparing notes. I told him I'd been to see a very mediocre production of Julius Caesar the night before. The worst thing about the production, I told him, were the two actors who played the major roles of Brutus and Cassius. They had no passion, I went on, they were completely wooden and so talentless I couldn't believe they were actually professional actors. As I continued to hold forth on their many shortcomings, Tom's face was turning a deep crimson in front of me. At last he leaned forward and said, "They're sitting behind you". I turned round and so they were, Brutus and Cassius together, and there was certainly passion in the looks they gave me - I'll never forget the horror of having to sit for another two hours feeling their eyes boring into my back - and just wanting to run and hide!

 

K x

[pearl]

During my lunch hour at work, I was searching online for candles. Now, (I have discovered), candles appear on all kinds of different websites - gifts, green organic stylee etc ... and, *ahem* "adult" sites, as I realised when I clicked on an innocent looking link and a giant, purple, errr ... "device" appeared on my screen in FULL VIEW of the rest of the office

 

It was a beggar to get rid of, too.

[baddad]

During my lunch hour at work, I was searching online for candles. Now, (I have discovered), candles appear on all kinds of different websites - gifts, green organic stylee etc ... and, *ahem* "adult" sites, as I realised when I clicked on an innocent looking link and a giant, purple, errr ... "device" appeared on my screen in FULL VIEW of the rest of the office

 

It was a beggar to get rid of, too.

 

 

Four candles? Do you want any 'ose with them?

 

 

[frogslegs]

I am not English first language so at times I can get confused. When I got married, I wanted to buy an engagement present for my husband to be. So I went to a jeweller and asked for ....... handcuffs I meant cufflinks!!!! The look on the jeweller's face!!! He announced calmly that they were not that sort of shop but I insisted and showed him what I wanted. It's only later when I told my husband what had happened that he told me what the problem was......OOPS

[pearl]

I once asked for a horse drier at a hotel in Paris

[pookie170]

Aged around 13, my Mum asked me if my friend and I would deign to help out at our church bring n buy sale, to which we agreed. We were met by our R.E. teacher's wife on the morning of the sale, who was terribly nice and gave us our stall to tend, while Mum toddled off to help at the cake stall, to which she had added mounds of scrumptious offerings. (I fondly recall her date and walnut loaf....mmmmmm.....)

We had been handed the poisoned chalice, as it turned out......yup, the second hand clothes stall. WHY anyone would assume their 10 year old underpants would be of interest to anyone other than the Environmental agency, I do not know, but we picked our way through the piles of clothes (very gingerly, and with a fervent wish for some marigolds and tongs!), discarding the more questionable items into a box as we went. And we had a laugh, as some of the clothes would not have shamed Noah had he donned them as he boarded the ark!

And then....

 

(oh gawd....)

 

'Oh....my....GOD!' I howled, tears rolling down my face as mirth took hold.

I held up the object of my hilarity, a most natty shirt with a simply HEE-UGE pointy collar, and a print of little beige choo-choo trains all over.

My friend began to titter at the sheer awfulnes of the shirt in hand.

'Bloomin' heck,' I quipped, 'It's like something Mr XXX would wear!! Along with purple socks and jesus sandals!!'

We convulsed with laughter....

"Actually, it is like something Mr XXX would wear, because it used to be his!!!' heralded a voice, white with rage.

We spun round, to be met by the sight of Mr XXX himself and his wife, glowering furiously at us.

Talk about blush....we didn't know where to put our faces, and what was worse was that they were running the stall next to ours!!!

ARRRRRRRRGGGHHH!!

Mr XXX was, in fact, our R.E. teacher and he sported the most outdated wardrobe of anyone we knew, always a good move when teaching secondary pupils. I later discovered there were mitigating circumstances that still make me very ashamed of my childishness that day, but it was certainly a cringeworthy moment!!

 

............My next RE lesson was not a happy one!

[pearl]

I knew you'd have a contribution, Esther!

 

Another one from me (I do have a lot, don't I?)

 

Looking at my rather "cuddly" aunties wedding photo some 20 years after it was taken:

 

"Oooh, weren't you slim!"

 

In my defence, I was a child at the time. Cut no ice with Auntie tho, still got the death stare

Edited June 9, 2009 by pearl

[TheNeil]

Oh far, far too many to mention

 

The worst, I think, would have to be finding myself, naked, in a room full of strangers and my parents. At least my father had the decency to wrap me in a towel and give me a hug - my mother just laid there and screamed that she was never going to let my father anywhere near her again. Good Lord, the woman has no dignity whatsoever

[ScienceGeek]

When 9/11 happened being young and not very world wise, someone came into the classroom in 6th form and said someone flew a plane into the pentagon, my response was "why would someone want to fly a plane into the pentagon shopping center " (In chatham).

[pearl]

There are toilets on each floor of the library where I work. Identical floors, identical toilets, except that the evil genius architect decided to reverse the ladies & gents on the 2nd floor. Well I don't know what country I'm in half the time never mind what floor of the library I'm on, so it had to happen eventually, didn't it ...

 

I handled it very well though - gave the poor hapless bloke a very hard stare & convinced him it was his mistake

[call me jaded]

Very large meeting and I was getting ready to speak. Adjusting my chair it got caught on the cheap NHS carpet and I really did end up on the floor. Made a hash of what I was going to say.

[Danr]

"During my lunch hour at work, I was searching online for candles. Now, (I have discovered), candles appear on all kinds of different websites - gifts, green organic stylee etc ... and, *ahem* "adult" sites, as I realised when I clicked on an innocent looking link and a giant, purple, errr ... "device" appeared on my screen in FULL VIEW of the rest of the office "

 

I had an email once from "technical services" with a subject of "system downtime" , and let's just say that the picture in the email involved a cucumber....

 

 

"I once asked for a horse drier at a hotel in Paris "

 

My mum asked for strawberry chcikens!

 

 

in playschool the teachers asked us where rain came from, and added "it's when the clouds cry isn't it??" , and I gave that answer as a 12 year old in middle school!!

 

 

 

 

[TheNeil]

My mum once tried to buy a chicken in France (in French amazingly) and got rather annoyed and frustrated when the nice lady behind the counter seemed nonplussed . She even started pointing at the chicken and shouting "Poissons, POISSONS!"...

 

...just a shame that 'poissons' means 'fish' in French

 

[pookie170]

Oh, the shame!!

Amplified by the fact that this is not the first time it's happened!!!

 

There I was, already carmine of complexion, sweaty, dishevelled and ungainly....

All around me, people were leaping through the motions with the poise and finesse of a herd of gazelle......

With a sigh, I tried in vain to straighten my hopelessly rumpled, slightly greying suit.....-everyone else's of course, being gleaming white, starched and ironed to within an inch of its very existence... (I mean, where do they get the time??? They're working mums like me, I don't even own starch.....I'd have to juice a potato to achieve that kind of effect on our doboks!!)

 

I was back in the fold of our Taekwondo class, having neglected training shamefully in order to concentrate on my maths exam, and was feeling my lack of fitness in every fibre of my body. However, I seemed to be keeping up with, if not exactly gliding through the class exercises.

And then we lined up, ready to unleash our flowing kicks upon the target pads donned by the black belts.

Front kick, axe kick, rising kick, no problem. I even managed a double kick-spinning kick-reverse kick combo that peeped slightly above the threshold of acceptable.....

Confidence building, I studiously listened to instructions and prepared to run and launch myself into a flying side-kick.....

 

And promptly slipped as I leapt, landing unceremoniously in a heap, butt-first, with comic sound effects added for good measure!!!!

To add insult to injury (which I am sporting in style on my left buttock- in hues of charcoal and aubergine, very IN this season, dahhhlings!!) I winded myself and could not spring to my feet with a jolly-good-sport hearty laugh, as I did last time this happened, oh no! Instead, I lay there like an albino whale, clutching my posterior and trying hard to remember how one goes about the business of breathing!!

MOR-TI-FIED!!!!!

And THEEEEN, the wife of our chief instructor came hurrying over with the first aid kit!! Had I only possessed the breath, I would have hissed 'Go away!!' but could only flap a hand at her in protest!!

(It really doesn't help that many parents stay to watch their kids, and I could plainly see the looks of pity or outright mirth at my literal downfall...)

 

I did eventually regain my footing and join in, but dearie me, I didn't realise I could blush quite so furiously. My darling sons, once assured that I was ok, later gave me a true ribbing about my misfortune. The eldest remains convinced I was trying to 'do a Mario' by emulating his mushroom-squishing butt- bounce!

I'm just grateful no-one had a camcorder!!