Cringe

My favorite NPR show, "This American Life", did an episode back in 2006 called "Cringe". Essentially, it was a show that talked about the stories in our lives that, when we look back on them, make us cringe with embarrassment or horror or plain old "Please erase this event from my memory (not to mention my record)!". I have SO many of these types of stories that I thought I would embarrass myself by recounting just a few for your reading enjoyment...

This is probably my all-time, most cringe-inducing story that makes me go red (even if I'm in bed under the covers all by myself) every time I think of it. Years ago, when I was a graduate student, I was told of a certain professor from another university who did research that I was interested in. I tracked him down at a conference later that year, introduced myself and ended up having lunch with him. A year or so later, I arranged to have him come to my university as a guest speaker. When I picked him up from the airport, he met me at my car and...I...went...to...hug him...just as he stuck out his hand for a handshake. It was so awkward and embarrassing, even moreso when, realizing my inappropriate greeting, I tried to shake his hand, and he tried to hug me. Then we were both bumbling and mortified. I only made things worse when the next day, I introduced him before he gave his lecture. Instead of just listing his credentials like most people do, I started rambling on about how I'd met him at the conference the previous year, had had lunch with him and kept in touch with him, and how I hoped he was not just my mentor, but also my friend. First of all, he had never offered to be my mentor or my friend, and even if he had, it's not exactly the type of information I needed to be spouting during his seminar introduction. The audience looked at me like I was a moron, and I quickly realized my credibility as a scientist, a student and as a rational human being was quickly descending. Even now, as I write about all this, I just want to crawl into a hole somewhere. Yuck.

A close second was when Adam and I were hanging out with his parents, and my father-in-law and I were swapping stories about weird people we knew back in high school and college. Just as he finished a particularly entertaining story about a kid who set himself on fire, I decided to try to one-up him by telling a story about a girl in junior high who always smelled like she didn't wash very well during that time of the month. The look on my mother-in-law's face was enough to make a bison stampede come to a grinding halt. Her exact words were, "Lauren...I did NOT need to hear that!" Imagine that said with utter disgust. From your mother-in-law. Right before she walks out of the room.

Here are two that are particularly cringe-worth stories for me, because they have to do with my childhood obsession with food (not to mention the extra weight that accompanied).
When I was in elementary school, the teacher would take students out to lunch if they had not had any demerits against them for the entire semester. They'd always take us to Frisch's Big Boy for the requisite burger, fries and soda. Well, one particular semester, I was out with my 4th grade teacher, Mrs. Thomas, and a small group of students, and we were just finishing up lunch. I had already cleaned my plate and eaten the leftover french fries on my friend's plate, too. Mrs. Thomas asked everyone if we were done, or if we were still hungry. I greedily (squirm!) exclaimed that I was still hungry! Everyone turned to look at me, wondering how I could be the only one at the table who was still hungry. Mrs. Thomas took her time responding; I was at the same time embarrassed but also anticipating what treat she might have in store! I believe she stopped at a convenience store on the way back to school and bought us all ice cream bars. Leave it to the piggly little brown girl to demand more food. Where's that hole for me to crawl in again?

When I was in junior high, I used to hang out at the mall a lot with my girlfriends. One day, we had all decided to get baskets of french fries at a little food shop for lunch. My girlfriends left for a few moments to wash their hands, and left me with three baskets of fries in front of me. I thought long and hard about how, if I was quick enough, I could steal a few of their fries and still have my full basket ready and waiting for me when they came back. Well, I took too long to decide, because by the time I made my move, they were already on their way back to the table and they caught me trying to steal fries from their baskets. I was humiliated. Greedy, deceitful and humiliated. I still am--humiliated, that is--all these years later. *Snort, snort*