We’ve all had them! These are the moments when not only do you wish the earth would open up and swallow you so you never have to face anyone again, but when you would personally dig yourself a hole to hide in if one didn’t mercifully open to receive your humiliated self.

My family can tell you how I now check my skirt multiple times after leaving the bathroom, and especially when it’s a public restroom. Can you imagine how I felt when I learned I had paraded across a huge restaurant with my skirt hiked way up in back, after I had filled up my plate at the salad bar. As I deposited my dish on the table, a woman sitting nearby motioned to me, pointing to my  lace clad derriere that had been visible for the world to see. What’s worse is that this wasn’t the only time it happened.

Emails and Social Media can also supply us with these embarrassing moments. Social Media sometimes permits us to delete our mistakes and mishaps, but that is only if we discover them. We may not until someone points them out. As for email, how many of us have hit send or reply all and gotten ourselves into situations that required some major creative excuses or apologies to get us out of the corners we painted ourselves into?

Yesterday, in fact, I decided to text someone to inquire about his health. I wanted to double check something in my phone’s contact list, so first tried to copy and paste the message I had already typed, rather than having to retype it. Then I opened a new message and pasted, quickly hit send, when my eye caught a fleeting glimpse of a couple of words that didn’t look quite right.  I looked more carefully at the already sent text, and realized that I had somehow pasted an old message to my husband about a disagreement with a family member. My stomach began to flip and flop as I attempted to figure out what kind of damage control I could employ. So I sent a new text, explaining my error, but that didn’t erase the embarrassment of having once again “exposed” something I hadn’t intended to. Perhaps this exposure wasn’t as bad as the lace clad body part incident, but it sure didn’t feel great.

Then there was the time I was visiting a friend for the weekend in a town where I used to reside. A woman ran up to me, arms open wide, gave me a huge bear hug and began to fire away questions at me, naming my family members and circumstances that casual acquaintances were unlikely to know about. She spoke rapidly and excitedly, clearly very pleased to see me.  I hadn’t the faintest idea who she was.  We have all had similar moments. Normally we have a small space when we can interject a comment, ask a polite question, or can even apologize that we don’t recognize the person, but this happened so fast and she seemed to know so much about me that I missed the perfect moment. In fact, she barely let me get a word in edgewise. So I sheepishly answered her questions, asked about her in a general way (“So, how are you and yours doing these days?”).  When she finally stopped talking and departed, I collapsed in a fit of very uncomfortable laughter, confessing to my friend who inquired about the woman’s identity, that I didn’t know who she was.

Some of you may have read my poem, What I Didn’t Know When I Met Langston Hughes, (http://coachirisblogs.com/2011/02/09/what-i-didn%e2%80%99t-know-when-i-met-langston-hughes/) based on a true occurrence back when I was in high school and Mr. Hughes presented me with a poetry award in a New York Citywide High School poetry contest. I was wearing very high, uncomfortable heels and my cramped foot fell asleep. When my name was called, I had to walk from the far left side of the auditorium to the far right, where Mr. Hughes stood at the podium. My foot kept cramping and the ankle kept twisting, and I limped very visibly across the large room. I could hear people making clicking noises and commenting on the poor disabled girl.  I am sure my face was very red. When I reached the podium to accept my award, the audience applauded wildly,  much more than they had for the few other prize recipients. I didn’t know whether to mention anything and make a real fool of myself by explaining, or to just let it go. Of course, I didn’t want to say the wrong thing and call  more attention to myself, or to inadvertently offend someone who really did have a disability, so I simply thanked Mr. Hughes and skulked back to my seat.  That is one of the times that really has stuck in my memory even all these decades later, because the event caused me to focus on my own embarrassment, rather than on the privilege and pleasure of meeting someone I so admired.

Then there are the first date “screw up” memories. I bet you have some.  There was that awful incident in college when I’d had too much to drink at a party and……..well, maybe I’d better not say! Can you relate to this? I will also never forget the first time my now-husband visited my home after several dates, and he met some of my kids. The youngest was only two and was (still is) very outspoken and spunky. When asked to go upstairs and get something to show Art, she put her hands on her hips and declared, “My mommy is such a …..”. (You fill in the blanks or try to imagine how I covered that one and came up with where she might have learned such language.)

Now that you are reading this, I hope I have primed the pump and started the flow of some of your most embarrassing moments that you would have preferred remained buried and forgotten. My question is, how do you survive such moments?

Here are some tips:

• Humor-Humor can almost always save the day. If you are up to it, a pithy comment usually puts you and the other person or people at ease. Lighten up.  Try thinking of these occurrences as good material for future stories to tell that will evntually provide a good laugh for you and others, once the sting has worn off.
• Silence– On the other hand, there are also times when silence is best. Just smile. You may dig yourself in further and deepen your embarrassment if you say too much.
• Apologize-Do this if you can do it gracefully. There may or may not be an opening. Sometimes a follow-up phone call or note can work wonders, not dwelling on the faux pas, but concentrating more on the other person and saying you hope he or she was not as embarrassed as you were.
•   Let It Go– Don’t ruminate over things, or figuratively self-flagellate due to your blunders, omissions or improprieties. Let things go if they call up bad feelings for you.
• Try Not To Be Too Full of Yourself-Remind yourself that not all eyes and ears are always on you. Most people are frankly, too busy thinking about how they appear, and what others think of them, and half the time they don’t even notice what embarrasses you most.

Now it’s time to fess up, and to come up with a funny story from your own past. Let’s hear about some of the situations in which you embarrassed yourself. What did you feel?  How did you help yourself get over feeling bad? What, if anything, did you learn from the situation or experience?  Let’s make this participatory, please. Comment here!