Yesterday I received an complimentary email from someone who read about an embarrassing moment that happened in church several months ago. The email started me thinking about past embarrassing moment and I think it's safe to say as embarrassing as it was to have a my computer screen saver flash the words “Get Naked Now†in the middle of a Sunday School class, it wasn't my most embarrassing moment.
Not even close.
My most embarrassing moment happened about six years ago.
My first wife and I were invited to her grandmothers house for dinner one Sunday night. There was some type of celebration going on and most of my first wife's extended family were there. There was lots of people and lots of food.
Lots of good food.
The food was spread out on the kitchen counter buffet style. There was plenty of food and most people made several trips back to the kitchen.
But for some reason that day I was extra hungry. I must have made at least three or four trips back to the kitchen, refilling my plate each time. (This was back in the days before I started running. I was a beefy 235 pounds and could eat like there was no tomorrow. And to think I called myself a starving college student.)
Somehow I managed to avoid slipping into a food-induced coma after dinner and made my way down to the family room where everyone was gathered. The conversation was lively and somehow we started telling funny stories about pets. Everyone it seemed had a funny story about a stupid thing one of their pets had done.
Then someone told a story about their bird. And that story sparked a memory about something stupid one of my friend's birds had done.
So I started telling the story.
For some reason the story sounded extra funny that evening and I started laughing as I told it.
And laughing.
And laughing.
And laughing.
Others were laughing as I told the story too but for some reason this story struck me as extremely funny and I was laughing harder than anyone.
Then in an instant, before I could even finish the story, I started coughing.
And the cough turned into a choke.
The next thing I knew, I was throwing all over myself. All four platefuls of food went from my stomach to my clothes in something like ten seconds.
There was a moment of stunned silence. I don't think anyone in the room had ever witnessed spontaneous puking before.
I wanted to disappear. Even the deepest, darkest cave wouldn't have been a sufficient place to hide.
It took only moments though for the shock to wear off. And after the shock was gone I could tell everyone wanted to laugh and were doing their best to control themselves.
Even my first wife had to stop herself from laughing as she grabbed my hand and took me down stairs to the laundry room to clean me up and find some clean clothes. (She finally had to excuse herself and go to another room to get all the giggles out while leaving me half naked standing between the washing machine and a pile of my own puke covered clothes.)
I don't remember talking to anyone else that night. My first wife drove me home as soon I was somewhat cleaned up.
I thought I was going to be the butt of family jokes for years. But no one who witnessed the incident ever brought up while I was around. But there were times after that I would catch them looking at me with a smile behind their eyes.