Embarrassment

What's your most embarrassing moments growing up? I'll tell you mine.

Well first of all this was beyond embarrassing, it was hurtful.  When I was in kindergarten I had a sweating problem of some kind, and these kids would chase me around the schoolyard yelling, "Stinky Nina."  I guess you can imagine how devastated I was that this was happening.  I don't remember how terrible it was, I think I sort of blocked it out, but I can imagine the psychology of someone who is being teased in this way over and over.

The second incident happened in like third grade I think.  It was my friend's birthday party and she was one of the cool kids so I was really excited to go and I really wanted to impress her.  So the thing is, I had to take a gift and my mother decided that she would not buy me anything brand new.  She had bought this cooler, yeah a cooler you would take on a picnic, an actual cooler, that she thought would be a perfect gift.

It was huge.  It was the biggest gift at the party.  Everyone was staring at it and staring at me.  "Nina, we'll open your gift last because it's the biggest!" my other friend shouted.  I couldn't look at her or anyone, I wanted to die.  I cringed as my friend opened her normal gifts from her other friends.  Not only was I the only person of color at the party I was the only person with a cooler.  Everyone else bought her cool stuff, I got her something she could cool stuff in.  It was tragic, it was the end of my social life as I knew it.

Finally when they got to my gift, everyone was sooo excited to open it.  She slowly unwrapped it and was like, "It's a cooler."  She didn't know what to say.  Everyone kind of looked at me a little funny. Even her mother said something like, "You got her a cooler?"  Her mother's friend had gotten my friend really awesome like teen magazines and all this cool stuff and she was like forty.  My gift wasn't even cool enough for a forty year old, I was mortified.

The third most embarrassing thing to happen to me as a kid was when I tried out for the school musical when I was fifteen.  I was a loser freshman and decided that I wouldn't try out for the chorus like a normal person with no talent whatsoever would, instead I decided to try out for the role as the main character.  I don't remember what the play was or what the name of the characters was, which is indicative of how much I studied for this part before going on stage in front of a bunch of talented people.

For starters I had forgotten how to read music from my trumpet playing days, so I when I practiced singing I just sort of made up a tune in my head.  Did you hear what I said, I made up a tune?  I was the stupidest little freshman that ever existed.

I went up there and in my high pitched voice, I stared singing words that no one could make out to a tune that I had made up.  The director of the play stopped me.  "I'm sorry," he said.  "I don't know which song you are singing."  I was more than mortified this time.  I told him which song, and I began singing, my own made up tune to these words that I was slaughtering with my high pitched horrible voice.

I saw a few people in the corner of my eye smile in this way that they couldn't believe what was happening.  I wasn't sure what was happening.  I went through the rest of the audition like a zombie.  I couldn't follow the dance steps for the dancing part, I didn't know how to inflect for the reading part where the main character was speaking.  All in all it was a travesty.

I have no lesson to give you here, I have no idea what these moments taught me.  I do know that I would never want to relive them.  I would never want my worst enemy to live them.

Thank god that's all over.

nina