Fall of Shame

My entire life can be described as a series of fractured fairy tales that are strung together by stand upon strand of unconventional pearls of wisdom. These unique, opaque orbs are a collection of life lessons that one would never expect to learn in the ways I fatefully did. Some of them are true tragedies that resulted in profound learning experiences that I wish I could have avoided all together. Others are so bizarre and comical that they take people off guard by their sheer ridiculousness. Then I have the jagged little barbs that fill the spaces in between. These are strictly mortifying events that taught me nothing, except how to pray to god that they would never happen again.

I've always been a slightly awkward person, to put it mildly. I have innumerable embarrassing experiences to recount. They are sewn into the fabric of my life like gleaming badges on a girl scout's sash. I definitely feel that I have had more than my fair share of these incidents, as if I'm an over achiever at making a complete fool of myself. Some people float through life gracefully with the occasional blunder, while other's traipse through life like they are dragging the apocalypse behind them wherever they go. I, on the other hand, seem to stumble through life while people gawk or stare in awe as they surely think to themselves, "Did I actually just witness that happen?"

That's me. I have so many crazy stories. It's hard to pick just one to tell. I can't even rank which one would my worst or most embarrassing moment. There have been so many. Trying to choose which one to share is akin to what it felt like trying to find a book in a public library by using the card catalog. Ah, the good old days.

In my small town, it wasn't uncommon for kids to start preschool together and remain in the same class until high school graduation. In bigger cities, I imagine, when someone embarrasses themselves in their fourth grade class, very few classmates would remember or even care about the incident once they got to high school. Not the case for me. This is a two part story that is 100% true. I can laugh at it now, but it took moving away for college before I could truly escape the mortification. Let the good times roll. I hope you get a laugh out of this.

I've always had tummy troubles. I was a gassy little kid, and in my house it was acceptable to fart or burp as long as I said "excuse me" or something of that nature. In Mrs. Rosecrance's class, farting and burping were strictly prohibited. If a student needed to relieve themselves of a potentially noisy discomfort, we were encouraged to raise our hand and excuse ourselves to the restroom, or at least go outside. She felt the natural noises of bodily functions were too distracting and disruptive to the class. It was a different era.

Well, our class was in the middle of our weekly vocabulary and spelling test, working quietly as we wrote out the words and their definitions. It was just after our snack recess, and I began to feel a rumble down below. I didn't want to miss any of the test or disrupt the class, so I tried to quietly and discretely let out a fart and continue on with the exam. Mrs, Rosecrance HATED to be interrupted in the middle of giving a test. We all tried to avoid interrupting her, unless it was an absolute emergency.

As I slightly lifted one butt cheek to let the gas pass without notice, my body betrayed my efforts. The sound that came out of my butt was so loud that it literally echoed in the dead silence, as everyone was diligently concentrating on their work. To this day, it's probably the loudest fart my body has ever produced.

Before my brain caught up to my knee-jerk reaction, the words were already out of my mouth. The boy who sat behind me was a kid I'd know almost my entire life. I don't know why my brain chose him to blame, but it happened before I could do anything about it. I didn't want to get in trouble for breaking the silence, so to speak.

"EWW JR.!!!, that was so GROSS"

Everyone was staring in our direction when my head whipped around so fast that I guess my actions paired with my emphatic words were natural enough to be believable. Everyone thought he did it, including Mrs. Rosecrance. As he swore his innocence, and pleaded with the class to believe him, Mrs. Rosecrance sent him outside or to the principles office (I cant remember which), and she gave him a bad grade for his rude behavior.

To this day I still don't know if he knew it was me who farted. I sat next to this girl Sally, who was kind of a class clown, so I hoped and prayed he thought it was her. I had a puppy crush on J.R., which is maybe why his name came to me first. In any case, the incident was never talked about or mentioned again... until a five or so years later. He was a nice kid, and he took his punishment for what he didn't do pretty well.

Fast forward to my first week as a freshman in high school. I had gone to a very small, private middle school for three years. My dad said I needed to experience what the real world was like, and wouldn't allow me to go to the private high school I had gotten a half scholarship to attend. The campus was massive compared to middle school. There were over 1600 kids in the entire school. That's right, over 1600 different individuals. Some small towns have less inhabitants than that. It seemed like a small city to me anyway. My middle school graduating class had less than 20 kids.

Because this is my life we are talking about, it wouldn't be appropriate if my first week of high school didn't coincide with starting my period, which I had just gotten for the first time over summer vacation. I was bleeding heavily out of an area of my body I was hardly familiar with, let alone brave enough to attempt inserting a tampon. Instead, I was wearing one of those bulky pads with sticky wings that barely cling to your underwear. The instant any moisture comes into contact with them, the sticky part is rendered entirely useless.

Like any other high school kid, I wanted to look cool and trendy. I was wearing a brown, plaid mini skirt with buttons down the front and brand new tan, leather boots with virgin, slippery soles. I had my navy blue Jansport backpack FULL of books, so much so that I had to lean forward to prevent falling backwards. I was all of 98 pounds myself and not even five feet tall yet. It was a challenge, but I had managed to make it past lunch lugging that thing around, remaining upright.

After lunch, my next class was downstairs in the main hall. The hall where all the cool kids walked in between classes to high five their friends and make out with their crushes, putting on displays of PDA that would make Baby from Dirty Dancing run for the hills. I was walking and chatting with my friend Brooke. We were definitely not part of the cool-kid culture in any way, shape or form. We were geeks. We stuck out.

The floors of the main hall had been freshly polished for the new school year. They were very slick, almost like a lane in a bowling alley. Not an ideal situation with my giant backpack and slippery new boots. It was a real struggle to walk like I knew where I was going, while trying to look cool, while also trying to avoid falling over backwards due to the sheer weight of my backpack. The polished floors under my brand new boots wasn't aiding in my success, but I was doing a passable job, or so I thought. At least I was managing to stay on my feet...that is ...until we got to the main stairwell.

As I was putting my foot down on the first, freshly polished, step of the stairwell in the main hall, Brooke said something that caused me to laugh so hard that I snorted. The sound of my snort made my body go rigid with embarrassment, and I lost my balance. Cue the slow motion flashback as the inevitable fall of shame began to unfold. There was nothing anyone could do to stop it from happening.

My scuff free heel slipped on the step and my legs flew out in front of me. I went airborne. With both feet in front of my body, legs spread eagle, the buttons on my skirt started to pop off. I was flying ass first down the stairs with my crotch on display for all to see.

The only thing that broke my fall was another freshman at the landing before the next flight of stairs. While I was airborne, the pad which had lost 100% of its sticky power managed to dislodge from my underwear. The blood soaked pad and I became two very separate objects hurtling through the air, down the stairs, until I knocked the other freshman in front of me right off his feet. As I collided into him, taking him with me down the second flight of stairs, my pad had managed to land on his shirt, bloody side down. It was stuck on his back like a "kick me sign" from a bad eighties movie.

I bet you may have guessed who that unfortunate freshman boy was. If you guessed J.R, you'd be right on the money. Out of 1600 people in the entire school, it had to be him that I swept off his feet while taking him down with me. I'll never forget the look of confusion, shock, and the expression of complete horror as he peeled my bloody pad off of his brand new shirt. We hadn't seen each other since the 5th grade, so I was praying to god there was a chance he might not recognize me. Remember, it's my life we are talking about here, and I'm just not that lucky.

"OH MY GOD, it's YOU!!!"

"Who? Me?" as I pretended to look around for ANYONE else to save me from this horrendous scene.

"YES!! You're the girl who accused me of farting in Mrs Rosecrance's class in the fourth grade. Wendy, right?"

His voice was cracking like most boys his age, and it was high pitched enough that it seemed to pierce everyone's eardrums within a half mile radius. I've never wanted to die instantly, on the spot, as badly as I did in that moment. EVERYONE was looking at us. My face was so red that I swore steam must have been radiating off of it.

Still on the floor, in a heap of complete humiliation, I felt had to say something. All I could do was stare at him. Eyes as wide as a doe, tears forming, and trembling from shame. Eventually, I think I must have said something, but I can't recall exactly what I said.

Being the nice kid he had always been, as he got to his feet, J.R. reached out his hand to help me up. He asked if I was okay and offered to help me to my physics class. I couldn't possibly accept his offer, but I thanked him for offering me his hand while I apologized profusely.

It must have looked like a pretty bad fall, because I don't remember any of the bystanders laughing...except for my "friend" Brooke. In my memory, all I can hear is her laughter rising above the deafening silence and the pounding of my own heartbeat in my ears.

After we were both on our feet, I remember sheepishly admitting he was right. It was me who called him out in the fourth grade. Wendy Sanders, in the flesh. I think I lied and asked if he ever found out who actually farted. If he said it was me, I've totally repressed that memory.

As we caught our breath at the bottom of the stairs, he tossed my bloody pad into the nearest bin as we briefly caught up over how our middle school years had been. Not great for either of us, but we had obviously both survived. He was over six feet tall by the end of 5th grade. I was four foot nine and looked like I still belonged in primary school until my junior year. We were in the same boat as far as the teenage awkward phase went, that most kids our age experienced. We just had an overly extended awkward period. No pun intended.

He even tried to laugh the whole thing off like it wasn't that big of a deal. He had a sister, so a bloody pad wasn't anything he hadn't seen before. Or something of that nature. I can't quite remember what was said, but he was really cool about it. He even got me to laugh at my own misstep...literally.

I'm sure I've suffered through worse, but this story is one I can actually laugh about now. In fact, J.R is still my friend on social media, and we occasionally check in on each other around the holidays if he's in town. He has a gorgeous wife and two beautiful kids. So his extended awkward phase was worth the agony.

I'm not sure if I'm out of my awkward phase yet. I may never be, and that's fine with me. Less than great days usually make for pretty good stories. I guess I'm lucky that I enjoy writing so much. I'll never run out of good material.

Until next time, dear readers, be kind to yourself and one another. It's a crazy world out there, and kindness is too often in short supply. If you liked this story, give me a heart. If you're feeling generous, a tip is always greatly appreciated. I hope this story got a laugh or at least a smile out of you. Enjoy the rest of this beautiful day.