Immortalized Humiliation

It was the summer of 2006, and I was a whimsical 5 year old boy. In love with lightsabers, Batman, and Pokémon.

I know what you’re thinking, “ dude how can a 5 year old memory be that embarrassing”. Well just you wait.

Let's start again… it was the summer of 2006, primed for the sunny streets of California my 5 year old self was ready for razor scooter ankle bruises, long days at the beach, and playing colors at the pool. Being the youngest of 4, two brothers and two sisters, I was the prime target for my malevolent siblings to manipulate me. Nonetheless I tagged along in their adventures as much as I could. I would bug, annoy, fight, pester, and follow my older siblings as much as they would let me.

One time my oldest brother and his friends were playing the shooter game, Call of Duty, and I was sitting in the corner of the room with my nerf gun. What was I doing you might ask? I was shooting them of course! Unlucky me, my brother in a moment of frustration attempted to scare me by shooting an empty airsoft gun at me.

An airsoft gun is one of the realistic guns, not a paintball gun, but it shoots those plastic pellets that hurt really bad.

Well, it turns out, that darn gun was loaded and my brother had just shot his 6 year old brother in the chest with an airsoft pistol. And well he may have felt bad, and the only thing I really remember is crying for 20 minutes straight while my mom went ballistic on my brother. This is sadly not even the story I meant to tell.

THEE story really starts and ends with my sister only 3 years older than me. The day started off great; little Thomas(me) woke up at 5 am to sneak to the computer before my mom woke up to play his favorite computer game, Club penguin.

Alright full disclosure, I have no idea if I did this that specific morning but I can confirm I did this on a regular basis. Now back to the story.

So little old me playing some club penguin, getting ready for a day at the pool. It seemed like any plain old summer day. I probably had a hefty bowl of cheerios, fiddled with my Pokémon cards.

Too bad I didn’t know they’d be worth thousands now smh…

Next thing you know I hear a squealing voice say, “ OMG HEY GIRLS!”, as my sister's entourage of friends roll into the house. Now I’m not sure why but I was going to the pool with my mom, my sister with all her friends, and I. I swear, I repeat I swear I had friends as a little one… they must’ve been… busy as you know friends are. Besides the point, our little bunch of madness were getting ready to go to the pool and I was sitting around with these princess crazed 8 year old girls. Now you’d think at 8 year old couldn’t be that evil, right?

Well my sister seems to set records and break boundaries because all she wanted to do was mess with me and toy with my puny child level intelligence. So as most pool days go, mom lathers you down in sunscreen, you put on cool trunks that have flames on the side, and you look for your goggles that you probably lost anyways, which your mom will probably be really mad at you for.

Oh sorry, just me?

My devilish sister and her friends stop giggling and stroll over to me and proceed to give me fashion advice for my swim attire.

“All the older boys wear these, it's really really cool”, my sister proceeded to say as she handed me a one piece bathing suit that coincidentally fit me.

It was at this point that only my future self would know I really screwed up because the ignorant and innocent 5 year old me took that one piece to the bathroom… and well you can imagine what I walked out looking like.

OH WAIT, you don’t have to imagine because my sister took a picture of me.

Okay yes, I had long hair and I probably looked like a girl to you anyway but there is something very pure to the effect that a little boy isn’t corrupted by society's pressure to pigeon hole boys into a certain pathway of developing. And you know what, at the time, I really didn’t think it was embarrassing. My maniacal sister and her friends cried of laughter but I didn’t see the humor in it at the time.

This moment though, is forever immortalized in that photo, and is brought up to relive this multiple times a year. Not only from my sister, but my mom, dad, and other siblings.

Do you want to guess what my picture my sister showed to my girlfriend upon meeting her for the first time. You guessed it.

And that is the true cringe worthy, eye squinting, turn away feeling power that this image has over me. Simply the most embarrassing moment, photo, whatever you want to call it in my life and something I (do not) regret.