Remembering is Often Fun for Those Who Enjoy Old Memories, These Memories Are Not Fun Nor Are They Enjoyable.

Lucky for me, I have not had that many embarrassing moments. Keywords: I have not had that many. I have had some embarrassing moments, and when I tell you. That they were embarrassing, would be an understatement.

One of my most vivid memories is when I was in summer camp at a local park. I was turning nine years old and everything was still new to me. Not that embarrassing. It was just rather peculiar. It was my first day at this camp, and this girl, I will call her Acacia for privacy reasons. But on the first day, Acacia came running up to me and hugged me. I was shocked because it was my first day and I did not know anyone. So I just hugged her back because I was way too shy to say anything. "Oh my gosh, Jayla, I thought you were not coming back this year," Acacia said while squeezing me so hard. "Pardon?" I said with a confused look on my face. "Jayla, you're so silly! I missed you so much. Let's catch up, you silly goose," she said with a goofy smile. "My name is not Jayla-" I said as she cut me off. "Bye, Jayla, let's catch up later!" She said as she skipped away from me.

I have never been so puzzled in my life. I just walked towards the big oak tree because that's where we were all supposed to meet. I saw four counselors and around sixty small children, all standing under this oak tree. And guess who was standing right beside my twin sister and me. None other than Acacia herself. She did not say a word to either of us. She just smiled. I was wondering why she thought I was some girl named Jayla. My name is not Jayla, by the way. I do not know anyone by the name of Jayla.

Anyway, after the counselors told everyone what we would do for the next two weeks, everyone ran off in several directions. My sister and I went over to where the activities were. While we were there, we noticed that our good friend was also there. I will call her Amelia for privacy reasons. Amelia came over to us, and we were all so happy to see one another. As usual, we joked around and had lots of fun while doing the different activities. Everything was great until in the corner of my eye I saw Acacia coming towards me. She was dragging someone else behind her. I assume it was one of her friends. I wasn't a hundred percent sure who that was.

But as soon as I saw her glaring at me and walking over at a very rapid pace. I told my friend and my sister that we had to go to the bathroom. They both said, "what why?" I did not respond. I just started running towards the bathroom. My sister and friend both followed quickly behind me. My sister and I are both track stars. We have qualified for the Junior Olympics on several occasions. We ran to the bathroom within a couple of seconds. Our friend was not so graceful when she ran.

Once we were all in the bathroom, I explained to them why I had run. "I apologize for making you both run into the bathroom. Let me explain. Amelia, when my sister and I had arrived at camp, that girl came running up to me. She kept saying how much she missed me. She also kept saying I was this girl named Jayla. Can we all try to avoid her completely?" They both nodded rapidly with very understanding faces. We all talked for a while in the washroom about random stuff until we heard the bell ring. Which meant it was time for the activities to start.

We all went over to the big oak tree. I noticed Acacia was on the other side of the oak tree. Fast forward about three hours when we're finished with all of our activities. We finally had lunch. I don't remember what we had exactly, but I remember Acacia sat next to us and started talking a lot. We all did not answer her because we thought maybe she would go away. News flash, she did not go away. "Ugh, Jayla, come on, we are leaving!" She said while pulling my arm. I told her once more, "my name is not Jayla-" she cut me off once more and pulled me off to the side. I was about to speak, but once again, she cut me off, "Jay-Jay, I can not believe you are hanging out with those nerds. How could you forget about me? I'm Acacia, remember? We were best friends throughout summer camp last year. I can't believe you already forgot about me." She was almost crying when she was speaking. "Acacia, listen to me, I don't know you. My name is not Jayla. We have never met before. I have never been to this summer camp. Alright? We can be friends if you'd like?" she started running back to the lunch tables, bawling her eyes out.

I was weirded out that she thought I was someone I am not. This kept going on for the whole of summer camp. Acacia never realized that I was not Jayla. Once summer camp was over, I thought I would never see her again. But once again, I was wrong. Whenever I went to a park, whether or not it was local, I would always see her. She would follow me everywhere I went. I could not get rid of her. Until one day, about four years after summer camp, I stopped seeing her everywhere I went. I wonder if something happened to her. But that was the most awkward and embarrassing encounter I've ever had come across. That's why I remember it so vividly after all these years.

This next story happens a lot. It is more of an awkward feeling every time this happens and secondhand embarrassment for the person who says it to me. So as from the last embarrassing story, I mentioned that I have a twin sister. We are identical twins. Keep that in mind. Identical twins mean we look the same. I think you already know where this is going. When we were in third grade, our third-grade teacher told us to switch classes to see if anyone would notice. News flash, no one noticed. Until my sister gave it away.

In third grade, my sister and I were in separate classes. My sister’s teacher asked us to trade classes because she thought it would be entertaining. One significant detail is my sister's teacher did not tell my teacher that we were switching classes. But as soon as we switched classes, it was so unusual. I did not know where my sister sat. I finally found her seat. Then I realized she was doing completely different things in her class. So I decided to make a decision. I could either try understanding what was happening or stare out the window. Not unexpectedly, I chose to stare out the window. Even though there were curtains, I still looked out the window.

Luckily, my sister’s teacher was kind enough to not call on me. But the girl who sat next to my sister. I will be calling her Alicia for privacy reasons. Next to my sister and the girl next to Alicia both kept asking me a bunch of questions. Most were about what was going on in class. I did not know how to tell them I had no idea what was going on, so I just continued to stare out the window. At the time, my sister's class was way ahead of my class. They were so far ahead; I was puzzled.

Nothing else happened. I thought I was going to spend the whole day in her class. But what gave it away is when my sister came in to get her pencil when she was in my class. It did not dawn on her to ask for a pencil from the teacher. So she came into her teacher's classroom and said she forgot her pencil. Everyone was confused about what was happening. My teacher came in and talked to my sister's teacher, and they were laughing. My teacher said, "Oh, I thought she (me) was sick over the summer. So I assumed that is why she was not paying attention.”

My mom will always call me by my sister's name and call my sisters by my name. Sometimes I even get called my dog's name! I look so similar to my dog. Anyway, about two months ago my friend will call her Jessica for privacy reasons. But Jessica messaged me on Snapchat and said, “oh my gosh, do you have a TikTok? Why didn't you tell me?” I said, “oh yeah I have a TikTok! You should go follow it.” But something inside me said she was not on my TikTok. I asked her, “Oh by the way, what is the name of the TikTok channel?” Of course, she sent me my twin sisters, TikTok. I told her, “that is not me, that is my twin sister.” She did not believe me. Even though in the description her Discord and YouTube channel were there and not mine. But Jessica did not realize that until about fifteen minutes later.

I kept telling her it was my twin sister. She said, “But it looks exactly like you.” I told her, “well we are identical twins.” We went back and forth until she finally said, “What’s your Tik Tok?” I sent her my Tik Tok name and, she said, “oh I'm so sorry.” I told her, “you did not realize that until fifteen minutes later, that is depressing. But it is fine.” This happens a lot more than you’d probably expect. Another example is with my boyfriend. He and I will be on FaceTime and my sister will always come into my room to talk to me. This one time I came back from washing my face because we were going to go to sleep soon. But he said, “wait are you, Sadie.” I am going to call her Sadie for privacy reasons. I said, “no I'm not Sadie, that is my sister's name.” He knew right away that he messed up. He said, “Oh okay, I am sorry I did not mean to get you two confused. I just wanted to make sure that it was you and not your sister.” I said, “okay that's fine.”

This has also happened in school a lot. Recently, I have gone to school in person instead of online. So my sister and I sit together in the back of the class. During History class, my History teacher kept saying that I was my sister and my sister with me. One moment was when she said my sister and a few other students were supposed to do a definition of a word. After everyone had arrived in class and guessed what they thought the answer was. She said, “Briar tricked everyone with her definition of the word,” Briar is my name, by the way. I just looked at her, and I told her, “I didn't write the definition, my sister did.” My teacher just looked so defeated and said, “Oh my gosh, I'm so sorry.”

It just happens so much. I am used to it at this point. It is more embarrassing on their part. They cannot even tell us apart. But it is a little troubling and unsettling that the people I have been friends with for years can't get my name right.

My last embarrassing story takes place at a boarding school. Over the summer, when I was twelve years old, I went to a boarding school. The boarding school was about three thousand miles away from my house. I went there for two weeks, and I met such amazing people. When you meet amazing people, it also comes with embarrassing moments. Before I began telling these embarrassing moments, I just wanted to state that almost everyone at the boarding school took regular classes. But my mom signed me up for Science, which was all day, every day, for two weeks.

This story does not begin at boarding school. It starts at the airport when we are on our way to boarding school. My sister and I have never been on a plane. So this was technically our first time seeing airplanes up close and riding an airplane. My sister and I were just in absolute shock about the airplanes. We do not get out much, and it shows. We were staring at the airplanes going by saying, “whoa.” I could tell my mom was embarrassed because she saw people looking at us.

Anyway, when we were boarding the airplane, they were offering first-class tickets for a low price. We had to decide to either see Hamilton or get the first-class tickets. Of course, my sister and I chose to get first-class because this was technically our first time. My mom paid for the fight, and we were among the first people to board the airplane. Then once we took off, they gave us our food. They also gave us these Tablets, and we watched movies on them. Although the headphones kept breaking, you know what it was fine. When we were in the middle of our fight, we were eating dinner. We ate steak and mashed potatoes with a drink of our choice. I got a cranberry soda. I kept drinking it all because they kept pouring me a tiny glass. So the flight attendant that was serving all the first-class passengers kept coming up to me and refilling my cranberry soda. It got embarrassing because he came around about fifteen to twenty-five times. Also, drinking that many glasses of cranberry soda in such a short amount of time is not a good idea. I figured that out the hard way.

I figured that out the hard way because I kept using the bathroom throughout the flight. It was also embarrassing getting up to use the bathroom every five seconds. But when we finally got there, we spent a week in New York. Although the boarding school we were going to was in Connecticut. It was a very new experience for my sister and me because we do not get out much. So that was interesting seeing New York. It was interesting to see all the skyscrapers and buildings in person. My mom was also embarrassed because my sister and I were looking at random buildings while we walked up and down the street. My mom's friend told her about this “amazing hotel,” so we went to that “amazing hotel.”

News Flash the hotel was not too great. It was one of the worst hotels I've ever been to. In our first room in that hotel, there was one bed and a TV. The TV broke in the middle of the night. It would not turn off. So we got moved to another room where there was one king-size bed and bunk beds. The TV broke again in the middle of the night because it wouldn't turn off. So my mom and my sister just pulled it out of the wall completely. We finally went to sleep after all of that. For starters, let me say that this hotel was atrocious. Everything in there looked like it would be so advanced, but of course, it was not like that at all. But surprisingly, there were lots of people in that hotel.

We took a taxi to the train station. The driver was going a hundred fifty miles per hour (not a joke, by the way). The taxi driver also did not speak English well. But finally, my sister and I arrived at boarding school. We did not know anyone there. Everyone seemed like they already knew each other. There were three different programs there, including us. There was the five-week program, the two-week program, and the ballet program.

My sister and I went over to sit with the girls who did ballet as we ate brunch. Once we were done eating brunch, we found out where we were going. Our mom dropped us off, and we already put our stuff down. There were three people and when we first went there. No one was talking. Then my mom said, “I love you guys, and I will miss you so much!” Then she left, just like that. It was embarrassing if you ask me.

But we said farewell to our mom, and after a while, everyone went around and introduced themselves. On the first day of class, we got our notebooks. We learned biochem and other kinds of science. No one spoke to each other during the first day. But we all ended up eating lunch together. We all ended up spending so much time together and bonding, it was so beautiful.

Everything was great. Until day three, when we were having breakfast, and I went to grab some cereal. This boy comes up to me with a red backpack and says to me, “damn Californians, always pouring the milk or the cereal.” I chuckled, then left. It was a funny joke, but then as soon as I got back to my table. I questioned how he knew where I was from just because I poured the milk before the cereal. That was a little embarrassing and very puzzling. Besides, all the embarrassing moments that happened before boarding school, during boarding school, and after boarding school, it was all around an amazing experience. We made bread, though. We made it with different ingredients like one had no eggs, one had salt instead of sugar, one was just a bread loaf. We cook them with the groups we were assigned. The people from the other session came in and tried our bread we made. We watched as they tasted the loaf of bread with a very disgusted face. They were unaware that it was a science experiment. But everyone still had a lot of fun, and it was extraordinary.

We would play sports every day. Almost every single day, about three kids ended up in the infirmary because this soccer was intense. This boy with red shoes would always trip people with his untied shoelaces. Until one day, he tripped himself on his shoelace. I could tell he was embarrassed because he was doing it to many people, but then karma hit him right in the face. It was depressing to watch.

My mother’s flight got delayed when she was coming to pick us up. But I’m glad we made wonderful lifelong friends there. As soon as my mom came to pick us up, we went to Washington DC and went to a museum with my mom's old friend. It was sweet and informative. After that we went back home, we didn't take the first-class back because we only had enough money to take first-class one-way. We got Starbucks before we got on the plane, and I did not eat my Starbucks because I did not know where the bathroom was. So I just did not eat my Starbucks and just left it there. But I ate it when we got off the plane. I got a toasted bagel. Sadly my bagel was no longer toasted at the end of the flight. But it was still a great experience. That I would attend again if I had to, or I would do it by choice.

*Note: I’d like to apologize for any words spelled incorrectly or any grammar issues. When I saw this challenge, I was so excited, but then I realized there was only a couple of days left. So I started rushing to finish the most embarrassing moments in my life. I wanted to add one more embarrassing moment, but it was way too long to add. I just went with these. I did the first story all day during school. I did the last two stories at home when I was doing several homework assignments. So o - o whoever reads this, I hoped you enjoyed it! I hope you have a wonderful afternoon, night, or day. Bu bye!*