Color me red. I try not to go through life making a complete ass out of myself. Still manages to happen, quite often. Open mouth. Insert foot. Goal achieved.
I’ve had several moments of complete and total mortification in my life. Once I complimented a long lost friend on being preggers. Turns out she was just fat. (Sorry, Cathy.) That was the first, last and only time that will happen.
But the single most embarrassing moment happened back when I was doing a weathercast in college. It was on the cheesy little college station at the University of Iowa. Yes, the station watched by dozens of people. I had absolutely no idea what I was doing, but knew I was destined to be on TV. I had a shiny new suit that was so reflective it looked like I had an aura about me. And I had perfect blonde skater-boy bangs that cascaded over one of my eyes just so.
Of course, the lead story was about the weather because it was unusually foggy that evening. Flights in and out of Cedar Rapids were delayed because visibility was shot to hell. The anchors threw to me right away to babble on about moisture, precipitation and dew point. During my opening salvos, I was trying to be colloquial. I turned to the camera and said, “Folks, the fog out there is as thick as seapoop!” Of course, I meant to say the trite and cliché-d phrase “pea soup”.
I immediately got the giggles. “Did I just say ‘seapoop’? Because I meant to say pea soup. Heh. Heh-heh. Seapoop!” After a good fifteen seconds of hysterics, I could not continue and threw back to the anchors. One of them was slumped over the desk convulsing in laughter. The other was trying to salvage what little dignity he had left. He tried to do a little Q&A with me. By this point, I was crying I was laughing so hard and told the audience (both of them), “Folks, we’ll pull it together and be right back after these messages.”
Because the director was not at all prepared to go to a commercial break, he did what any good director would do. He panicked and rolled an emergency tape filled with public service announcements. First up? The infamous egg cracking spot “this is your brain … and this is your brain on drugs” PSA.
Last I heard, my blooper (and subsequent PSA) was still being shown to incoming freshman touring the Communication Building at U of I. I’m so proud and just a teensy chagrined.
I was seven months pregnant with Emma, with a broken foot, still doing clinical psychotherapy in a private office. One of my teenage clients revealed a potentially physically dangerous home situation, which required me to call into the office, her father, whom I’d never met. It was serious, and the next step was calling protective services. It was a tense day. The secretary notified me that the father was in the waiting room. I heaved myself up, crutched up to the waiting room door. Opened it, called his name, released the crutch to extend my hand, and I said “Hello. I’m Jewish”.
True story.
Was talking with some friends of mine in college–casual discussion on a Saturday night, deduce what you will. We were talking about a particularly bright friend of ours..and to emphasize just how smart this person was I said “yeah..I think she belongs to that group for really smart people..you know…Menses?”
Darling. I can go on, all day….