When I saw this prompt, I was zipped through an array of embarrassing moments that have made up my life, I mean, I have embarrassing moments at least once a week. I am surprised that there isn't that guy from Happy Gilmore popping up behind me going "Ya Jackass" every now and again.
With age, I think that I've just become accustomed to it and tend to now embrace my stupidity as and when it happens, laughing at myself even louder than most. Laughter heals almost everything I've learned and being a dumbass is no exception, so it's totally worth it.
While sifting through some dumb things I've done, a few of the lesser evils came to mind which I think are mostly safe for public consumption. Of course, these are from my school days where I learned really useless things like algebra and calculus ๐ Luckily most of my schooling years took place before everything was up for public consumption. We had film cameras and stupid moments thankfully did not make the cut for what people were prepared to spend money on having developed. So there are no photos or videos of my dambassery.
My sister was a few years ahead of me in school and part of the debate team. It makes sense really. Our parents were ๐๐๐๐ ๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐๐ at arguing. I blame them. Anyway, as a family we would go to her debate evenings where her team would ruthlessly try to cut down the opposing team's argument. Back in the days when arguments were based on facts, not feelings. You know, the good old days.
This particular evening the debate was something to do with the industrial revolution, the rise of technology and that revolution and whether it was good or bad for society or something closely resembling that. Take note that this feels like it was a hundred years ago to me now and it doesn't really matter in terms of what transpired.
I suppose back then I looked up to my sister. She was praised highly for all of her excellence in academia and of course I was told often "why can't you be more like your sister?" Typical boomer parents lol.
The teams went at it back and forth for a good hour and then some, before it was opened up to points from the audience where they had the opportunity to put across their own perspectives and get involved too.
I was maybe like 11 at the time so my little brain concocted some great (in my opinion) argument and I launched into this fantastic tirade of why society is worse off now (then) than previously and I explained that while the industrial revolution was good in some instances, that things weren't being made the same way they used to. That things were essentially being made "to break" and that we were becoming a "throw away" society where people were more inclined to buy a new car when things went wrong than to fix their previous one, where houses were built to crumble, where technology was heading us into a vast dystopia where people would be all consumed by the next best fad and blah blah blah I went on for a few minutes backing up my ideas with my (rather small) real world experience.
Clearly some people thought this was great because when I closed my argument I was applauded by the entire audience which drowned out any chance of a rebuttle by the team that I had been directing it to.
I felt quite cool at that moment. You know, people were clapping and shit. This never happened to me. It felt rather nice, a real "a-ha" moment.
A smile widened on my face and I looked around at everyone applauding me and I lapped it up.
And then it happened.
As I scanned across these people, my loving audience, my smile quickly receded and my pallor probably changed from rosy cheeked to a slight shade of green as I slunk deeper and deeper into my chair, as if I wanted to become a part of the inanimate object itself.
The pair of eyes that were locked onto me, were filled with an intense rage that was palpable and I realised that I had just signed my own warrant of execution.
My sister's death stare could probably be felt around the room, but not nearly as much as the onslaught of hatred that I felt later, once we were back home.
That was the last debate where I lifted my hand or opened my mouth. Funny that - it was one of my most embarrassing moments, not because I had said something stupid at all, but because I had outstaged the star of the show.
There was also this one time at band camp... ๐คฃ nah, just kidding, just couldn't resist throwing in a funny.