I was taking a long drive with a few friends. We stopped at a gas station for drinks and bathroom. While we were getting back into the car my friend and I were rough housing. A girl behind us said, "You guys are gonna die!" This girl had just told us the day before that her mother had died through tragic circumstances. My friend replied quickly with an age old joke. "Your mom's gonna die!" I didn't see his face. I wish I had. Instead, I tried to top him. I said, "Yeah! She's already dead, and rigor mortis is setting in!" Immediately I remembered about her mom and saw my friend's face. He was terrified. I looked away from her as fast as possible, put my headphones on and avoided eye contact with her for the rest of the trip. I felt like a monster, and I still don't like thinking about it.
David - TN
Long, long ago, some time in elementary school, I was walking home from school with my friend Rachel Smith and her older brothers. It was back in the day when it was popular to trick people by pointing at something and then immediately saying "made you look!" after they looked to see what you were pointing at. That day, I decided to impress everyone with my wit and charm by pulling this clever trick on them. I decided that I was going to point at the next car that drove by us and say "Hey, that's Bob Jones!" (a man who went to our church and was a close friend to the Smith family). As soon as the next car drove by I mistakenly yelled out "Hey, that's Bob Smith! Made you look!" No one was laughing, and then my heart sank. I realized that not only had I said the wrong name, I said the name of their dad who had passed away just the year before!
Emily - Los Angeles, CA
Walking into a executive building at 17 years old, only for the purpose of wandering the halls to look for the office that does the free pregnancy tests is awkward enough in itself. After finding the office and meeting with the nice counselor, I was sent to the ladies room to get a "sample." Since the ladies room was downstairs I had to go back out of the office, into the hallway and then down the large spiral staircase which was located in the center of the building, the one that everyone used. Carrying my clear plastic cup was easier to conceal than it would be coming back up. Exiting the restroom, starting back up the stairs, there was no hiding the see-through 6 oz. cup of liquid which loudly indicated dehydration. It was at least 3/4 full. The worst part came about 15 seconds later and I am pretty sure it happened in slow motion. That's how I remember it anyway. As I began to lose balance, I panicked at the thought of spilling some of the contents. In trying to balance the cup, I lost further control of not only myself but also the cup which flew into the air and eventually landed. I am sure the counselor thought that I must have left since it took me several trips to the bathroom, realizing that I still needed more brown paper towels. Avoiding eye contact with anyone, I finished cleaning and carried my empty cup back into the office. After explaining to her what happened, she took the empty cup from me, looked inside it and responded cheerfully, "Oh this will be enough. We only need a drop."
Cally - Texas
This story is when I was about 12 years old and in the 6th grade.
One night I had spent the night at my friends house.I had a crush on her brother so it makes this story even more traumatic. When we woke up in morning I had to pee VERY bad. This family only had one bathroom and it was occupied. I tried to hold it but could not and peed my pants. I was in their CARPETED dining room. To make matters worse as soon as it happened their little bitty dog came over and started to lick my leg. I had to ride my bike home with pee all over me.
Junior High is AWESOME.
Vania - TX
When I was about eight or nine I went to a birthday party at a friends house, we did all the birthday stuff and then her mum announced it was movie time, we all piled into the lounge room and she put on Home Alone, I'd watched it already with my parents and we all had a great laugh at it(it was a really funny movie at the time!) so we all sit watching the movie and her mum is in the room watching it with us(while she's doing her ironing?!) the bit comes to when Macauley has rigged up all the traps and the criminals are getting slapped all over the place, so I start laughing at the guy who has an iron fall on his face(it's a comedy!!) and suddenly my friends mum goes crazy, she starts shouting at me..'Do you think that's funny? Do you?? DO YOU!???! You think someone getting an iron smashed in their face is funny?? What sort of a child are you, I don't know how your parents raised you but laughing at something like that, it's disgusting, I can't believe it'...all the other kids are staring at me like I'm the devil, I feel like him as my face is so hot and red from embarassment and THEN we all have to continue watching the movie in silence, she doesn't turn it off or anything or express resentment at the movie makers...just me. DEVIL CHILD! O_o
Tanya - Belfast
I was about 12 years old, a little chubby with chin length hair and the self-esteem of a twelve year old. I went with my mom to my younger sister's school track and field day. I was sitting on a blanket when my sister's friend and her mother walked over. The girl's mother smiled at me and asked loudly to my sister, "Oh Becca, is this your sister?" I don't think I said anything, and I certainly didn't smile. I got my hair cut off within a day or two.
micah the admin
It was third grade summer break and my family went on vacation to visit relatives and friends. We had dinner with some old friends of my parents from way back when. I didn't know them but because their daughter was my age it seemed appropriate to everybody else to send us both to her room for hours so the grownups could talk. It was a large house and a bit ritzy, and even though it was nighttime they didn't have the lights on in the halls or anything. For some reason the ritziness and the darkness made it all seem like a fancy haunted house to me. We played for a bit and then my new "friend" decides to watch a movie. She takes me to some room upstairs where the lights are all off and throws in a movie. I forget which. But as we're sitting together in the dark room a preview comes up for "Hocus Pocus" - a Disney film about the three witch sisters who say "Double, double, toil and trouble" and all that. My eight year old "friend" starts spontaneously SCREAMING. So I start screaming! I was thoroughly freaked out to be in a strange house in a dark room with a strange (and I also suspected spoiled) little girl next to me screaming. We frantically try to find the door in the black room, and as we get to the door knob our parents have already bolted up the stairs to save us from whatever it is that's making us yell like lunatics. The lights go on and my little friend recovers and then starts laughing. "She just started screaming for no reason, so I did too. She was probably afraid of the movie," she tells her parents. I was in tears from being so rattled and furious and I just couldn't get the words out to tell anyone that she was lying. I was humiliated.
Beth the Other Admin
When I think of Thanksgiving, I’m surprised that I still like to get together with people after some real awkward times. The “holiday season” should be filled with “holiday cheer”, but a number of times it wasn’t for me.
One time I was with my family for Thanksgiving. It hadn’t happened very often because I many times have had to travel the longest distance of my family to get together with them. This time one of our youngest had just received horrible news from someone at school: Santa Claus didn’t exist. The child cried and cried. Many of my family said that this other person was lying, was stupid, and were convincing her that Santa does exist. That was the Thanksgiving mood at the time I arrived.
Just before we served the meal, I was confronted with the question. “So, do you think that person was right in saying that Santa doesn’t exist?”
I asked back, “Well, does he exist or not? Is it better to say the truth about him or not?”
“What?! You’d allow someone to say something to destroy someone’s Christmas?! You’d allow someone to totally tear down a child’s hopes and dreams? You know how much she cried? You know how close we came to having her Christmas totally ruined?”
Oops. One person was so upset and angry that it upset and angered another. And because this second family member was upset and angry, it ticked off another, and then another. That’s right – it was a huge family domino effect.
So, I got to sit down to a Thanksgiving meal with just about everyone mad at me. Somehow the food just didn’t taste all that great that night.
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There was a time at Thanksgiving that I couldn’t be with my family. An elderly lady felt sorry for me and said I could travel to her place and share the Thanksgiving meal and time with her family. Unfortunately, she didn’t share with me about how her daughter felt, who was totally against my being there.
It seemed to be okay when I got there. I had a nice, peaceful chat with my friend. We went to church later on that evening. There I got to see her daughter, who ignored me when I saw her. I was surprised by that.
After my friend and I got back to her house, her daughter didn’t say hello to me, but was visibly upset. “Why are you here? ...
