We’ve all had our share of embarrassing moments. Whether they were minor mishaps or major blunders, no one can deny that they have accidentally and, potentially hilariously, committed a social faux pas. Societal standards for manners define what is and isn’t appropriate to commit. However, if one is able to laugh off an awkward situation, their crime against etiquette becomes a fond memory.

FORMAL FAUX PAS I had a crush on this guy since the first day I saw him. Finally I got the nerve to talk to him. We really hit it off and even kissed! We started texting and I thought we were even “talking”. One day I brought up formal since he didn’t know what it was. he said he had someone in mind! Thinking it was me I was thrilled. Two days later I found out he had asked a different girl to formal… There goes my luck.

CRACKED! So all of my friends joke about my voice cracks and call me a “pubescent boy” because it happens so frequently. In 9th grade I was in charge of reading the announcements almost daily. It was inevitable, really. But one day I had one of the worst voice cracks ever while I was reading the announcements and it got projected over the entire school. We couldn’t stop laughing but yeah, that was a low point in my life.

THAT GUY I was on the phone with one of my friends and her friend took the phone from her and was talking to me for a little bit, and even though she’d told me a lot about him, it took me a while to figure out who he was, then when she came back on the phone I said–apparently REALLY loudly too–“Oh that’s the guy who got his girlfriend pregnant but it ended up not being his baby, right?” and then she told me that he had definitely heard me!

OH BROTHER My family and I went to Schlitterbahn. My brother and I went down the Raging Rapids slide and halfway down we flip our inner tube. Well my brother thankfully has a life jacket on because he isn’t tall enough or strong enough to stand up and walk in the current. So I grab him but as I do that I realize my swimming suit bottoms had dropped to nearly my knees. I was standing close enough to the bottom and the top of the slide that everyone could see me, standing butt naked!! AHH! Well I couldn’t pull them up because my brother would have been washed away! So eventually I let my brother float the rest of the way down the slide and I pulled up my pants and basically hid from everyone the rest of the day!

OCCUPADO At a cross country meet at Rim Rock last year, I was using the porta potty before my race. Apparently I hadn’t shut the door completely, so a girl from another team opened the door, quickly realized I was in there and ran away screaming …

LOCKED OUT  Last summer I volunteered at the humane society in the vet clinic. There was this really cute guy that worked in the cat room whom I had a crush on. One day he was out in the hallway doing something and I was heading outside. I turned the knob but the door wouldn’t open. After several attempts of throwing my hip against the door, I realized I hadn’t unlocked the door. Not only did I feel like an idiot, the cute guy had seen the whole thing!

FAVORITE SONG So I was at some banquet thing for my dad in Chicago (he was presenting some sort of science award) and it was a family thing so there were people everywhere. There was this really cute guy, I mean he was a model, and we started talking and I was surprised by all that we had in common. Later we started talking about music and he asked me if I liked this band (which I later found out was some really bad metal/scene band). Me being me, I said “Yeah totally love them”, even though I had no clue who this band was. He proceeded to ask me what my favorite song was, and yeah basically I had to fess up. And yeah, I’m an idiot.

WINGLESS WIN The summer before second grade, I was at a KU Sports Camp, joking around in the locker room with my camp friends. We were changing for swimming, and I had the uncharacteristic idea that it would be hilarious if I held my towel out like a pair of wings and announced that I was Batman. I did so, but underneath my towel, I was completely naked. After I flashed everybody, I realized that my joke wasn’t as funny as I thought it was.

GONE SWIMMING While I was at a swim meet I was walking on the pool deck about to go warm up. I was getting in my race mind set so when my coach called my name it scared me so much the I screamed, slipped on a puddle and went sliding on the pool deck and ran into a really cute guy who was fully clothed and resulting in him falling in the pool. When he got out of the pool he helped me up and laughed it off but I was as red as a tomato.

HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME While having a pleasant birthday dinner at Applebee’s this past year with a group of my friends, one of my friends slipped a comment to the server saying it was my birthday. My friend wasn’t very discreet about telling the server this information, so I was completely aware of my impending doom. Thankfully the server didn’t gather his fellow employees to serenade me in “Happy Birthday”. Instead, the server just brought me a Chocolate Mousse Dessert Shooter and said “Happy Birthday”. Caught up in my embarrassment of being the center of attention, I mistakenly said, “You too!” to the server. The server just smiled and let out a small chuckle, while I was contemplating stabbing myself in eye with a fork.

NO LOVE After formal one year, I was dropping off my date at his house. Trying to be appreciative of the night, I leaned over to give my date a hug. However, he left the car, not noticing my attempt at an embrace, which essentially led to me falling out of the car, without a hug. It didn’t help that my four best friends and their dates were watching the whole situation.

WATCH OUT: TEENAGE GIRLS ON THE LOOSE I was driving home one day when I arrived at the intersection to turn right. But there was a pedestrian (middle school girl) who I thought was going to continue straight across the intersection, so I waved her on, but she turned right on the sidewalk. So I thought, “ok whatever” and turned right as well. I live on the first house on the right so I turned into the driveway, and pulled into my garage. I look behind to see the girl running across my driveway looking at me super frightened like. Turns out when I waved her across the intersection she thought I was waving for her to get into the car with me and thought I was probably trying to kidnap her. Awkward. Lesson for today is don’t wave pedestrians on, just run them over.

KIDS THESE DAYS One day during cross-country conditioning I was running by an old folks home and I turned to the person I was running with and spouted out some brilliant social commentary that goes as follows: “It would not be fun to live in a retirement home because you would have to sit around all day with the television volume turned all the way up, eating crappy food, and hoping that your children and grandchildren go through the pain of visiting you.” Then I turned forward and saw that an elderly lady with a walker was only a few feet away from me on the sidewalk. I was never entirely sure if she heard me but she did give me a very dirty look.

“ALGEBRA, NOT ANATOMY” In eighth grade, I was in Algebra class with 26 of my classmates. My teacher held up a picture of some mathematical symbol and said, “Does anyone know what this is? It starts with the letter ‘s!'” I tried to be a smartass and yell out “SEPTUM!” which is the cartilage that separates your nostrils. Instead, what came out was, “SCROTUM!” My teacher laughed and shook her head no. The worst part was that I didn’t realize what I’d said until someone mentioned it two class periods later.

OFF TO THE RACES In 8th grade, I went out for track practice with my sweats on and when it was time to split off everyone had to take their sweats off. Well, I was taking my sweats off while facing the boys, and I pulled my pants down and realized that I forgot shorts, so I was standing there in my underwear.