OK, long-ish story here, which I'll try to keep short.

I was in a bar in a seedy part of east London one Sunday afternoon in the days before all-day opening in the UK and the barman was trying to close up and clear the place. He said he needed to go soon because he had a table booked for lunch. I asked him where, he named the restaurant.

"You don't want to eat there, Frank, there was a horrible murder there a few years ago and they never found the bodies."

"Really?" he said.

"Yes", I went on (oblivious of the silence that had fallen over the remaining customers), "apparently these two men went in there, and never came out."

"Well, I never", said Frank.

"It was in all the papers, I'm surprised you didn't know about it, they reckon the two men were chopped into pieces and made into kebabs, they were never seen again, it was really gruesome" (etc., etc., I went on like this for a few minutes going into all the gory details.)

"I'll make sure I don't order a kebab then" said Frank, smiling as he walked off.

I looked around. The other drinkers were aghast.

"You stupid cow", one said "Frank's dad was tried for the murders at the Old Bailey and got away with it because they never found the bodies"

Being gay and in management sometimes will give you a warped notion of just how fluid gay and straight culture can mix. Once at a party thrown by one of the employees on my team, I burst out into song ... a gay version of "Head Over Heels" by the Go-Go's called "Heels Over Head".

I won't repeat the lyrics, but suffice it to say that I had VASTLY overestimated how much any of my team wanted to know about gay life.

--

When I was a kid in Houston, a friend and I were playing and crossing one of Houston's many bayous barefoot. There was a 2x4 that we used to cross that was just above the water. I stepped on a nail and it punctured my foot clean through. So my friend ran and got his mom who loaded me up in the stationwagon--2x4 and all--and took me back to their home, where she proceeded to pull the nail out of my foot.

I promptly projectile vomited all over her kitchen, including all over the Sunday goin' to church shoes which she had been polishing before coming to pick me up.

After the prom, I'm taking my girlfriend home. Her maniac religious parents haven't let her ride in a car alone with a boy before, and have given her special permission for tonight only. So naturally we decide to find a secluded roadside on which to make out before dropping her off.

Ok, we're ready to head home. I've got a snazzy sports car, so I decide to spin my tires in the gravel a little to show off. Uh oh. Looks like this secluded roadside is made of very soft gravel, and my car is now stuck in it. Girlfriend can't drive a stick shift, at all. She ends up having to get out and push, in soft, loose, ankle-deep gravel, in her nice prom shoes.

I'd have to go with getting pantsed at McDonald's while hungover and having forgotten to wear underwear.

essexjan, I bow to your far more embarrassing gaff, you win. Oops!

fenriq, we're like pants-at-mcdonalds brothers, or something! You win with the freeballin', though.

Pantsed! Dammit, why can't I spell that right today?

I've put a lot of time and effort in to supressing these painful memories in to nice manageable neuroses, and I'm not about to dig them out now.

Wow, essexjan, that puts any story I can think of to shame.

mike9322, were you so hungover it took you about thirty seconds to pull 'em back up? Because I was. Luckily, I was at the counter so only a few people got the "full tour", as it were.

And you know what, Pantsed! would be a cool name for a college thrash band.

My story.

I got really drunk and was kicked out of a dive bar in Venice Beach last year. Not a nice bar, a dive bar. Once in college I went on a mountain trip with the dorm government and on the way down I got carsick and threw up in a school van.

Essexjan, your story definitely is the best. I'm sorry to hear the language they used, though. That sucks.

What Capn said. I really can't separate embarassment from humiliation.

I have the usual litany of drunken embarrassing moments.

My favorite (and simplest) sober moment was when I had to pick up some cash at a cashpoint. I jumped out of my g/f's car, ran to the cash machine, got the money, ran back and jumped back in. To the wrong car. So, I'm sat in this car next to this huge pissed off hulk of a man, and on the other side of the road (where she'd turned around to) is my g/f leaning out of her car window, pissing herself with laughter.

Of course, I made my excuses and left.

Nothing I've done has been embarassing enough to stick with me. I've gotten good at shrugging things off. Maybe when I'm fifty (if I make it) I'll just suddenly feel terrible and maybe burst into tears. Should be fun to watch.

essexjan--What I want to know is: why was Frank was eating lunch at the restaurant where his father (allegedly) killed two people?

witchstone, it was an East End gangland haunt. I expect Frank's dad had (allegedly) done the owners a favour.