I kind of got caught short on the way home and had to potty in the woods

Nothing to be ashamed of. In my outdoorsy circle of friends, that's just called 'using the facilitrees'.

When I was about 12, I stole something from a souvenir shop--some kind of magic trick contraption I think--at Astroworld and got busted for it. They threw me out of the park and called my mom (or who they thought was my mom, I gave them my dad's office number which just rang with no answer, heh heh heh).

Since I was a season pass holder, I took the tram ride around the parking lot and then re-entered the park and stayed til closing time.

I used to, uh... pilfer, yeah - that's what we'll call it - pilfer uh... let's just say - stuff from my Dad when I lived at home.

I stole a plastic teacup from my church when I was little. I was missing one of my teacups, and the church had the same set, though not a full set. So I figured, they won't miss it. And I took it.

I lent a bag of fundraiser candy (bars of candy we had to sell to our friends to raise money for a school trip) to my friend, who then "lost it." I stole $20 from my mom's purse to pay for the bag, because I didn't want anyone to know that I gave away a freaking bag of candy and expected to get it back.

I shot a man in Reno, just to make this comment.

My last job was at a consulting business located in my boss's home. When he wasn't around I'd eat the candy he bought for his kids.

I never picked up my birth mom's ashes from the funeral parlor. Ironically, while I was signing papers for the cremation, the director told me about all the urns of unclaimed ashes on shelves in their basement. I wonder if she's still there.

That'll be me someday.

I used to get bored in high school, and put on my army jacket, grab the ol' black 12 speed and ride around to the local Mac's Milks and shoplift stuff to kill time. Cigarettes mainly.

I wish I could think of something more interesting. I have never kissed a man either. Sometimes it seems like I am the only guy I know who hasn't ever "experimented" at all.

(pips - eerie comment chickie...eerie.)

This is like listening to people doing their Fifth Step.

I didn't graduate with the rest of my high school class because I'd failed gym ... for the third year in a row. I got my diploma after I'd spent my summer walking around a track collecting popsicle sticks.

The next fall, I joined my college crew team and made varsity.

Once in a cleaning and organizing rage I regretfully threw away a drumstick my husband caught at a Mötley Crüe concert. When he asks about it, I shrug my shoulders.

For brina:

≡ Click to see image ≡

Wow, Pips. They didn't give me that many popsicle sticks. Also, I had to return them all the end of each class.

Finally, an insensitive question which it's possible no one will be able to answer: Why were most of my gym teachers obese?

OMG! PIPS! After my biological father died, he was cremated. I told the lawyer who was mediating, A. I am not splitting Dad's ashes with my alleged half-brother. The question of the urn came up, and the funeral director was trying to make nothing more than an easy buck, so I told the lawyer, B. tell him I don't care what you put him in, "you could put him in an empty peanut butter jar or a ziploc baggie (No Shit) for all I care", but I am not splitting the ashes in half. The package finally arrived from the lawyer - YEARS AGO, My dad is still sitting in the unopened box he was mailed to me in, in the back of my closet on the top shelf, and I had nearly forgotten all about him until I read your post. I feel bad, but WTF am I supposed to with him? I don't want to display him in my frigging living room. I wonder if the ashes are actually in a frigging peanut butter jar!?

I was bullied relentlessly by one guy at secondary school. Name calling, beating the crap out of me, you name it. During our 3rd year his sister died of an asthma attack and he was away for a while. About a year later, he was in the middle of a particularly vicious punching session and I shouted "I hope your sister rots in hell". The look on my face made me realise I'd hurt him far more than he'd ever hurt me.

I still feel ashamed to the bottom of my soul that I ever said that. Just typing it feels like acid swilling around in my stomach.

Ah, the joys of an English private school...

His face, not my face, obviously.

I am a lover, not a fighter. I learned this when I was in the first grade when us kids were playing a game and I was on the team with all the girls (why was I successful with girls when I was 6, and not during my sexually active years?), and this one kid kept teasing me about being on the team with the girls. I told him to shut up, and of course, being 6, he wouldn't, so I blasted him in the face with my fist and knocked him on his ass with a bloody nose. I remember the principle (Mr. Wallace, though us kids referred to him as Mr WaffelWhipper. You kids my age would know what I am talking about), and he asked why I did it. Of course I told him the kid deserved it. I don't remember what was said after that, or what my parents said, but it must have sunk in, and I've never been in a fight since.

goml: how about this?

Kindred spirits, goml. Kindred spirits. Least you claimed him, though.

(One of my favorite scenes from Big Lebowski is when they put Donny in the Folger's can... Course, my mom would've prefered Maxwell House.)

Very nice idea/sentiment but way too expensive for someone who was the world's biggest asshat.

Your dad and my mom should have a drink, goml.

It's easier to miss them when they're gone.

I gleefully pee in the woods and happily admit it. Secrets wouldn't be secrets if you told people about them, that's just me though.

Actually, both of my parents and my sister have passed on already (I still have my step-father though).

Someone actually had the nerve once to ask me why I was wishing strangers happy birthday and then proceed to pass judgement on me for it by telling me I "weird" for doing it without even getting an answer or an explanation for it from me.

Reason: After I lost my family and found myself alone in the world, I realized that there are other people out there in the same boat and I didn't want anyone to feel left out, overlooked or ignored like I felt so I was making sure everyone got a birthday wish because I never paid any attention to special days when my family was alive and I was trying to honor their memories and make people feel good. So sue me for trying to make sure no one ever felt as left out or alone as I often do.

In 5th grade, I got into this huge feud with this other girl. It was almost entirely my fault, but every time she confronted me, I'd start crying so she'd leave me alone. She even came over to my house with her posse and threated to beat me up. When I wouldn't come to the door, she threatened to beat my dad up (that made him laugh).

Anyway, there's a bunch of shit like that from my childhood that I'm not proud of. I was a little witch when I was young.

A guy I hated at work was promoted to division head, as part of a restructuring that involved laying off a bunch of us, and he started the layoffs 15 minutes after the memos announcing his elevation were distributed. I figured I was on the lay off list (I was, I found out later), so I sauntered up to his office, barged in without an appointment, between one guy he'd canned who was leaving, and another waiting to go in, and quit. I told him I sympathized with him, being given the division under such tough circumstances, and said I hoped the situation wouldn't overwhelm him. He was so livid, he could barely ask me to leave his office. I cleared the building in 5 minutes flat.

Then, I got in my car, drove across town to our biggest competitor, and called a couple of my counterparts from their lobby, with a lunch invitation. They couldn't resist, and I, not having signed any exit agreement, or taken any severance package, promptly spilled the beans about the goings on across town, and I happily answered their questions until about 4 that afternoon. (They bought lunch another 8 or 9 times over the next 3 or 4 months, and I really enjoyed getting to know those guys, and I never would have, otherwise.)

By the time I got home, (this was in the days before cell phones), there were 5 messages from HR asking me to stop by to process my exit benefit package. I didn't. I didn't even return the calls. I'm sure he knew I was talking to his competition, but he never had the balls to take it up with me, or pursue legal action, and I was just circumspect enough with particulars in my discussions that he'd have played hell trying to nail me.

Mr. Big watched his revenue shrink 40+% in the 7 months he was at the helm, before he was replaced. He was quoted in the trade press 3 weeks before he was canned saying that competition had never been more intense.

You're a kind-hearted person, goml. Pay no mind to the nay-sayers. We live to be misunderstood.

It is different after your parents die, isn't it? It's like the ocean's in your ears all the time. Soon as it's quiet, you notice.

I miss my mother.

(good for you, paulsc!)

I was playing bridge with Omar once. I had what I thought was a good hand, but Omar bid five diamonds! Naturally, I laughed in his face.

You know what? That sucker won the hand, and the rubber.

So ... I shot the Sharif.

Never bet the rubber, rob511.

When I was a kid, I used to steal money from my mom's purse so I could buy books at school through the Scholastic book order program. I was a wicked bookworm, and like to think I still am, although it's harder now to find the time to settle in with a good read.

In spite of my surface "disinterest", I wish my father would just die.

Thanks pips. This thread has really got me thinking about what other shitty baggage I carry around.

Guilt is like a bag of fuckin' bricks. All ya gotta do is set it down. -Pacino in the Devil's Advocate

paulsc: you're my hero dude, that took some big brass ones. There have been a couple places I'd have loved to wreak that form of corporate havoc on.

The only secrets I'll admit to are that auntbunny's Numbers 1 and 3 also apply to me.

Okay, one of my own: Much of my career has been involved in making things that destroy other things, which didn't used to bother me, but kind of does now. The secret part is, I'd like to change to something else, but I'm too lazy.

In 8th grade there was a boy who really, really, really liked me. He would follow me around, he always managed to be at my locker when I was there, he always offered me his milk at lunch. And it really made me nervous. At the time I thought it was just kinda weird and I didn't like how he made me feel, like I was always being watched so one day, while he was standing by my desk before math class, drawing a picture of this image he was going to paint on his skateboard (all while saying, "it will be better for real, this is just rough, don't laugh at it, okay") I decided I had enough, so when one of the "cool" girls walked by and said "So is your boyfriend drawing you a picture?" I replied with "He's not my boyfriend! Have you smelled him?"

I instantly felt guilty when I saw the look on his face and knew that I could never explain it away or take it back. He muttered something and then ran to the back of the class and then never talked to me again. A couple of years later I realized that he made me nervous because I liked him, too and that was really, really scary. And then, THEN! Then I felt really bad. And still do.

And writing this I realize that it is easier to remember the details of guilt and anger related events than it is happiness related events. Big happy, not included, of course, but just inconsequential contentedness stuff.

Ooh. And I just read paulsc's thing. You are my hero also.

So sue me for trying to make sure no one ever felt as left out or alone as I often do.

((((goml))))

I probably left close to $10K on the table, so it was technically a Pyrrhic victory of the first water, but I've never regretted it. Just the look on the S.O.B.'s face when I was telling him how sorry I was for him, taking the big corner office under those conditions, was worth every freakin' penny.

Still is.

And I never lacked for inside news about that company for the next 10 years...

I was at a job I hated with a sociopath for a boss, I stuck around just long enough to get sent to a big tech conference on the company's dime, spent the whole time networking, then quit a week later with a year's worth of consulting work I had lined up. Also took the only two other competent programmers with me. The whole company was a scam and our work was going to nothing, so there's no feelings of guilt whatsoever.

Secrets wouldn't be secrets if you told people about them, that's just me though

It is no secret that I love the wino from afar.

Here's one, fresh off the hangover shame train from last night.
So, Mr. Cute Older Punk Guy I've Been Eying For Months decides to spend all night chatting with little ol' me down at the club, buying me drinks, flirting, and generally telling me how awesome I am.

And.... hm... at about, oh, quarter after four he says "you make me wish I wasn't married."

Insert sound of Kelly's head exploding.

But yeah, that's not the bad part.
The bad part's when he drove me home, kissed me, and I cemented my place in hell by asking "so, um, when you say married, how married do you mean?" (hey, technically I was "married" long after the actual marriage ended, so at the time it seemed a valid question).

But... I think I redeemed myself. When he said they were having major problems but still living together I said "I had a great night, see you next weekend" and went inside.

Years ago, I had a best friend who was a guy. We were close from first or second grade, I think. For my 11th birthday, he gave me my first "adult" album. Around seventh grade, I knew he liked me, but as Cinnamon said, it made me nervous. He moved away, but we met up again in high school. I rode my bike to his house one day (school holiday). To make a long story short, we ended up naked in his bed..and very quickly, he...exploded. ( We did not have sex, I was not ready for that). Suddenly I was on my way home, and he never talked to me again for the rest of high school. I was knowledgeable enough to not be grossed out or anything, and I didn't hold it against him, but he wanted nothing more to do with me. And that hurt.

Just to be clear..we ended up sending e-mails around the time of our 20th reunion, and he did apologize for his behavior. So he's not a total jerk.