Last year I microwaved a cookie at work (just for a few seconds, I promise!) and billows of black smoke came out of the microwave. It was right after an all-staff meeting, so all of my coworkers witnessed it. I was deathly afraid I would set off the entire building's fire alarm, but, whew!, I didn't.

I decided I was going to take a picture of myself for my mefi profile, and over a couple of days took... gah, I don't know how many - lots of photos of myself all of which were utterly, utterly horrible, and which I really should have deleted immediately. But, you know me and my intimate relationship with procrastination, right? Can you figure out where this is going?

Yeah, well, then my husband used my camera to record a short bit of video of the dog to show some friends who wanted to see her, so downloaded the whole folder on the camera to a flash drive and plugged it in at the friends' place. ugh. ugh. ugh.

Not as bad as if it were sexysex pix or something, but still, pretty bad. Bad.

Once when I was in college, I drank too much Imodium medicine at the start of a train trip down to my hometown and eliminated all of my stomach acid for an entire weekend. I had horrible, uncontrollable chemically-redolent gas for the entire trip and couldn't hang with anyone.

When I was a senior in college my girlfriend and I played a recital of music we had composed together; her piano accompanied my violin, and during the second piece she started out of synch and we had to begin again. I nervously explained to the audience, which included her parents, what she had done -- putting her mistake out there for the whole audience to see -- and though she and her parents barely noticed that I had hung her out to dry like that (or more likely they were all too classy to rub in my gaffe), I was immediately mortified at my hasty words. It sounds minor, but it plagued me for a good decade until I got it off my chest a few years ago when she came to visit.

I think that one embarrassing instance did more to change my behavior and outlook on life (and, sadly, my judgment of others' behavior; I still have a lot of growing up to do) than any other single event. Thinking about it still makes me cringe.

I still physically cringe thinking about the first time I had dim sum, not knowing what dim sum was all about, and eating what I ordered like an entree instead of sharing like everyone else did. No one at the table -- all coworkers -- said anything. I can only hope in the intervening years the others have forgotten this (to me) colossal gaffe.

I still feel awful when I think about the time I was keeping my friend's mother company in the triage unit of a hospital. (My friend was still celebrating at her wedding, and somehow as one of the bridesmaids, I ended up accompanying the mother of the bride to the hospital - loooooooooonnnnnngggg story!). As I was helping her get comfortable, I pulled the most rookie move and accidentally yanked out her IV. It must have been painful, because she starts in with yells and explicatives, and there is fluid (blood? medicine?) GUSHING onto the floor. The nurse slips in it as she comes running to fix my mistake, and I just want to crawl through the fucking floor and curl up and die. I feel horrible about it to this day, and that happened three years ago. Ugh, now I feel crappy. I want to call this woman right now and apologize profusely for the thirtieth time.

msali, I did that. Except it was with my mother, who was dying of cancer at the time. And the IV was going into her spine. And she was dead a month later.

Talk about regret.

(note: This didn't actually contribute to her decline, I should say. But yeah. Yikes.)

Aw, shit mykescipark, that totally sucks. I am sorry for your loss. Gratefully, the woman whose IV I yanked out is alive and healthy, thank god.

Loiseau, your friends didn't clue you in - kinda jerk-y. Hadjiboy, you were barely conscious. Msali, you left the wedding to take care of her & you've apologized; you are hereby absolved. Taz, you were just trying to get a good photo. Myke, what can I say. etc., etc.

I refuse to share my embarrassing moments; I've apparently committed way more embarrassing acts than y'all.

I don't have embarrassing moments...that I talk about.

Well, OK, there was that one time. I was a little boy climbing in a tree when I got snagged on a rusty nail, you know, there. No, I'm not telling that one.

How about when my brothers and some other boys got in a rock fight across the busy road by our house? I, about eight at the time, decided to help out but the rock I selected was too big for me. It only made it 2/3 of the way across the road which was far enough to meet up with the windshield of the car going past.

No? Then there was when I borrowed my fiance's new car the week before our wedding and some moron backed into with a flatbed pickup, destroying the hatchback completely.

Anything worse than those I've blocked out completely.

Mum and I were visiting Hearst Castle and one of the tours we wanted to do was sold out. When the bus stopped to let people out for that tour I urged Mum out of the bus and follow the others for the tour we wanted. They, apparently, do a head count and the group was two too many. I fake looking at our tickets "Oh, oops, wrong tour!" and get us back into the bus. I'm sure I was red-faced the rest of the day.

The other two embarrassing moments are too horrible to tell. If I believed in Hell, I'm sure I'd be going there for those moments alone.