And speaking of Playboy, I have two quick stories on the subject. I’m sure I’ve told both before, but that’s the way it goes sometimes. Plus, recycling is a good thing. Right? Right.
Back during the early high school era Rocky was in the hospital for a few days. The episode is still a mystery to most of us, and falls directly under the heading “A Long Story.” Weird shit, man.
Anyway, a group of us were going to visit him at Thomas Memorial, and someone said we should probably take a gift of some kind. But what do you buy a guy like Rocky? Hmmm… let’s see. Hey, how about pornography!
So, it was decided we’d present him with a copy of Penthouse. You know, to help with the healing process, or whatever. And somehow Steve was given the assignment of going into the convenience store to purchase the magazine.
He didn’t want to do it, because the mags were behind the counter, and you had to ask the cashier for them. You were forced to enunciate the name of the periodical in this place, out loud in the open air. You couldn’t just get a Sports Illustrated and a National Lampoon, and nonchalantly sandwich the smut in between.
I offered to go with him, to lend moral support. But when we walked through the door I peeled off and pretended to be highly interested in a Bubble Yum display, about twenty yards away.
Steve walked toward the counter, and the cashier was someone we sorta knew. He was a few years older than us, and completely wild. The dude spent several years in prison, but was always pretty nice to me. …The potential for unpleasantness was always there, though.
This didn’t make the situation any easier. Steve was undoubtedly hoping for some faceless stranger, not a person we knew. He was sweating bullets, and I started making gestures that said, “Go ahead… just do it.” You know, like it was no big deal. Heh.
Steve swallowed, stepped to the counter, and said, “Yeah, could I get one of those, um, Playboys?” I guess Playboy was an easier request than Penthouse?
And the big Hoss Cartwright cashier said, “Playboy? What are you going to do with that? Go home and JACK OFF?!”
He put much emphasis on the last two words, practically shouting them. And every head in the store turned and looked at Steve, who was now about to curl up into a ball on the floor.
I walked straight out of the store with no expression on my face, and buckled over with laughter once I was far enough away. And couldn’t stop for a good long time.
A few minutes later Steve came out, covered in sweat and muttering the word “motherfucker” over and over again.
Funny as hell.
Another time, years later, Toney and I were in an airport somewhere, waiting for our flight to board. We were browsing inside a newsstand kind of place, on separate sides of the store.
I was looking at the mags, and noticed a big rack of Hustlers and Barely Legals, and that sort of thing. Hmmm… I thought. I took a look around, to make sure nobody (Toney) was looking, and picked up one of the highbrow publications.
And the entire shelf fell off the wall. It made a hell of a racket, and I was left standing there with a Swank in my hand, and a pile of pornography piled around my feet.
Again, every head turned, including my wife’s. My face and neck went burgundy, and a few people started chuckling. One guy smiled and shook his head in sympathy, and I don’t think Toney stopped laughing until we got back to Atlanta.
Shit, I’m cringing right now, just thinking about it…
And that’s all I have for today, boys and girls. For a Question I guess we can just go with incredibly embarrassing episodes you’ve encountered in public. They don’t necessarily have to involve porn, just any situation where you felt like crawling into a crack in the floor.
And I’ll be back tomorrow, with more of this stuff.
See ya then.
?!?
Hey-oh!
First?
Two. Woot……….Woot………….Woot!!
Damn!
Big 5!!!
Did you get Rocky’s Playboy? Did HE JACK OFF?
This story is incomplete.
Wish I could contribute something, but NOTHING I do embarrasses me in public. I sometimes actually create an embarrassing episode to see people’s reactions. One time, me and the ex were in the grocery store, in the produce section and there was an old lady standing within earshot, watching us and I picked up a couple of ridiculously large cucumbers and said in an overly loud voice “now I’ll go over and get that big jar of Vaseline and we’ll be set for tonight”. The old lady gave me a look that could have stopped lava flow.
Top 10??? No way
The airport story cracked me up. I thought that crap only happened to me.
A sympathy card was circulating in the office yesterday and I wrote a little blurb and screwed up and tried to insert a word. Looked like my 4th grader did it. My face is red now thinking about it.
Several years ago, I was running to catch an elevator and barely made it. The door closed on me then bounced back open and I said to the only other person in the elevator “Whew, I thought that thing was gonna take my arm off!” I then noticed that the gentleman I was speaking to had only one arm…I felt like a turd.
I don’t know what it is about me and zippers but….
About 15 years ago I stopped for the night in Salmon, Idaho (on vacation). I checked in to my cabin, changed clothes and then sauntered over to the local approximation to Applebee’s. Place filled with good old boys, Monday Night Football on every TV hanging off the walls, country music blaring from the jukebox.
I waited a good 10 minutes to be seated, just soaking in the ambience. People seemed to giving me the eye and I figured that it was because I wasn’t a regular and they knew I was from out of town.
Until I was finally seated and i could sense something was wrong just below the belt. Yep. Zipper open up all the way. Just lovely.
Then 3 years ago, hiking down from Mt. Fairview in Banff National Park. I stopped partway down to pee in the bushes, then continued on merrily for another 2 hours back down about 2000 feet in elevation and maybe 4.5 miles walking, to my car by Chateau Lake Louise. I passed all of maybe 6 people on the way back (it was getting late and most people were heading down, not up), including at least 2 cute and young women. God only knows what they thought of me, though. I finally got back to the car, got some ice and a tall 2-liter bottle of orange soda and slumped in the front seat to recover from this 8-hour odyssey of mountain hiking. Yep. That’s when I discovered my zipper was all the way down. AGAIN.
Years ago when I worked a tech support desk I used to get regular calls from a gal who was dumb as dirt. You had to explain things to her over and over. Dealing with her was very frustrating. One day I saw her name on a terminations list. I told a co-worker how happy I was that the dumb Dora would not be calling anymore. Co-worker informed me that Dora had not quit her job. She had passed away. I felt like a heel but I was still glad she couldn’t continue to drive me nuts.
Oh..I love these stories! I think I had told this before but still a goodie:
My late husband used to go grocery shopping with me all the time. His sense of humor had no limitations. As we were unloading the cart at the check out register, he hoists this huge bottle of bleach onto the belt. As it rolls closer to the cashier he blurts out, “Hey babe, do you think THIS is enough for your underwear stains?” I stood frozen in my tracks.
Bill…..that old lady was my grandmother!!
Jeff……I have never heard the Rocky stories, well at least not all of them and not online, maybe word of mouth. That was great. I had forgotten about him and had no idea where he was. It does not surprise me however that Bill was the one who “disrupted” the nice quiet, peaceful, non alcoholic party, LOL!!
Zazu- where did you hear “dumb Dora”?? Was this in fact her name? My mother used to call me that all the time- my name is not Dora. Anyway struck me strange to see someone else use that saying.
a few weeks ago i was badmouthing the IT guy at my job to a coworker due to extreme douchebaggery and he was standing behind me for an unknown period of time.
i have also made a complete drunken ass of myself in a local tavern to the point i won’t return there. Dumb Dora!
From:
http://www.toonopedia.com/dumbdora.htm
“The phrase “Dumb Dora” was slang in the 1920s for a not-very-bright female, made popular by the vaudeville act of George Burns and Gracie Allen. Allen played Dora, who was so dumb — and what followed would be a typical bit of her illogical logic, of the sort that got huge laughs from vaudeville, movie and eventually TV audiences.”
I didn’t know that about George and Gracie. I just remember Gene Rayburn using that as a setup for certain questions on “Match Game”. Like “Dumb Dora was so dumb she used a _blank_ to ‘blow’ her nose.”
that is amazing! i really thought this was one of my mothers random weird sayings!! How cool.
Thanks Swami and Sunshine! I was racking my brain trying to figure out where I’d heard about Dumb Dora. I have watched G&G and lots of MatcfhGame.
still laughing at some of the stories I’ve read…
the only embarrassing thing I can think of right now happened when I was in marching band in high school (as if that wasn’t embarrassing enough).
I was in the percussion section (with the rest of the “cool” kids), and used to play the cymbals. During parades, I sometimes had to march backwards and hold the cymbals in front of the snare drummer so that he could hit them as needed. One time, I somehow managed to walk right into a stop sign, hitting my head in the process. ( I can still hear the sound of it now). I fell to the ground instantly, and the music stopped. I was okay, but my face was probably as red as my marching band uniform for the rest of the parade.
We laughed as hard as we’ve ever laughed about anything about the Swank rack. That’s funny as shit and I’m embarrassed for you. Funny as shit.
!st grade…too embarrassed to raise my hand to be excused to go to the bathroom. The end of the story writes itself.
I’ve wondered about this a few times before, but is reading/ looking at porn socially acceptable on airplanes?
Its always there in the shops at airports, but I’ve never seen it being read on a plane. I don’t think I’ll ever pluck up the courage to do so.
Is it reserved for the cockpit?
Is that how the bit at the front of the plane got its name?
Ian, depends who you sit beside. I was on a violent plane ride back from Germany once and I was sitting next to an Italian who must have gone through twenty magazines worth of Japanese pornography during the whole trip, mainly of the anime-schoolgirl variety. Oh, the things I learned that can never be unlearned. When the turbulence got really hinky, I kept thinking, “I’m gonna die next to some chump with a fetish for pedophilic squid? Why, God, why?!”
I’ve had loads of embarrassing moments, but the awesome headache I have right now precludes me from detailing them. Maybe later.
One year we went to a neighbours house for Superbowl Sunday. They had just finished a major remodel of the kitchen. My son ate a lot of food not familar to him or his digestive tract and was running around chasing other kids. At halftime, he announced he felt sick. Needless to say, he chucked in the kitchen, and all over the new bathroom (he never did hit the toilet). My wife and I were mortified as we scrambled to use any kind of towel to wipe it all up. Most of what came up was still in it’s original form. We left before the second half started and never went back. It’s a good conversation ender to say “remember that time you got sick on Superbowl Sunday??”
Jeff, nothing, I repeat, NOTHING can top the collapsing shelf of porn incident!
But, my most embarassing was probably a visit to New York City in 1986. Walked around Manhattan all day on business related stuff. Got back to the rental car in the parking garage and had to piss really bad. No public restrooms in sight, so I went over to the wall in front of the car and let loose. Everything was going well until I heard a stifled laugh coming from in back of me. A Shirley Hemphill look alike was walking by and caught my entire act of public urination. I mumbled a “Oooops, sorry.” She just laughed it off and said, “Hon, I seen it all before. ‘Course most of the time it was a LOT bigger!”
I just don’t get embarrassed for some reason. It’s probably because I don’t give a fuck what other people think about me. Been that way all of my life…can’t change now.
WAIT!…except the time my first wife, caught me in bed with my “girlfriend”. Although that feeling may have been horror?
Either way it sucked.
There was this one time back in ’87 at the all-vegetarian pig-pickin’ flute-tootin’ and sauna bath that I felt weird being naked around a fire pit with a buncha other hippies, but that pretty much wore off after a dip in Blue Hole.
(Because even hippies can feel embarrassed sometimes.)
Just trivially, Pedophilic Squid would be a good name for a rock band. Perhaps alt rock.
jtb
Now on the Sony Discman:
“Tom Traubert’s Blues (Four Sheets to the Wind in Copenhagen)” by Tom Waits
I have worked in Corporate America for 35 years. Every day of that time I have humiliated, prostituted, debased, demeaned, dishonored, and dehumanized myself to the extent necessary to draw a paycheck every two weeks. Anything I have done that resulted in private embarrassment (and there has been plenty) shrivels in comparison to what I have done to pay the bills.
And, since 1985, I have been in management, so my prostitution included (I just don’t know how else to say it) taking it in the ass.
I’ve been away from the workplace for three years doing medical stuff with my back, but the surgery is completed and successful, and in another several months, I will have a financial requirement to return to the front (or, I guess, in this case, the back). I don’t know whether I can go back. There’s nothing sadder than an old hooker.
jtb
My ex and I had several friends, all male, drop by in various stages of inebriation one night. We were just sitting around shooting the shit, listening to music, getting mellow, ya know? My then 3 year old son came in waving around a dildo. He was so proud to show this item off. Hilarity ensued. I was mortified. After hustling him and the toy out of the room, I managed to get my shit together, so to speak. A few minutes later, he reappeared holding my diaphragm aloft for all to see. I never lived that night down. Those fuckers never forgot it.
Off topic, but my employer is in complete disarray since we merged with a competitor recently. Emails and phone calls going all day “what did you hear”, “managers in a closed door meeting again”, “two managers were summonsed to travel to Chicago on Monday for a meeting on Thursday and they were told not to go at 4:00 PM today, what’s going on?”
Everyone in the main office is wondering if they will have a job or be fired by end of the year. This merger is a clusterfuck of huge magnitude.
My 64 year old buddy in the main office ordered hot pink legal size envelopes recently, neatly printed every employee’s name on each and distributed to everyone’s desk very early this morning before anyone else arrived at 8:30. Then he stood back and observed the facial expressions. Some people actually cried before opening the envelopes. In each one was a full 8″ x 10″ glossy of his new grandson.
He called me this afternoon to give a full report. Fucking priceless. This guy is a real prize.
When I was in my early teens I was just entering a drug store and passing the check out when I felt the seam on one side of my underwear tear out (they were probably pretty ratty to begin with). As I continued to walk, the underwear slid down the opposite pant leg and onto the floor. I nonchalantly stepped out of them and continued on my way. The cashier behind the counter came around, carefully pinced the underpants between her thumb and forefinger, carried them to me and said “are these yours?”. I tried to deny it, but it was pretty obvious they had come from me.
So mortifying that I remember it 30 years later.
Swami & Tilli:
My girlfriend has used the term “Dumb Dora” since I’ve known her. I am quite sure she doesn’t know where it came from originally. She started using it because a friend of ours started dating this chick who looked identical to the animated cartoon character “Dora the Explorer”. This girl’s cheese fell off her cracker a long time ago….dumber than a box of hair…. VOILA! A nickname was born. So cool to know the background! Love that stuff.
@johnthebasket…if you want a true story of humiliation, I got one. I made it to millionaire status by the age of 28, lost it all within two years. My most humiliating moment after I became broke was when I was flipping burgers on a Washington State Ferry and my father in law came onboard with his video camera and shot 15 minutes of footage just to “show the folks back home.” On the upside, one afternoon I did get to serve a large cup of vegetable soup to Norman Fell (Mr/ Roper from Three’s Company). He was truly a nice guy. Also served a beer to Tom Skeritt one evening…not exactly a prick, but he seemed aware that he was B List famous.
I nearly shit a twinkie when I read the part about the shelf falling off the wall. Good thing I was between sips of my morning coffee, or I’d probably be buying a new monitor.
Good stuff.
Clint:
I think choosing to flip burgers on a ferry demonstrates integrity; I don’t know what you were doing before, but I’ve hung with CEOs and CFOs (I was a CIO), and I’d rather leave my wallet on your counter than on their desks. At least I’d get it back. My net worth poked above a million, but after three years of medical treatment and crappy insurance, I’m somewhere in the high five figures.
Not complaining. I’m sleeping much better and enjoying life more. I’ve gained what a million bucks couldn’t buy: humility and perspective.
Sorry about the video. That must have sucked.
Good luck in whatever you do next. I’ll be on this forum as I attempt to reenter the job market. It should be more fun than a Three Stooges short.
jtb
Not embarrarising but funny.
I was working in a Seven-Elephants store one day when a small boy came in with his father. He kept staring at me from behind his father. Finally iIsaid something to him and he neary died. He said
“I know who you are” and I said “who” and he said “Wierd Al Yankovic” I just about fell on the floor laughing and started singing Eat It. (Guess it was my cheesy mustache.)
Seven-Elephants
Burger-Thing
Kentucky Fucking Chicken
Stop and Slop (Steak and Shake)
Crack-in-the-Box
Drunken Doughnuts
Crocks (McDonalds after founder Ray Crock)
What did/do you call fast food/ convienence stores?
Taco Hell
Dead Lobster
Jack off in the Box
Mac Shit
Taco Juan
or Taco Belch
Hardlee’s
A favorite local watering hole had a patio with parking in front of it. This included an oft-abused handicapped spot. The regulars tended to try enforce the rules, and shoo away able-bodied folks….Well, one night, after a few beers (Spaten Optimator), a car pulls up and a spry-looking young girl hops out. Being a staunch defender of the handicapped, I yelled out “HEY! YOU DON’T LOOK VERY HANDICAPPED!” To which the gentleman in the passenger seat said “WELL, HOW ABOUT ME THEN?!” as the spry lass brought his wheelchair around from the trunk of the car, and hung his handicapped placard on the rear-view mirror. Turned out to be this guy:
http://www.amazon.com/GIMP-Story-Behind-Star-Murderball/dp/0061127698/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1259861382&sr=8-1
My hubby once found a huge stash of English porn under the bed of a motel8 where he was doing some repairs. He fought the guy he was working for over them to bring me a whole box of the stuff. It was hilarious!! Huge, hairy, streatch marky gals and all of them were in pearls, heels, and pillbox hats. Everyone was named Countess so and so, and Lady blah blah. And all of them were posed in these horific rundown English homes, or the cow shed, or with steak and kidney pies. It was truely awful!! and worse yet they were all recent publications!! We kept the box for years till the little ones came along just for laughs. I haden’t thought about it for a long time, thanks for the memories!
Back when I was 16 or 17 a buddy and I went to the local drugstore to purchase some condoms (that we were never going to use). I elected to do the purchasing. Back then you had to purchase them at the pharmacy. I sauntered up and confidently asked for a 4 pack of Trojans and paid for them. When we were no more than 5 feet away from the busy pharmacy counter my buddy loudly said “I can’t wait to ram it in you”. I was highly embarrassed and quietly said “What the fuck is wrong with you?”. He just laughed…