Suggested Catharsis

Another loving blog suggestion that I was given recently is that I should write about something embarrassing that has happened to me, as opposed to just using this blog as a vehicle for embarrassing my family. To this I answered, "CAN DO!" I have loads of horribly uncomfortable experiences to share with you internet...social gaffes galore!

The first one that comes to mind happened around 1999 when I was working for an HVAC company as a summer intern while in college. I was good friends with the HR chick and the president's "secretary." (It was a very old-fashioned place...there was CARPET on the WALLS. But that is an entirely separate story.) Anyway, I was sitting in the HR chick's office, talking to them both about a new employee who I had met earlier that morning. They were trying to decide if he was cute or not. I voted no since he had a longish hair-do, and used a GREAT DEAL of hair gel giving him that just-out-of-the-shower look.

"That guy is a total wet-back," I assured them.

The both looked at me, horrified.

(Apparently "wet-back" is not slang for someone who has a hair gel addiction.)

The HR chick quickly informed me of my faux pas. (Here is a buried gem: I used to pronounce that "faah poe.")

I don't think that there is an adequate word to describe the color that my face turned. I was so humiliated--mostly because beyond embarrassing myself, I had used such a horribly lame racial slur so ignorantly, but also because I AM A READER. HOW COULD I NOT BE CERTAIN OF WHAT THAT TERM MEANS? It was inexcusable.

Luckily, the "secretary" was of the same Irish stock as my family...where the solution to any problems of embarrassment is to bring up the key point of the embarrassment as often as possible: she called me "Tijuana" for the rest of the summer.