Death by Plastic Chair

"What's your most embarrassing moment?"

It's one of those break-the-ice questions that can be posed anywhere. Parties, mixers, even as a journal prompt in elementary school. For me it seemed to keep coming up on the first day of classes in college. I don't think a semester went by without at least one professor forcing us to "get to know each other" by making us relive some of the most mortifying moments of our lives.

I've always loved reading these sections in teen magazines. Seventeen magazine calls it Traumarama!; every month you can read about girls losing their bikini tops in front of their crushes, accidents involving white jeans and a certain time of the month, or walking in on the wrong people in a bedroom.

My most embarrassing moment has been the same for seventeen years. I don't know if this means I live an exceptionally boring life, or that I just don't get embarrassed very easily. Either way, nothing compares to the rising heat -- tingling to the root of every single hair on my body -- the absolute horror I felt that day in sixth grade history class.

I was sitting at my regular table, with my previously mentioned clan of fellow 12-year-olds: Lauren, Tarah, and Anita. Every day before the actual lecture and note-taking took place, we were supposed to read silently for five or ten minutes. This particular day I had a case of the pre-teen girl-giggles... and Lauren was not helping. She sat directly across from me, and from behind her book she kept peeking at me, making hilarious facial contortions, trying to get me to laugh. It was a game. What would come first: Mr. Lanes noticing that we were no where near on task, or Heather emitting a high-pitched squeal, attempting to cover up the attack threatening to burst forth?

It turns out neither of these things.

I was already in a state of the Silent Shaking Giggles. The kind where you stop breathing because you know if you take a breath your voice will come through and attention will be drawn. This usually happens in totally inappropriate venues such as church services, musical recitals, funerals, and Silent Reading Time.

Then I felt it. The gas bubble.

I totally panicked. I gave Lauren a death look (which is hard to do in the midst of Silent Shaking Giggles) I'd hoped clearly stated, "Do not make another face, we have a situation on our hands." Lauren didn't understand my code, because next thing I knew she as popping out from behind her book with an especially absurd grimace: and then it happened.

Not only did I let out a guffaw that sounded like a chain smoker getting punched in the gut, but I farted. 

Now... in sixth grade we sat in those standard plastic classroom chairs. These chairs provide just the right acoustics for a small, accidental fart to morph into a deep tone that brings to mind cheerleading megaphones and Grand Canyon-like echoes.

I could feel my face lighting up like a blazing sunset and I crouched down in my seat like I would become invisible if I lost a couple inches. (If I haven't already made it clear, I was exceedingly shy and my worst nightmare was being the center of attention... sometimes it still is my worst nightmare.) The class had obviously heard the disturbance and started chuckling... soon it would turn into a thunderous roar, and it would all be pointed in my direction. That's when Lauren decided she had to do something.

"ANDY!!" Lauren yelled. Andy was a super smart kid who was easy to make fun of. He was one of those students who was so far beyond any of us, and he didn't care. (Think pre-pubescent Dwight Schrute.) He was probably the most well-adjusted middle schooler at TMS. He was smart and he knew it... he had nothing to prove. Jokes and insults hurled at him by the street rats he was forced to attend school with bounced off him like the handballs did during P.E. He was actually the perfect choice to pin the fart on.

The problem was, he was across the room. Surely this wouldn't work. I could feel my Teen Spirited armpits starting to soak through my shirt. Tarah was laughing so hard she started crying, and she could not be consoled. Soon Mr. Lanes sent her outside. Tarah, the A+ student who never made waves had just been sent outside for the first and only time in her life! Andy looked up, confused. He had been engrossed in his reading, and the look on his face told the rest of us he didn't even know what had happened. It was pure pandemonium.

Then, as quickly as it had been brought on, it calmed. Mr. Lanes took control of the situation (God bless him) and somehow got the class back into silent reading mode. My face was still crimson and Tarah was still outside. Lauren and Anita were smirking at me, and Andy had gone back to his book.

I'm not sure how many people believed Lauren's accusation, but no one admonished me for the anal outburst. My face had been saved.

As I said earlier, the fact that this particular incident is, to date, my most embarrassing moment, might be pathetic. Much worse has happened to teenage girls all around the world. But no matter what your most embarrassing moment is, it's necessary to have one. Remembering that feeling of horror and what it's like to literally want to die instead of being caught in that moment helps shape us just a little bit. Not only do I rush to someone's aid when they are hideously embarrassed by something, but I can also laugh at myself.

Much more embarrassing things have probably already happened, and certainly will happen, to me. But if I can laugh them off and take life as it comes, this middle school blip may just remain my Most Embarrassing Moment.