25 Funny Embarrassing Stories People Still Think About Years Later
I can still tell you exactly how I said “you too” when the box office person told me to enjoy the movie last year. I can hear the confidence in my voice. That’s the part that bugs me.
I always wonder how many of these moments the other person even remembers. The person working that night probably forgot about me before he even went home. My brain will bring it up while I’m brushing my teeth before bed.
People on Reddit shared the most embarrassing things that ever happened to them, and some of these are so funny I’m glad somebody had the nerve to tell the story. I’d have moved to a different time zone.
1. The airport pickup had a third wheel.
I went to fetch my ex at the airport. She didn’t know I was coming. There were only two people left waiting, me and another guy, so we started chatting. We laughed at how slow the luggage was coming out.
My ex came through the automatic doors and saw me, a big smile on her face. When she walked toward me, she saw the guy I’d been talking to. It was her new boyfriend. It was straight out of a movie.
Via u/MurrayleoSMG
2. The dad uniform worked a little too well.
My brother and I planned to meet up with my dad at a high school basketball game. I saw him in his familiar spot along the railing, looking down on the court. Even facing away, he’s easy to pick out on account of his signature olive green winter coat, faded blue jeans, and Air Monarchs.
I thought I’d mess with him by standing uncomfortably close until he noticed me. He didn’t acknowledge me at first, so I got even closer. He finally turned around. It wasn’t my dad.
I looked 15 feet to my left, where my dad and brother looked on, bemused, befuddled, and disappointed. I couldn’t string words together, so I just began pointing at the stranger and then at my dad and then back. The stranger graciously acknowledged that he and my father were wearing the same dad uniform, which only made things slightly less embarrassing.
Via u/rake2204
3. She finally got the ball in the championship game.
I was a 12-year-old awkward girl, all arms and legs with zero athletic ability. I played basketball and naturally, no one ever passed me the ball because I was so bad at it.
We were so close to beating the other team in the last game of the tournament and then, lo and behold, someone passes me the ball. I’m elated and go running for the basket. People are cheering for me. This is my moment!
Except they weren’t cheering for me. They were screaming at me to stop because I was running toward the wrong basket. I shot the winning basket…for the other team. I still die inside thinking about it, and I’m 41 years old.
4. They found a way to make accepting an award awkward twice.
I was in high school, and we had a prize-giving ceremony during assembly. My name gets unexpectedly called out, so I make my way to the front to collect my prize. I’m almost there when I have a sudden crisis of confidence and think I must have misheard them, so I turn around, walk back to my chair, and sit down.
My friends are looking at me, asking me what I’m doing and telling me to get back up there. So I get back up, walk all the way to the front, and have ANOTHER crisis of confidence. I think my friends must have been messing with me. So I turn around and walk back to my chair and sit down.
The hall is silent, and the teachers are onstage looking at me like I just landed from another planet.
Via u/cat_b*stard
5. The apology was somehow worse than walking into the pole.
I walked into a pole, hard, with my whole school nearby. I was by myself and felt awkward already and felt the need to say, “Sorry” to the pole. Then I realized and proceeded to say, “Wait, you’re a pole.” Just kept my head down and walked swiftly on after that.
Via u/Hollyse
6. The love letter was still in her pocket.
I’d liked this senior for three years, and one day I finally got up the courage to smile, slip the letter into his shirt pocket, and leave in a hurry. When I got back, I realized that the letter to him was still in my pocket, and the tampon was gone!
7. It took 60 years to forget absolutely none of this.
I was reading Shakespeare out loud in high school English class. The line was, “If these be motives weak, break off betimes.” I read, “If these be motives weak, beat off bedtimes.”
This was 60 years ago, and I can still see the face of the blushing young male teacher and hear the snickers from some of the boys in the classroom.
8. All that for 50 cents.
Where I live, you have to put a coin in a shopping cart to use it. As a kid, whenever I went shopping with my mom, I would return stray carts and keep the coin.
One day at a huge hardware store, I saw a cart filled with all kinds of stuff. My kid logic told me it was probably from an employee restocking. So I emptied the cart, planks, cans, the whole lot, returned it, collected the 50 cents, and went to the kid corner to watch TV.
Here comes an employee with a VERY displeased older lady. She starts screaming at me, borderline crying, about how mean I am. I didn’t dare go into that store for years in case she or the employee recognized me.
9. The teacher got the math final back on track with one word.
I was taking a math final after eating cheese sticks and protein bars all day. I’d been sneaking out silent farts all class. I thought I knew which ones would be silent. Thirty minutes in, I made the fatal error.
On a hard plastic chair, I let out the loudest fart of my young adult life. It breaks the silence, and every single head turns. My teacher just stands up and goes, “Alright,” and like a swarm of bees being dispersed, everyone turns back to their tests. I finished the test and BOOKED it.
10. The skating rink DJ had one signature move.
I was working at a skating rink as a DJ and used to throw on my skates to mingle with customers. One of my moves was to drop into the splits and pull myself back up, like Michael Jackson. One evening, a kid who was a regular asked me to do the splits. I dropped into position. This time, I didn’t come back up.
The EMTs cut my pants off and gave me morphine on the skate floor while customers continued to skate. I’d dislocated my kneecap. At the hospital, my manager came to check on me. I thought it was odd that he took the longest possible route around the bed, nearly knocking over equipment to stand by my head.
I was too doped up to realize my hospital gown had fallen open.
Via u/HuckIeberry
11. The wrong person rang the doorbell.
I was waiting for a friend who had a bad cold. When the doorbell rang, I ran to open the door and jokingly pulled my shirt up over my nose and mouth so I wouldn’t catch it. I pulled it a little too high.
And that’s how I accidentally flashed a baffled salesman. He blushed. I blushed. We stared at each other for a second before I closed the door and hid in the darkest corner of my house.
12. There’s a pretty good reason bathroom stalls lock from the inside.
I was around 13 when I went to the bathroom at school and found a stall locked. A normal person would say someone is in there. But my first thought was, “How do you lock a bathroom stall behind you? That’s not possible.”
So I crawled under the stall, and boom, there was someone in there. A piece of me still cringes when I think about it.
Via u/SummerDarlingg
13. The family has been spelling that one out for 21 years.
When I was like five, I shouted at my sister, “YOU’RE AN IDIOT. I-D-O-T.” Twenty-one years later, I’ve yet to live it down.
Via u/HipsterGalt
14. Somebody else’s microwave mistake became her birthday plans.
On my 19th birthday, there was a fire in my freshman dorm. I was in the shower when the alarm went off. I jumped out just as an RA ran in yelling that we needed to evacuate. I grabbed the closest towel and barely covered myself in time.
I stood outside in nothing but a towel for over two hours while the fire was put out and the building was cleared. Somebody had microwaved tin foil. It was the first week of school, so I hadn’t made any friends with a car who could come get me. It was…mildly frustrating.
15. A pocketknife came in handy at the bonfire.
I was at a party in the woods and had to pee, so I went to the tree line. I was wearing a long skirt, and somehow it got tangled in briars and evergreen branches. The more I tried to free myself, the worse it got. Before long, the skirt was almost over my head, my arms were tangled up, and I was exposed.
I finally called for help. Was it my friends who came to my rescue? Of course not. It had to be an Adonis of a man, quite possibly a model. He ended up using his pocketknife to cut my skirt out of the briars. Now I find it hilarious, but at 20 I thought it was the end of my existence.
16. It was a warm-up, which makes the commitment even funnier.
We were warming up for a track meet in seventh grade. I was running the final 200 meters of a relay, and I had an upset stomach. The third runner is about to reach me. I feel a rumble. I extend my arm, and the baton hits my hand.
I am speed incarnate. My breathing is measured. My limbs are working in perfect harmony. Calm as still water, I am a tranquil pool of glass. That is, until I have an accident.
I was less than a dozen steps into a 200-meter sprint. I could have ducked out to the locker room. We were hosting, after all. Instead, I ran as fast as I could in front of everybody.
Via an anonymous Reddit user
17. The name mix-up had an audience.
I was arrested in front of most of my coworkers and several hundred airline passengers because the Boone County, Kentucky, court system confused my last name with a similar last name.
Via an anonymous Reddit user
18. The headcount was off by one.
I thought I was the only one at work early one morning. There was zero chance any other worker would be there for hours. I was listening to loud music on my headphones. I had to fart, and I did. Loudly.
I turned around in my chair to see the overnight cleaning lady standing right behind me. She looked quite ill.
Via u/paulvs88
19. The rest of the class had some news for the lefty.
As a kid, I was left-handed. So I tried to make fun of this kid who was right-handed by saying, “No one writes with their right hand. You’re so weird.” Turns out, the whole class was right-handed. It was so embarrassing.
Via u/Mr_Terris
20. He found out how the flirting was going in the bathroom mirror.
When I was 18, I was at a party flirting with two girls. They said something funny, and I smirked and let a little air out through my nose. Their expressions changed completely. I could tell something was awkward, but I didn’t know what.
I went to the bathroom and looked in the mirror. There was a thin string of snot hanging from my nose down to my mouth. It was so thin I hadn’t noticed it and just kept talking.
Via an anonymous Reddit user
21. The seat belt would have come in handy about two seconds earlier.
I got on a crowded bus in Norway and headed for the only open seat, which faced an older woman. Before I could put on my seat belt, the bus started moving and came to a sudden stop. I lurched forward and accidentally face-planted into the poor woman’s chest.
Via an AskReddit commenter
22. The buffet oysters had a connecting flight.
I had the Bacchanal buffet at Caesars on my last day in Las Vegas. I was fine until I got on the plane. Then I really needed the bathroom.
We were racing a storm, so the flight attendants asked everyone to stay seated. After 25 minutes, they announced we’d have to taxi back and take off in the opposite direction. That was another 30 minutes. Then we flew right into the storm.
The seat belt sign was still on, but I couldn’t wait anymore. Everyone in the back of the plane could smell it when I opened the bathroom door. One guy even called me out on it. My fault for eating oysters at a buffet.
Via u/scott60561
23. The splits went exactly as planned. The pants had other ideas.
In sixth grade, I tried to do the splits at recess and tore my pants. Not just a small tear. The entire center of my pants blew out. I had to walk around the rest of the school day like that, with people in my class teasing me every chance they got.
Via u/DeathSpiral321
24. The teacher kept Febreze on standby.
In eighth grade, I had a teacher who kept bottles and bottles of Febreze in his classroom. Whenever he smelled something, he’d walk the aisles, sniffing, and spray a cloud of mist over whichever kid he thought it was. I’d forgotten to wear deodorant one day, and I was lucky enough to be rained in the freshness.
Via u/GoodFellaGotEm
25. Drama class got a little too physical.
Easily the time when I was breakdancing in drama class in grade 11 and kicked a girl in the face.
Via an anonymous Reddit user