Some of my most vivid memories involve some level of embarrassment.
My greatest humiliation came in the Spring of 1984 in Reno, Nevada. Surprisingly, the event went unnoticed by anyone but me and my girlfriend Janet. The shame was felt just the same.
I was attending a convention of fellow vending machine operators and staying on the 23rd floor of Bally's, which used to be the MGM Grand hotel. This hotel was identical to it's sister in Las Vegas. The site of a horrendous fire in the tower, a few years prior, which killed 85 people.
When traveling, I am known to go to great lengths to make sure I have coffee in my room. I never want to face another human being without a cup of coffee. These days, that's not hard. Even the cheapest hotel or motel has an in-room coffeemaker. Not so, in 1984.
Janet was one of these people that seemed to have available whatever you might need. In this case, a handy dandy single cup water heater. A coil of a heating element which you would place in a cup of water with a cord that you could plug into an outlet. One minute later, you could add the instant coffee and sip away.
While we were getting ready to go down to the casino after a day of meetings, I decided to try it out.
I got my cup of water and looked around only to discover that the only outlet that was available was on a wall alongside the bed with no table nearby. Probably designed for housekeeping to use while vacuuming.
No problem, I thought, I'd just set the cup on the carpet and plug it in. Janet, who was in the bathroom, called to me to zip or unzip something.
While I was in the bathroom, I heard a phffffftht! and a loud pop! I ran back in the room to see a large cloud of smoke rising from where the cup was and the carpet was on fire.
I immediately unplugged the cup heater and stomped out the flames. The heater evidently was a little top heavy and had flopped out of the cup, exposing the element to the air which caused it to vaporize and set the carpet aflame.
I looked up at the smoke and noticed that it was directly under a fire sensor. Quickly, I waved at the smoke to dissipate it and hoped that was enough.
Soon, we started hearing strange messages on the television. Nothing was said for certain, it seemed the messages were for employees.
Then we heard the sirens. Looking out the window, we had a clear view down the main street and could see the string of approaching fire trucks.
"OH, shit!" I believe is what was said at that time.
We quickly covered up the evidence with our luggage and decided to go for a walk. We didn't want to be anywhere near our room.
The firemen remained on site for about a half hour, going floor to floor. We never found out what they were looking for. We, of course, didn't ask.
The next morning, before we checked out, we decided we needed to repair the silver-dollar sized scorch mark on the carpet. Janet, of course, had everything we needed. Scissors to trim matching fibers and threads from the edge of the carpet near the wall. Super-glue to glue those fibers to the burn. When she was done, you honestly couldn't tell it had been damaged.
Perhaps, they had just planned a fire drill for that exact time and knew nothing of our faux pas. Works for me!
Any other embarrassing stories out there in Gatherland?
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Comments: 43
One of mine may have been about 12 years ago. A big party attended by notorious area artists of all ilk. I was listening to a man go on and on about how dull his job was - complaining about his clients - he was completely frustrated and unfulfilled. His voice was familiar. When I finally caught a glimpse of his face I recognized him. He had been my therapist.
RKL
My most embarrassing moment was when I was dating my husband. He worked on the railroad back then, and had to take out of town trips about once or twice a week.
A friend of ours had been injured in a car accident, and a local bar was having a benefit show to help him cover his expenses, and this happened to coincide with a trip he was making into town. We hadn't seen each other in a few days, and since he was on the layover end of his trip, he had a free hotel room waiting for him on this end.
His train crew was going to go to the benefit and I had to work late, so we planned to meet at the bar. I decided that it would be fun to dress a little sexy for him, and wore a short skirt and a garter belt with fishnet hose.(this was around the time of Madonna being popular, not my normal mode of dress.)
I showed up...we stayed to hear the band for a while and had a few drinks. Our friends were all there, and future Hubby decided he was going to take me out of the bar "caveman style"...over his shoulder. (at the time I weighed about 125 pounds) Everyone was standing around.The music was playing..and he was about to heft me over his shoulder, when I felt the time was right to share with him my surprise for the evening.
Just as I yelled in his ear,"Honey, I'm not wearing any underwear...."......That's right....the music stopped. Everyone heard it. Being a bar...this brought whoops and hollars from our friends..and jokes... My future husband was both excited and amused. I turned bright red, as he threw me over his shoulder anyway, and rushed us to the door.
It's funny now..and I was told by a friend later that I had a lovely rear end...but at the time I was so embarrassed that I just wanted to get out of there.
For me, embarrassing moments abound! I once had a day long interview that was looking promising and finally went to the bathroom, I was so nervous that not only was my fly open, but I forgot to fasten my belt and somehow the end came through the opening looking like a flat snake. I wondered why I was abruptly rebuffed until I came to my senses in the parking lot to see - gawd, I can't believe I shared this.