My Most Embarrassing Moments of 2023

Okay, maybe not the *most,* unpublishable-y embarrassing, but I promise I included some good ones.

Happy New Year!

I am big on New Years’ resolutions and on the new year bringing new energy and excitement. This year I want to do all sorts of things, which range from sort of exciting (doing more writing) to sort of embarrassing (doing one (1) single pullup). But in a way, resolutions are always embarrassing, no matter what time of year you make them, right? It’s scary to tell someone that you’re dreaming of or hoping to make something happen. Because what if it doesn’t happen? I think there’s a power in trying new, scary things, even if they don’t work out.

Anyway, speaking of embarrassing, and in the spirit of, “Trying to do anything is almost always going to involve some trial and error and humiliation,” here are 12 embarrassing moments I experienced in 2023. AMONG MANY.

January

Got drunk in Madrid on New Year’s Eve and decided to ask strangers on the streets what their New Years Resolutions were. Using my mediocre Spanish.

One guy said, “To stop doing drugs!”

Another said, “Do more drugs!”

One Chinese man told me, repeatedly and with limited English, that he didn’t speak Spanish. But I was drunk enough that my brain was convinced there were only two languages, and if this man didn’t speak English, he must speak Spanish. I continued trying to speak to him in my bad Spanish. Sorry.

Also, I started a blog. Which is embarrassing in its own way.

February

Jeff and I got a hotel room in a nearby city to go to one of the region’s most important festivals, all centered around a big parade. We missed the parade.

March

I signed up for a half marathon, and when they gave me the bib to pin to my shirt, they didn’t provide safety pins (which they have always done at races I’ve run in the U.S.) I looked up the word “safety pins” in Spanish and walked a couple of laps around the gym to work up some courage, then asked them if they had safety pins. They did not. Also I dropped my credit card, which I had inexplicably decided to hold in my hand, twice during the race, and had to kneel down to pick it up and block other runners. Also I looked like this:

April

While we were eating at a fancy restaurant in Zermatt, Switzerland, a man came up to the table to ask us how everything was going.

“It’s good,” I said. “Who are you?”

“Okay,” he said. “Enjoy the meal.” He turned around and I thanked the Lord he hadn’t heard my question. He turned back around. “Did you just ask who I am?”

“No,” I said.

“I’m the owner of the place,” he said.

I smiled and took another bite of fondue.

May

Had a gynecologist appointment. In Spanish.

June

Was running down a set of stairs so that I could get to a coffee shop with WiFi in time to meet with my Spanish tutor, fell and scraped the hell out of my leg. Then I got to the coffee shop all bloody, in a huge rush, and my headphones weren’t working. Exasperated, I tried to find a corner without too many people and told my teacher sorry for talking so quietly, that I was in a coffee shop and my headphones weren’t working.

“Aren’t you embarrassed?” she asked.

“Yes,” I said.

ALSO I was going through an old wallet and found this cute little piece of paper that one of my middle school teachers gave to all of his students listing his essential life skills:

1. Work hard. 2. Treat people the right way. 3. Enjoy what you have.

Isn’t that so cute? We are friends on Facebook, so I sent him a picture and told him I’d kept it in my wallet all these years and was moving it to my new one. He saw my message and did not respond.

July

Was on a hiring committee for my old job and had to do one of the interviews from the lobby of a hostel. My laptop battery started to get low, but the outlet near me turned out to not be working. I tried to move between outlets as subtly and professionally as possible, but it turned out that none of the outlets in the lobby were working. This caused me to grow progressively sweatier and more frantic as the interviews went on. Eventually my laptop died and I switched to my phone. I’m sure all the candidates were really impressed with me as a potential colleague.

August

Spoke a lot of bad Italian! At one language meetup, an Egyptian guy was very kind and encouraging. “Isn’t she quite good for having only started lessons last month?” he asked an Italian (which I know he just said to be encouraging, but it really was encouraging). The Italian man grimaced and told me I had a lot of work to do. Which I KNEW and I KNOW. There is no need to say so thanks!!

September

Went to a Meetup event in Colorado to make new friends. When we showed up, everyone seemed to be over 55 except for us. Not a problem! We are happy to make friends with people of different ages. But, when we saw another couple, who looked around our age, enter the wine bar, we walked up and asked if we could sit with them. They said sure, we started chatting, we were hitting it off. Then the guy mentioned, as gently and kindly as he could, that he and his wife were not part of the meetup event. Meaning we had just invited ourselves to sit with these complete strangers. BUT THEY LET US, OKAY.

October

My grandma sent us Halloween-themed gingerbread houses to do, and when I sent her a picture of us doing them, she asked if we didn’t have anything better to do on a Saturday night.

November

I decided to make egg salad, and recalled a trick my grandma had taught me about peeling hard-boiled eggs. Well, I half recalled it. What I remembered was her saying that you finish boiling the eggs, then you hold the pot in the sink and you SHAKE THE SHIT OUT OF IT (she denies using this verbiage). This cracks all the shells and lets the water get in between the shell membrane and the egg, or something, and makes them easier to peel.

So, feeling like a little Suzy Homemaker, I hardboiled the eggs, then emptied all the water out of the pot because I forgot about the water playing a key role in the process. Didn’t matter anyway, because I SHOOK THE SHIT OUT OF the pot only to realize that the eggs were, indeed, not fully hardboiled, and I’d just produced a disgusting eggy, shelly, slightly watery soup.

Turns out living at a high elevation really does affect the time it takes for eggs to boil. Take it from me!

December

Made cookies to bring around to our neighbors and a) had to knock on strangers’ doors, which is weirdly difficult and humiliating and b) had to knock on FIFTY-SIX different doors to pawn off fifteen boxes of homemade cookies. Some people weren’t home. Some people didn’t answer even though I THINK THEY WERE HOME. Some sort of winced and told me no thank you.

To top it off, there is one neighbor I see really early in the morning sometimes, when we are both out with our dogs. I don’t know exactly where in our apartment complex he lives. I saved a box for him and thought, “I will bring it on my morning walk with the dog, and if I see that guy, I’ll give him the cookies. It not, no big deal.” While we were walking, Zelda stopped to sniff a bush for awhile and then her ears perked up. A door opened and the guy walked out. We were right outside his apartment. “I have some cookies for you,” I said. I imagine to him it seemed like I was waiting for him outside his door to give him cookies at 5:45 a.m. Have not seen him since.

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2023 was full of embarrassing moments. Some were just purely humiliating, and some were learning lessons. I wish you a 2024 whose embarrassing moments all have a bright side.

I leave you with this shirt I saw on a Spanish teenager (transcript below). The shirt itself is a little embarrassing because what is it even saying? Or maybe the truly embarrassing thing is that I’m too old and crochety to get this shirt. Either way, we can be sure it’s kind of embarrassing that I snuck a picture of this teenager’s shirt.

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Seeking for proud beginnings, for brave encounters.  Waiting for a fresh start, a clean slate.

Looking for genuinity and transparency, discovering a clear conscience – an innocent state of mind.

The future is abstract and symbolic. We will get there. Anytime soon.

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Recommendation of the Week: The Wall Street Journal’s three-episode podcast series “Hack Me if You Can,” about “a Russian cybercriminal who went to the other side.” I did a lot of driving over the holidays, and this is one of the best podcasts I listened to.

Question of the Week: What’s the worst New Year’s resolution you can imagine making? Have you ever kept a resolution that you’re really proud of?