My Most Embarrassing Moment

My most embarrassing moment; no it didn’t happen last year or even in the last few years.  A hard core most embarrassing moment can and should last a lifetime.  Mine goes all the way back to high school and Mrs. Knepp.  Ohhh….Mrs. Knepp, my English teacher; brains, beauty, sweetness, she had it all and I wanted it all.  Boy did she know how to wear a pair of polyester slacks.  But I digress.  First I have to tell you about my good buddy Randall.  We were juniors and hung out a lot, but even with that I never shared personal stuff so Randall had no clue about my crush on our teacher.  Nor did he know the day had arrived for me to make my big move on her.  Of course I had already been wooing her with special glances and charming smiles, but now it was time for me to let her know I was a man and I was serious.  It was time…..for a wink.  Yes, that’s right.  I would do it right in the middle of class while she is lecturing.  Gutsy I know, but that’s how we men do it. 

My plan for a wink was perfect.  The school gods had smiled upon me because...
 I sat in the front row of the classroom.  They must have known at the start of the school year we were meant for each other.  But they are gods, they know stuff.  As it happens Randall was in the front row just to my left.  The stage was set, I was psyched, and it would be today, yes today.  I was determined not to leave that room without confessing my love with a grand wink.  She was blonde, beautiful and about to be stunned by my prowess.

Timing would be everything as it often is in matters of love and romance.  I had to be ready for the moment she made eye contact with me.  It would be useless to wink when she wasn’t looking, duh.  So I had been practicing my wink for a week getting ready for this moment of glory.  And it was no ordinary wink.  It was a James Bond wink, a man wink, the kind that would mesmerize a woman regardless of how beautiful she was.  As the hour moved along I found this to be mentally exhausting.  Can you imagine being constantly on the verge of a wink, but not knowing when the moment will come and also knowing that you will only have a split second to react?  I can’t listen to what she is saying, I can’t look at my textbook, I am focused like a lion waiting to pounce.  All that energy waiting in store for the exact perfect moment….waiting…..waiting…..

She casually moves back and forth across the front of the room and as she is calmly telling us about sentence structure, it happens, the moment of glory is upon me.  She glances at me and of course I am intently looking at her.  My already heightened adrenaline spikes.  And I deliver my well-rehearsed James Bond wink. 

All these years later I still have a vivid image of her face in that moment.  She stopped mid-sentence and just stared at me.  She was truly speechless.  You could tell by the bewildered look on her face that none of her education or experience had prepared her for this moment.  That was exactly the reaction I was going for, but wait.  There is a key part of the story I left out.  I wish it had gone like that.  But it didn’t.  She was indeed stunned, but not because I man winked at her.  And it wasn’t only her that was stunned, it was the entire class.  That’s right something had gone terribly wrong with my plan.  Terribly, terribly wrong.

Everything up to the point where she makes casual eye contact with me is true, but that is where tragedy strikes.  She looks at me.  My mind immediately initiates operation “James Bond Wink”.  My neurons send the appropriate signals to my left eyelid.  This is all in slow motion now.  But it’s at this point that something else happens.  I’m really not sure what the culprit was.  I think that maybe Randall coughed or something.  Maybe with all the adrenaline I was in a heightened state of sensory perception, but I SWEAR I heard something and as the command to wink was moving to my eyelid, there was a second command that went out from my adrenaline drunk mind and my neck simultaneously turned my head towards Randall.  And of course Randall then looked at me.  Yes, you guessed it.  I winked at Randall!  AAAhhhh!!!!  My James Bond, man wink not only wasted but used on a DUDE!  James Bond never winked at a dude! 

Now remember that Mrs. Knepp was looking at me as well.  I turn back to look at her and that is when I see the shocked, perplexed look on her face.  She is unable to finish the sentence she was in the middle of.  Then that minor tactical error turns into a young high school boy’s worst nightmare.   I turn back to look at Randall again, his arm outstretched and his finger pointing at me as he fills the silence with “Hey, he winked at me!”  Randall went from chum to chump in about 1.2 seconds.  All of my adrenaline now focused on a new mission called “panic”.  Will it be fight or flight?  But I have no words for Randall’s accusation.  I look back at Mrs. Knepp and clearly she doesn’t either.  We are both speechless.  There is nothing but silence and Randall’s words hanging in the air, unanswered.  I am frozen in my chair.  Unable to deny or escape what just happened.  My James Bond moment of glory has turned into a free fall plummet into the abyss.   

The memory of everything that happened up to that point is crystal clear.  Everything after that is a blur.   No, it’s not a blur, it is black.  Nothing.  I have no memory of anything after that.  I can only imagine that the beautiful Mrs. Knepp eventually gained her composure and continued on with the lecture.  And I must have recovered; because I went on to have a socially successful high school career.  Although, I am just now realizing that this event may explain my love/hate relationship with commas.  Yes, that must be it.  The trauma of that day in English class created in me a permanent comma dysfunction.  What the hell kind of name is Randall anyway?