location: China

Nobody said I had to limit my embarrassing stories to my early years, I was pretty childish in my early 20′s too. But this one isn’t entirely my fault. My father lived in Shanghai for a few years, and I visited him twice. During the first trip, he and my stepmother were still somewhat fresh to the ways of getting by as a foreigner in The People’s Republic, so we didn’t get around as much as one would on a typical vacation. In fact, we went to a few places more than once, mostly because some places weren’t so great for ex-patriots and I was more than happy with sticking with what worked. Well one thing that did work was this shopping plaza in Pudong (the district on the east side of the Huangpu river) which resembled very much a western mall. We toured the place together early on, and on the day I went out on my own, I decided to stop there. Not really interested in buying overpriced fashions, I wandered to a McDonalds (they’re everywhere there too) and pointed out a meal on a picture menu. After eating, I went right to an arcade that I noticed the first time I was there, but didn’t have time to play. Who has two thumbs and would go half way around the world to play arcade games? I say, “This guy… *waves two thumbs towards myself*.” It would be a relaxing and a good social experiment, not to mention cheap. I cashed in a couple yuan for coins and started playing Time Crisis because it was the most simple and familiar choice. The arcade was virtually empty, however after a few minutes (and because I’d been quite distracted) I was suddenly surrounded by 8-10 chinese kids all watching intently. Who knows why they were so intrigued, could have been because I was foreign, or older, or good at it. After another 10 minutes of playing I really had to use the bathroom so I let myself expire, faking motions to the remaining kids that I was out of coins. Walking away, the crowd dispersed and I began looking for a potential sign for a bathroom. I found a sign with a male figurine on it and swiftly went right in… Ok, I’m a big guy, but still. I barely fit in this stall, and the seat was tiny too. I sat down and swiftly did my business (after getting dealing with the different food it tends to come out quick). I looked around, but there was no toilet paper in the stall and I was still a mess. That’s when I realized the stall walls were primary colors, and everything else in the bathroom was small. I listened carefully to make sure it was empty and slowly waddled out of the stall. This was no doubt a children’s bathroom, and here I am with my pants around my ankles in the middle of it with no usable paper anywhere and no way to defend my predicament if discovered. There was no way I could leave in this condition, and all I could think of was all the stories my dad told me about China’s strict laws and people who get locked up for minor offense. For fear of causing an international incident, I scrambled for a solution. I waddled backwards into the stall and shut the door. I took off my shoes and pants and boxers. I cleaned myself up with my boxers, balled them up, put my pants and shoes back on, washed my hands quickly, and discretely tossed the boxers in a lidded trash bin outside the bathroom. I went immediately back to my father’s apartment. Crisis averted.

I never travelled without boxers again.

location: high school

If you recall there was a hole in the ceiling in our high school’s west cafeteria. Somebody apparently took a large shotput and threw it up into the ceiling such that it rested up in a rafter. Because the cafeteria was so old, it took them days to find a proper replacement panel.

Anyway, that was me.

location: neighbor’s house

I had 4 neighborhood friends when I was growing up. My brother was 8 years older than me, so he didn’t really count. On one side of my house there were two boys and on the other  there were two girls. The boys were fun to play with, mostly because a third person meant they had a new opponent in sports. And their family was pretty exclusive where the girls family was a lot more open… ok they were hicks, but still. So, I spent most of my non athletic based activity with the girls of the other side of my house. We spent most of our time together indoors, in their basement “rec room” which was filled with older couches and toys and all the other accoutrements not fit for a respectable suburban ranch style house. Old clothes, heirlooms, cleaning supplies, and among other things their cat’s litter box. One day the older of the sisters convinced me to join a rollicking game of truth or dare. Having played several of these types of games with them, we know each other so well (or so it seemed) that choosing truth sounded like a cop out. I don’t remember what led up to it, but I was dared to pee in the cat box. Now… I’m not about to psychoanalyze why they wanted me to do such a thing. Could have been a gender thing considering mine sticks out. Could have been a boredom thing, a low brow humor thing, or a pure evil thing… who knows. Well without hesitating, I did it. The giggling was so raucous that their father came downstairs and caught me in the middle of it. Obviously the girls didn’t save me from reprimand with an explanation. He dragged me right out and sent me home. If you’ve ever had to stop peeing mid-stream, it sucks. I didn’t get along with the girls when we got older.

In fact, my fiancé ran into the older sister last year at a party. Upon learning that we were engaged, the older sister (who was drunk) blurted out that story in front of everyone in an effort to embarrass me. Unfortunately most of them already knew me and liked me, and it didn’t work.

location: unknown beach

So, like I’ve said before, I liked the water. One summer my father and uncle Mike were watching me play on the beach. They had a hard time keeping me out of the water, so they dug a hole in the sand and set me deep inside. They buried me up to my head. Of course I was so upset that I couldn’t move, but even more upset that I couldn’t get back to the water. Observing my visible displeasure, my father and uncle sat behind me and called out softly, “Michael… Come back… Come back to the water… The waves are calling you, Michael…” I was really sad.

Oh, and this one is on video somewhere I’m told.

location: home

My older brother used to get bad toothaches as a kid. To remedy this, my father would stick his finger in a shot of scotch and rub it on my brother’s front teeth. So naturally when I was born and started to get a tooth ache my father attempted the same remedy. Apparently this is how my experience went. He poured a shot of scotch, sat me up on his lap, and moved his hands up to my mouth. Instead of letting him rub his finger on my teeth, I grabbed at the glass, picked it up, and tossed all of the scotch down my throat. My mother said I didn’t like it.

Coincidentally, I don’t drink scotch.

Location: pool

I was good at sports. I didn’t look it, but I was. My parents put me in the water when I was a baby and I loved it. I learned how to swim competitively when I was 7, which is about the normal starting age for middle and upper class privately run swim leagues. I tried all 4 strokes, but I liked breaststroke the best. After taking the next couple weeks explaining how act proper at a swim meet and how to swim one whole length of the pool, I was more than ready to race. I sure was nervous… but I stepped up, dove in, and began swimming as hard as I could. If you’re not familiar, breaststroke requires one to lift their head up to breath with every stroke while looking forward. About 3/4 of the way down my lane I looked up to breathe but stopped swimming, I didn’t see anyone else racing against me. I treaded water momentarily and looked around asking, “Where is everyone?”. The rest of the swimmers were half a pool length behind. My coach yelled at me to keep swimming. I finished the race and hopped out. The parents of the other swimmers complained that I should have been disqualified for mocking their kids.

I had no idea.

age: undisclosed

location: undisclosed

So it’s around the summer, and my family is on vacation at my father’s parent’s condo. Most of his extended family is there. I should preface this story with mentioning that they are collectively some of the most successful modernized irish catholic alcoholics I’ve ever met. So on holiday, they party hard and drink well. It was just after dusk and we could see the ocean from outside the balcony. My father approached my on the balcony, holding a half box of sparklers in one hand. He proceeded to light them and watch them all burn at once. Now, I’m not sure if they go too hot in his hand, or if he just wanted to see how it would look against the night sky, but he threw them off the balcony and they landed in the sand below. This immediately sparked a brush fire toward which everyone ran downstairs to put out. My grandmother walked out to the porch and the first thing I could say was, “Anybody have a marshmallow?”

Since nobody but my brother thought to put shoes on, I spent the next day pulling splinters out of everyone’s feet.

Location: home

I was really good at sports when I was a kid. My parents put me into just about anything I even remotely enjoyed. One day I took a golf club outside and tried my hand at golf. I had seen my dad and brother practice chipping in the back yard, so I wanted to give it a try. I set up a ball on a tee (just like I’d seen on TV) right at the edge of our driveway beside our garage. This is where it gets a little cloudy, because I don’t remember if my father was there during the shot, or if he came out right after he heard it. Anyway, I took one swing really hard and the ball went line drive across the back yard. This would be the best time to mention we had a 20′x20′ shed in our back yard. The ball went effortlessly through the plexiglass window of the shed and hit the inside of the rear wall.

Probably the only time nobody got mad at me for breaking something, which in a way made me feel worse. Needless to say I haven’t been able to hit a golf ball that straight since, nor have I really wanted to try.

Location: home

So, my parents planted a long line of flowers along the edge of their vegetable garden in their back yard. Our dog caesar roamed freely in the back yard and likened himself to these lovely flowers. Apparently, one day I was out galavanting around the back yard and I watched the dog lift his leg next to the flowers. Shortly after said observation I felt the need to go myself and comfortably dropped my pants and started peeing on the flowers. My parents, my brother, and neighbors were on our back porch watching this all go down mind you. My mother screamed, “What are you doing?” as I had my arms outstretched and smiled while I urinated on these flowers. I immediately began crying from all the shouting, not knowing what I had done wrong. “Why are you peeing on the flowers!” They shouted. My sobbing response was, “I thought you’re supposed to!”. “What?” replied my perplexed parents. “They’re pee-on-these!” I said. While they couldn’t stop laughing, I stood there half naked for almost 2 minutes waiting for some one to explain to me why it was so funny.

I was a weird kid.