‘What was your most embarrassing moment as a child?’ – 21 events you will be exceedingly pleased didn’t happen to you

It’s hard growing up and trying to learn all the things that make us (allegedly) capable adults, and we’re bound to make some silly mistakes along the way.

But what about the times when we do something so monumentally foolish that it is imprinted on our brains forever, and our families never let us live it down? It appears this happens to plenty of people, as user OkWhile8478 found out after they posted this on the AskUK subreddit:

‘What’s your most embarrassing moment as a child?

‘I decided I needed a haircut so got the scissors out. I was horrified by the results when looking in a mirror. I went to sleep, hoping it would be fixed by the morning. Obviously, it wasn’t. My mum got a psychiatrist to visit and ask me about it. The only solution was to get an extreme shave, which led to various nicknames because kids are a bunch of c**ts.’

Eek. Luckily, lots of other people piled in with similarly mortifying stories of their own…

1.

‘One day in the summer holidays when I was about 9 or 10, I’d woken up and saw my dad on his hands and knees repairing something in the bathroom. Didn’t think much of it, he’s always repairing things. I jokingly slapped his bald spot and asked what he’s doing. He didn’t reply so I went downstairs and asked my mam. Apparently my dad was at work and we had a plumber in.’
–pickindim_kmet

2.

‘Bit the teacher on the first day of school. Genuinely didn’t know that you’d be left alone at school for the day, and thought the teacher was trying to kidnap me. My mum has never let me live that one down.’
–Intelligent-SoupGS88

3.

‘Got a small chair stuck on my head because I was pretending it was a dog kennel so wanted to crawl through the arm. Couldn’t get out so walked up the stairs with the chair on my head to get my mum to help. Got up there and my mother spent a good couple minutes laughing before helping me. I was very upset.’
–Legitimate_Spray_127

4.

‘Getting changed for PE in the classroom with all the other boys and girls and just continued to take my clothes off until I was naked. Went into auto mode and must’ve thought I was at home getting ready for a bath. Never forgotten the embarrassment.’
–wherethefeckarewe

5.

‘Tried my school tie around my penis aged about 7. Pulled the knot too hard so it wouldn’t undo. Had to explain to my mum, then be taken to A&E.’
–cloche_du_fromage

6.

‘My sister was away on her first school residential trip, so my mum decided to treat me by making me a delicious chicken sandwich for lunch, with loads of fillings (we were poor, usually had wafer thin ham, so it was an actual treat).

‘I started feeling quesy around mid afternoon. Unfortunately we had the year 6 science fair after school and Mum wasn’t due to pick me up until 5:30. Ended up shitting myself in the middle of a packed school hall at about 4:30pm. People absolutely knew I’d shit myself. Cried all the way home and refused to go to school for days!’
–crgoodw

7.

‘I farted very loudly in a Brownie meeting and everyone was staring at me.’
–ans-myonul

8.

‘My dad was working away and brought some curries home from Birmingham. They were really nice, but the repercussions were felt the next day in school assembly. I tried desperately to suppress a fart, which only made matters worse as it finally squeaked out and reverberated around the whole hall for what felt like ages. Every fucker in the room turned around and stared at me. It even stopped the headmaster in the middle of his spiel.’
–Puzzled_Caregiver_46

9.

‘I was with my mum and sister in town waiting to cross a road but being a show off decided I could run across and make it to the other side. Turns out I couldn’t. A chap on a bicycle hit me, he went over the handlebars and I wet myself and started crying.

‘I can still feel the shame now some 60 years later because it felt like the entire town saw me do it.’
–MillyMcMophead

10.

‘I was in Y4 (early 90’s) and we were in a ‘terrapin’ classroom, which was a good 5 minute walk from the main school, across the infant playground and then up 2 lots of steps before you got to the school. I’d been feeling dodgy and my parents told me to go to school and deal with it.

‘I ended up having explosive diarrhoea. My teacher came to find out where I was as I couldn’t move out the toilet. As she walked in through the door I heard her heave. She shouted to me, and I said ‘I’m so poorly’. They had to evacuate the whole terrapin and we all had to work in the hall. They told us that the sewers were broken, whilst calling my parents to collect me. My diarrhoea made two whole classes have to leave the classes.’
–frankie_0924

11.

‘Had one of those suction popper toy things from a cereal box. Thought it would be funny to attach to forehead. Had what looked like a perfectly circular love-bite for a week. Said I fell on a toy.’
–DosneyProncess

12.

‘I found, what I thought was Roman coins, in my garden. I excitedly took them to my history teacher who looked into it. He later told me they were from Readers Digest. It still embarrasses me to think of that!’
–Ok-Cash-4257