Those Embarrassing Moments...

Embarrassing moments...we all have them. Buried deep in the recesses of our minds are those moments we'd rather forget. Every now and then they pop up and leave us trembling at how incredibly pathetic, nieve or just plain dumb we once were.


Be you a King or a Cabbage we all have them and I'm going to reveal mine for the first time - I sincerely hope you will either post your own most embarrassing moment on your blog or in the comments section below - because with the passing of time, they can be spectacularly funny. I once thought ten thousand years would have to pass before I told anyone mine, but now from a distance of 18 years I can confront it, square up to it - and confess, yes I really did that...


It happened in Perth, Scotland, a city I have never returned to as a consequence lest anyone recognises me. It was 1993, I was a student and President of the Student Union, and in that capacity was attending a seminar followed by a disco at a prestigious hotel. I knew that future statesmen and women, soon to be powerful figures in industry, were all gathered around me, and I wondered what road my own destiny would take. By the end of the evening I would be lucky to be employed by anyone, anywhere, at anytime.


I spent a few hours drinking heavily at the disco with two individuals; one who later became Secretary of State for Scotland and the other is now Editor In Chief of one of Britain's top newspapers. We were all blind drunk and I was out of cigarettes...
"I'm just going to go get a pack of ciggies," I said, and stumbled off down to the foyer of the hotel to ask the receptionist where I might get them.
"To be honest sir we only dispense them from a vending machine and they are expensive. I'd recommend you just cross the road outside and buy them from the fish and chip shop on the other side of the street. They're much cheaper."
In my drunken state I giggled my thanks at her honesty and spun round to the 'Thump, Thump, Thump' of the bass notes from the disco resonating in my ears. This was a night to celebrate, to have fun, to love life and I noticed that others had the same idea. A group of people 'Conga dancing' snaked their way through the foyer and I thought I'd join in. All holding one another by the waist or shoulder and moving quickly - I jumped onto the end and grabbed the shoulders of the elderly woman who brought up the rear of the conga.
"C'mon darlin' get them legs moving - Yeehawww!" I called out above the din of the Disco music. Someone was holding a door open and the conga snaked its way inside another room off the foyer - I danced my way through holding onto the woman at the end. I was gangly, all arms and legs but that's what dancing is all about - letting it all go, and I sure as hell was. As the door closed behind us and the sound of the music quietened, I slowed my pulsating, rhythmic gyrations but still kept moving in a 'dance like' way.  I didn't want to be the one to end the conga.


It was then to my horror, I realised we were in the restaurant section of the hotel and that this was no Conga. It was a long line of blind people who had been leading one another through the foyer and into the restaurant by holding onto one another's shoulders. What kind of idiotic, brain dead fool must I have seemed; standing at the end of a line of blind people waving my arms and legs around? I turned quickly around and pathetically danced my way back out the door - then ran like hell for my room.


In less than fifteen minutes I had checked out and was on a train back to Stirling.