Most embarrassing moment

How did this become the go-to topic for social functions and conversational lulls? I never know what to recount when I'm asked about mine. And even if I could quickly drudge up the information, why would I want to re-tell such a thing? This is a mystery to me.

One of the reasons I have a hard time answering the dreaded question is that I don't embarrass easily -- haven't for quite awhile. When I was young, and loads more shy, I may have blushed when I inadvertently stepped on a stranger's toes or I might have wilted like a shrinking violet when I crossed the street too soon and a car honked at me. But as one of those unfortunate souls with feet that are magnetically drawn to walls and furniture corners, who also has a propensity for spoiling perfectly good shirts with splashes of coffee and red punch, it becomes exhausting to feel ashamed every time someone sees you goof. Life's too short for that. So I'll save my embarrassment energy until the day I make a (donkey) out of myself on a loud speaker or on some jumbo-tron screen.

In closing, and in the interest of full disclosure, I must confess that if ever there was a prime opportunity for a grown woman to be embarrassed, it might have occurred last night when I put on a pair of roller-blades for the first time in seven years. I all-too-cavalierly took two glides outside our apartment building before I drifted onto grass and promptly fell on my butt. Well, that was fun while it lasted.