It's strange, because this should be a ridiculously easy question to answer - I mean, it seems like I'm being embarrassed all the time - but I honestly cannot think of that archetypal "most embarrassing moment". There was this one time - I was about ten, attending some Girl Scout camp (humiliating in itself), and there was this other girl, very pretty and blonde and knowledgeable about sex and other grown-up stuff*. I had this huge raging crush on her, so I tried to show her I was mature, too, by swearing and slanging and being coolly dismissive to the counselors. Of course, she saw through the whole thing. Caught me swearing at a fire-ant that had bit me.

"You bastard,"I muttered, probably feeling very grown-up about it.

"Do you even know what that means?" she sneered. (The unspoken "you baby" was pretty clear.)

"Well, yes," I insisted, but it was pretty obvious I didn't, and couldn't look her in the eye for the rest of the encampment.



*Not that it was a good thing, as it turns out. She had been sexually assaulted by one of her friends, a severely disturbed older boy on the run from the police because of another girl he'd raped. She insisted he was "sweet", though, that he "couldn't help himself". It breaks my heart to think of it now, but back then, to the girls of Cabin 12, it was pretty sexy. God help us, I think we thought her devotion to him was romantic.