You hurry down the stairs to get to your class after the FSA, then you miss the next step and comically fall face-first onto the stairs below you, flailing your arms. Your friends laugh and walk away, oh well, you never liked them anyways. You notice that blood is now pouring from your slit chin, you are falling in and out of consciousness as a crowd gathers around you. “Oh hey,” you think, “that’s Ms. Christodoulides!” 

From hitting and destroying a light pole in the parking lot with your parents’ car, to watching in almost slow motion as your trombone slides down the length of the stands, landing with a clatter on the track as the rest of the band turns around to stare at you. There are plenty of unusual ways that students and teachers have embarrassed themselves that are certainly worse than submitting a picture of your dog instead of your assignment or calling your geometry teacher the name of your great grandfather’s pet tarantula. (Things I may or may not have done, you’ll never know.)

One thing that everyone who has attended a football game has surely seen, is the parents of senior trombone player Mika Noorlander with their posters of his head and name, and cheers that often rope in the whole band until all the stadium can hear is “Mi-ka! Mi-ka! Mi-ka!” As he tries to hide from the crowd in embarrassment.

Teachers are also prone to these gaffs, with moments such as getting stuck in a chair while pregnant and needing to spend the whole period teaching while sitting, needing to wheel herself around the classroom, getting help the period after from another teacher, to locking them and their whole class out of the classroom.

Something embarrassing all teachers have had to experience is getting recognized outside of school. This can come in many forms, such as being seen at stores or gas stations, or even students finding teachers’ social media, such as theater teacher Jamaal Solomon’s proposal video to his now wife.

As much as you may try, embarrassment always finds a way to sneak up on you and smack you in the face. But luckily, even if you break your jaw on a stair or cause hundreds of dollars of damage in a split second, you aren’t alone.