Embarrassing stories — we all have them. But there’s always that one, the one that still embarrasses us years later, the one that haunts our memories like a recurring fever dream.
The Oak Leaf collected the best of these stories from SRJC students, staff and instructors. Hopefully, you will laugh, find commonality and, maybe, discover that — like a good reality TV show — there’s someone with moment more shocking than yours.
The Oak Leaf praises these courageous souls who have shared their stories and respects their wish to remain anonymous. Therefore, we have given all contributors pseudonyms, except one: me.
I bravely take the first step onto the chopping block — whoever gathers the stories begins by telling their own.
‘La Brea Avenue’ by Michael Bragg
2007 was an amazing year for me. I made my Los Angeles Opera debut and, as fate would have it, I signed a contract to sing in Europe a few weeks after I ended my Southern California performances. It was also the year I took a giant shit in broad daylight, wearing a hot-pink T-shirt and white linen pants, in the Hasidic Jewish section of La Brea Avenue.
Let me give you the details.
Picture it: a lovely Saturday morning in LA in May 2007. I had finished eating breakfast with a fellow cast member and was about to embark on my two-bus transit journey from Korea Town to West Hollywood.
I was familiar with the differences between the weekend and weekday schedule. Because it was such a beautiful day, I was cool with waiting longer than normal for the transfer bus that picked me up on La Brea Avenue, instead of walking and hoping a bus came before I actually made it home.
I boarded the first bus and was feeling fine, bopping along to Dionne Warwick. All of a sudden, a gurgle rumbled through my stomach. You know, the one that says, “Hello, you’d better seek safety and find a bathroom.”
Over the years I’ve learned to listen to my body. Since I was almost to the transfer stop, I figured I’d just hold on and say a little prayer. I left the first bus and waited for as long as I could and then realized I needed to move — quickly — to find someplace I could, pardon my French, dump out.
The white linen pants and bright pink T-shirt factored into my decision to find the closest place to take care of business.
After walking three blocks, I realized that no businesses were open. Most of the people out and about were Hasidic Jews, and it was Saturday, the Sabbath — meaning I was screwed! Crazed with abdominal pain and feeling streams of sweat pouring down my skin, I grew desperate.
Time ran out and before I knew it, I had no choice but to crouch down behind a bush with so little foliage that it looked like a rooted tumbleweed. I then produced what a friend so elegantly referred to as “a river of hot lava,” while looking anywhere but the ground and the shit stream that was forming on it.
The next question was, what to clean myself with? You guessed it: my underwear. So not only was I taking a dump in public, I was also Donald Ducking. Miraculously, I was able to fully get out of my pants and underwear, wipe, discard my underwear and get back into my pants within seconds.
Now I had to exit as swiftly and unseen as possible. Both of these worries, in hindsight, seem moot now, but what can I say — I was still hoping to escape with a shred of dignity. Luckily, I found the perfect time to flee from behind my makeshift toilet and, with my head held high, scurried home.
I shared this story with a friend who worked for the LA Opera and we both had a good laugh. But when I arrived in Germany in July 2007 to perform at the opera house in Hannover and introduced myself to one of the staff members — an American — she looked at me as if she knew me and responded with a question: “La Brea Avenue?”
‘Body Search’ by ‘Joan’
For this “anonymous” pre-nursing student, the subject matter and witnesses were enough to keep her name out of print.
The charge: assault. The victim: the mistress of a now ex-boyfriend. The details of the assault are not important; what’s important is the interaction Joan had with the officers while being booked at the precinct. This was the first and only time the then-29-year-old had had a run-in with law enforcement, and her only guidance on behaving in such a situation was from TV shows.
Joan arrived at the precinct and noticed it was filled with the usual be usual for an episode of “Law & Order” — the local drunk and some women of the night. She remembers the atmosphere was not particularly aggressive — in fact it was “pretty chill.” What sticks out in her mind was that “La Rosa de Guadalupe,” a Mexican soap opera, was on the TV and had most of the room transfixed.
An hour or so went by before a female officer approached Joan and informed her she would be doing a standard body search. The officer then began inspecting Joan’s hair, removing her hair pins in the process. The officer asked her to take off her shoes, then inspected her jean pockets, removing the part of her jeans that could be considered a danger to her or to someone else.
Without giving much thought and with as much “Law & Order” knowledge at the ready, Joan earnestly and proudly proclaimed to the officer and anybody within ear’s reach, “I’m on my period.” The officer stopped, looked at her, and holding back what one could only imagine was a roar of laughter, said behind a very toothy smile, “It’s not that kind of search.”
Joan stood wide-eyed and motionless with embarrassment. After what felt like minutes of silence, she muttered a sheepish, “Oh OK, my bad,” and let the officer finish the search.
Joan was detained for 10 hours. But after inadvertently telling the entire precinct of officers, local night ladies and a handful of Santa Rosa’s finest brown baggers about her monthly visitor, those 10 hours have turned into seven years of re-lived embarrassment.
‘Black Out’ by ‘Fred’
It was during a power outage when this student texted his friend, hoping to hang out and kill some time. However, he was slightly high — having taken a couple of bong hits prior to the outage. He decided he was fine to go and walked down to his local park to meet his friend.
That is when the catastrophe happened.
They were messing around on a bridge by the creek when a group of their other friends walked by and joined them.
At this point Fred was already feeling very floaty and didn’t fully realize it, but he knew he desperately needed to go to the bathroom. He began fidgeting, moving up and down the sides of the bridge until he accidentally slipped off the side, straight into the creek. It wasn’t raging, but the creek water was nasty, and as he stood up he discovered a lizard crawling beside him.
Now, if Fred had been in his right mind, he probably wouldn’t have reacted much to it, but since he wasn’t, he shrieked in terror. It wasn’t his brightest moment. Everyone noticed, which helped sober him up quickly, their laughs drowning out any other thought he had.
At this point, Fred became more aware of how urgently he needed to use the bathroom, so immediately after getting out of the creek, he said his goodbyes and sprinted off. However, he wasn’t fast enough … he was just happy the creek water was a decent enough excuse for why his pants were wet when he got home. After sharing his story, Fred said, “I’m still horrified by this night!”
‘Lay Up’ by ‘Rachel’
This student’s story harkens back to her days at Casa Grande High School where she played guard on the Cougars’ basketball team. A particular game against the Petaluma Trojans is burned into her memory.
It was going to be an exciting game. The Cougars against the Trojans, cross-town high schools whose rivalry dated back to 1974. Enthusiastic fans wearing their team colors of either the Cougars’ blue and gold or the Trojans’ white and purple filled the gymnasium.
As the cougars were down in the first half of the game, tensions arose among players. Toward the end of the first half, one of the Trojans became aggressive — a behavior common for this player, who had a reputation as a shit-talker.
The Trojan grabbed Rachel’s shirt so hard that her bra strap broke, but she wasn’t flustered — bra-strap breakage was an occupational hazard of basketball. She quickly took the opportunity to throw back some shit talkin’ and suggested maybe the player was interested in her.
Of course, this did not go over well with the Trojan, and the rivalry between the Cougars and the Trojans heated up. The gloves were off, and it was every gal for herself.
At the game’s midpoint, the teams were neck-and-neck. Several minutes passed and Rachel went for a layup. What could have been a moment to celebrate quickly turned to dread, horror and disbelief. As she came down from her layup, she felt something strange between her legs.
That strange feeling turned out to be her tampon being pulled out! And if that weren’t bad enough, the person doing the pulling was the bra-strap breaker from earlier.
Seconds later, Rachel had to contend with her freed tampon, the packed gymnasium of onlookers and one overwhelming question: “How do I get myself out of this situation?”
Without skipping a beat she scooped up the tampon, lodged it behind her now-bent knee to give the appearance of an injury and signaled to her coach that she needed to be replaced.
The question this jaw-dropping tale brings to mind: “Did the Trojan know she pulled out your tampon?” Rachel said if the perp knew, she gave no indication, so she was inclined to think it was an accident.
‘Full Moon’ by ‘Rhoda’
In the late ’90s this SRJC faculty member, Rhoda, dressed up for a business meeting in a bougie South Bay town.
The meeting went great. Afterward, she used the restroom and then began walking the three blocks to her car. After two blocks in, she crossed Main Street and passed a construction site.
“Hey Lady,” a man shouted. Rhoda refused to turn around for cat-calling.
“Hey Lady,” he grew louder. Still she didn’t turn.
“Hey Lady!”
She turned around, her middle finger raised.
“Your skirt’s messed up in the back.”
Rhoda whirled around to discover that she had tucked the bottom of her business skirt into the top of her pantyhose and had just mooned three blocks of bougie Saratoga residents and tourists.
‘There’s a Snake in My Classroom’ by ‘Jacque’
It was August 2008. A 22-year-old SRJC faculty member was ready for his first day and year of graduate school. And, Jacque was about to teach his first-ever college class.
He had gone on a few dates with someone in the month prior. On the third date, she invited him over to her apartment.
Yadda yadda yadda.
And like a young person who didn’t think things through, after that night he never reached out to her again.
“She reached out twice, and yes, I left her hanging,” Jacque said. “I was busy, and her house was more than a little gross. There were way too many reptiles — but still, no excuses.
I promise, I’m a better and braver person now!”
So, on that first day of class, he walked into the classroom, trying to act like he knew what he was doing. He greeted students with small talk as they entered. As the class settled into their seats, he noticed a familiar face in the front row.
“It was the person I had dated and ghosted,” Jacque said. “She was enrolled in the first class I was scheduled to teach. And her eyes were locked on me.”
The situation grew even more awkward as the class began opening day get-to-know-you activities. “Do I just say, ‘Hi, how’ve you been?’ Do I ask to speak in private? Do I ask her to drop the course and find another professor?”
So many questions, so few answers. “And if I, the professor, didn’t have the answers, this wasn’t going to be a great start to my potential new career,” Jacque said.
Luckily, he didn’t have to make a decision. Unluckily, she did. She stood up, got the attention of the class, and loudly proclaimed, “This guy stood me up! He stood me up after we had a great date and after I let him meet my snakes! Ssssssssuck it!”
And she slithered out. Everyone laughed awkwardly and looked to their graduate instructor for a response.
After 10 long seconds, Jacque said, “Sssssssso, class, sometimes the universe lets you know it’s time to shed your old skin.” The class laughed. Jacque died. And they all shared awkward stories to start what would be a formative semester.
If Jacque learned anything that day, it was that if someone shows you their 12 snakes, make sure you don’t leave them on “read.” Because they might read you in front of 25 witnesses.
