(I started a draft of this blog in 2017, I’ve decided to publish some embarrassing moments and will add more in the future.)
Sometimes I’ll be deep in thought and an embarrassing moment will pop in my head. These are the type of embarrassing moments you would want to forget but somehow your brain has just decided to make millions of copies of such awkward moments so that you NEVER FORGET! I wish I could forget some and every time one of these memories pops into my head, I just want to disappear. It could have been a memory that happened 20 years ago, but it still makes me want to disappear. I guess I think that someone who may witnessed that moment may still remember it and the thought of that embarrasses me. Weird. Sometimes I forget that most people don’t have good memory, but still, that might be a moment that they have never forgotten.
This will be an ongoing blog as I’m sure I will have the guts to write out some of my most embarrassing moments in hopes that they will disappear from my memory banks once they are out. I’m guessing that’s something a therapist would say. lol. Glad I didn’t spend any money for that advice. I write, “My Forrest Gump Moments” because I call myself an idiot looking back at those moments as if I were Forrest Gump. Does that make any sense? Well let’s get to my highlights, shall we?
Turtle Hook Jr. High School – Soccer – Fall 1992
I was a defenseman on the Turtle Hook Jr. High School soccer team. We were a very good team that year. I think we went undefeated? I don’t remember. So we had a couple of preseason games and in one game, we were playing against a pretty good team and every time we scored a goal, the other team would score. It was a very close game and we ended up in overtime. After a 6-6 tie, we scored again. We were up by 1 goal with 2 minutes left in the game. The coach told everyone to do whatever you can do to stall the game. One of the older kids said, “Yeah if you can, kick the ball out of bounds! Hell, kick it into one of the backyards!!!” He kept yelling the same thing. “Kick it into a backyard!!!” I took that advice literally. I somehow ended up with the ball near our goal and turned to someone’s backyard and kicked the ball 50 yards into someone’s backyard. It was blatant and looking back, I felt like that’s not what that kid really meant. I took it literally and I remember after the kick everyone looking at me with shock, like they didn’t think I would actually do that. The opposing team’s coach was furious and the referee called the game. I guess he didn’t care to use a replacement ball since the clock was winding down. My team won and my team cheered. But then everyone kind of looked at me like, “Did you really just you do that?” I shrugged it off and scratched my head because I did exactly what my teammate was yelling about. Some of my team took it in stride and others were like, “He literally kicked the ball into someone’s yard on purpose!” It took some time to think about but I remember thinking, I should have just kicked the ball to the far end of the field. I mean, if I can kick a ball 50 yards, then it shouldn’t have been so blatant to kick the ball out of bounds when I’m standing near the out of bounds line. Oh well. This memory randomly popped into my head recently as I had really forgotten about it until my brain was like, “Look at what I found!!!”
Turtle Hook Jr. High School – Fall 1992
After soccer season ended, I was enjoying this new found freedom of junior high school. In elementary school, you are stuck in the same class, same teacher with the same group of kids all year round. In junior high, I now had new sets of classmates for every period. Granted there would be some kids you would have the same classes with but this was a whole new world for me. There were six elementary schools and two junior high schools in my district. So having kids from two other elementary schools, meant getting to know another part of my town that I hadn’t known about. I enjoyed making new friendships and possibly having my first girlfriend. (I smiled while writing that sentence because I seemed bent on accomplishing that goal.)
It didn’t take me long to develop a crush. I happened to notice a girl name M. She was very pretty with jet black curly hair. I remember looking to see if she had a boyfriend. She was a year older than me and I would scout her locker and sometimes would catch a glimpse of her going to class. I would follow her routine from a distance, just like a creeper, never giving myself away. One day, I remember leaving my last class at the bell and rushed to get on the bus. I guess I did it to be cool and slick. I left early to get out of the homework assignment. That day I noticed that M was one of the first students to leave school. I think it took a few weeks before I approached her but I always felt like this was the time to say something to her. What do I say? What do I do? How do I react to what she says? I had played this simulation in my head for weeks. Sometimes I was determined to say something and my nerves, my anxiety would shoot up. Sometimes she wasn’t there or I chickened out, only to beat myself later for not having the guts to say something. Then one winter afternoon, I decided to say something to her. I remember walking right behind her and I thought about backing out like I had done previous times but this time, I said this is it. My hands started shaking visibly and I remember being startled by that. I asked meekly, “Excuse me.” She didn’t hear me, then I said it again louder and she turned around. I froze and didn’t know what to do. I then said, “What’s your name?” She replied, “M”. I was so nervous that I remember saying, “Oh….ok.” and walked away to my bus. I felt so stupid and was like great, that’s how I’ll be remembered, “The guy who came up to me and asked for me name and walked away. lol”
A few weeks later, I told my friend Tonya about my crush to M. I was embarrassed in making that confession and I remember Tonya laughing at me. I remember feeling the pain of embarrassment again and just decided to forget about that situation. Spring would start and then I would go onto the start of running track and field. While changing for practice one day in the Spring, a kid named James announced in the locker room, “Hey Kerby, you have two girls looking for you in the hallway.” All the guys in the locker room cheered and jeered me. I thought it was a prank as I didn’t know any girl, let alone two girls looking for me. So I asked him if he was playing around. He said he wasn’t, so I got ready and went to the hallway. As soon as I got to the hallway, I saw my friend Tonya, and became annoyed. In that moment, I forgot about the second person. A little annoyed, I said, “What do you want?” until I saw M standing right behind her. Tonya had said that I had blushed. I remember smiling but looking down. I sometimes wonder if it’s the same look my son makes when he’s a little embarrassed. His checks get bright red. So I remember sheepishly saying, hi. She then said, I heard you like me. I said yeah. She said, you’re cute and I would like to go out with you but my parents won’t let me have a boyfriend right now. I remember smiling because it didn’t feel like an immediate rejection. It was a good rejection. I even asked her, “So if you’re parents would let you have a boyfriend, you would go out with me?” She was like, yeah. I felt good but sad at the same time. She would say hello to me from time to time and I always responded back. One day as I was rushing to Science class, a piece of paper kept falling out of my text book and I kept jamming it back. As I got to class, the paper fell out and landed right as I was taking a step and I fell on my ass. Everyone in the hallway started laughing. Getting up in embarrassment, I noticed M. She laughed at me but then winked as she went into class. After that year, her family moved away and I never saw her after that.
Turtle Hook Jr. High School – Soccer – Fall 1993
A year later, I was captain of the soccer team and some of my teammates did not like my style of play. I played hard even in practice but there was one time when I took it too far. Looking back, I should have never done this to my own teammate. The offense was running 2 vs. 1 drills against the defense. I knew what players to take it easy on and which players to play with a higher intensity. I was on defense for this drill and from a distance, I saw a girl I had a crush on. She was with her best friend, who’s younger brother was on the team. I felt the need to showcase my skills as a soccer player. So when the 2 on 1 drill started, I immediately took off and chased the player with the ball. The kid was a year younger and a hell of a lot shorter than me. I didn’t give that poor kid a chance to dribble with the ball 5 yards before I decided to barrel into him and pushing him into the ground. It wasn’t a football tackle but I laid into that kid so hard that he had grass and dirt all over him after he flew in the air and rolled on the ground a couple of times. The kids who didn’t like me immediately jumped up and down and were yelling at the coach to do something. They were all mad at me and was like, “This is fucking practice!!! What the fuck are you doing?!?!?”
They were right. I had no reason to put that kid down like that. It was stupid and for what to impress some girl? When I looked at the sideline, I could see she felt bad for the kid and I tried to shrug it off like it was practice. The coach sided with me but I think that’s because I was one of his favorite players but there was no way I should have knocked that kid down like that. The size advantage alone should have stopped me from doing it but unfortunately, that girl came by and well…it was stupid. Not like Rudy playing his heart out like in the movie Rudy but some idiot like Forrest Gump. FORREST WHAT ARE YOU DOING???? I have always looked back at that memory and it still makes me feel bad. Even after all these years, I regret that and I hope I can make that apology to him. I may get, “Man, that’s no big deal, I forgot about it.” I truly wonder if that’s the case because I still think about that till this day. I hope to make amends one day and when I do, I’ll write and update the blog.
Washington D.C. – April 11, 2013
I decided to skip ahead and give an honorable mention a moment from adult life. I was getting my first paid comedic gig on this date. I was heading to Bethesda, MD to perform at a show at an Irish bar called the Harp and the Fiddle. I was nervous because my name was on the flyer and had no idea what to expect at the show. I started to get my bearings in the comedy world at this time. I got off of work, got dressed, and drove to Union Station. I took the Red Line up to Bethesda. I remember feeling cool and calm heading to the train station. It was a warm day but it wasn’t hot. Once I got on the train, I remember starting to get nervous. I was feeling very tense and was thinking about my routine. I don’t remember if the lady directly across from me got on at a stop after Union Station but she noticed me at some point in the trip. She was an older white lady, who looked like she hit the gym after work and was finally going home.
She asked me if I was okay. I said I was alright and tried to play it cool even though I was sweating profusely. I decided to tell her after a few seconds of silence. I told her that I was going to perform at my first paid comedic gig. She was excited and was like, “Wow you’re a comedian? That’s great! Oh you’ll do fine. You have nothing to be nervous about.” I felt comforted by those words and was expecting her to ask me a question about how I got into it or who I identified with in the comedy world. Instead she didn’t say anything after that. If I had headphones, I would have put it on to focus but I didn’t bring them with me. After another stop, she asked me another question. With a sly smile, she ask, “Well, aren’t you going to tell me a joke?”. I was caught off guard and wasn’t sure what to say. I was caught up in repeating my routine that I didn’t even know if I should try my routine with her or give her one joke. After thinking about it, I was like, okay fine. I started to tell her about my brother’s Facebook post about his cancer. I then dropped the punchline of my joke. It was the one joke that no matter where I said it in the routine, it had gotten laughs 99 percent of the time. The one time it didn’t was in the room I hated the most on U Street. Luckily, a comedian bursted out laughing in the silence of a packed house and took it as a win that night. I guess I was feeling like I was going to get, “Oh that’s funny or that’s good.” Even a flat, “That’s good.” would have been fine. Instead, she got very upset. Her smile disappeared and she looked at me with disdain. She was like, “You shouldn’t joke about cancer! I hope you stop telling that joke. I survived cancer myself and if you keep telling this joke after today, I hope you get hit by a car.” The silence was deafening at that point. I should have walked away but I didn’t. Now I really felt nervous about the show. We sat across from each other in complete silence for a long ride to the next stop. She got off at the next stop and I felt relief for a brief period. I smiled at the fact that I had not expected that reaction but when you’re in comedy, you need to prepare for all types of reactions. At first, I felt like I should have had a quick comeback but then I realized, this was not the place to do such, had it been a show, I would have had to say something back. I went on to perform at the bar show that night. There was a large crowd of people at the bar but one the show started, it dwindled down to a small group. It’s the way of life for a comedian. Get hyped for a big crowd only for it to dwindle to a handful. I performed and it wasn’t great but it wasn’t a bomb either. I got my first $20 for a comedy gig and didn’t feel like it was deserved. I did feel it was deserved for the train ride. lol It was a $20 I always kept in a drawer until one day Jennifer spent it without realizing its significance. If I ever hit the stage again and somehow get paid, I’ll make sure to frame that fucker.
Seeking Balance While Laughing Out Loud 