Embarrassing Moment

     It was sixth grade, my first year in middle school and the beginning paths of adolescence were approaching.   The date was September 6, at 8:15 in the morning when I spotted a classmate of mine named Joshua.  Joshua was a lot taller than I was and I guess you could call him “cute.”    I didn’t see my usual friends this morning.  I didn’t have anyone to talk to and Joshua didn’t have anyone to talk to, so I decided to bite the bullet and say a friendly hello.  I then leisurely without any haste of course, walked over to him and said, “Hello Joshua.”  He gave me a blank stare and had the look of “What do you want?”  I of course, was not much of a chatterbox like the other girls in my class were, therefore we had a two second conversation and he walked away.  Things got very interesting after this first encounter though.

    
     When I had my next class, I thought Joshua was giving me the look of “love.”  I wasn’t interested in mushy, gushy stuff, not now of course, not this early in life.  So, I just politely smiled back.  After I smiled back, he slid a picture of himself with a note on the back across my desk.  It was an awkward exchange.  The teacher was discussing the middle ages and the next thing I know, a love picture comes my way.  I thought to myself “thank you for your interest, but I really need to pay attention to this boring history lesson.”  He seemed to understand my quiet response.  Anyway, I knew we had plenty of other opportunities to talk.    

     The next day at PE class, the coach decided to play soccer.  When the coach announced the teams, he put Joshua and me on the opposite teams.  This was great, just great.  I of course was not very athletic at the time, although, I gradually got better as the year progressed. During the game, I was playing defense and Joshua was a mid-fielder trying to make a goal.   I naturally blocked his goal without even thinking.  I guess he was happy to see me but not too happy because he missed the goal.  Then after forty-five minutes of PE class, we had lunch. 

     Lunch was a turning point in my relationship with Joshua.  I sat next to him at the cafeteria lunch table.  He didn’t say much but he gave me a big smile.  I was innocently eating my turkey sandwich and grapes when I noticed Joshua was having problems opening his Go-Gurt.  Go-Gurt is yogurt that is in a plastic push up tube.   Since Joshua was struggling with opening the tube, I offered to open it for him. Boy was that a mistake!  When opening it, I didn’t realize that the yogurt was pushed all the way to the top ready to burst out. 

     I gave the Go-Gurt a hard push and it wildly squirted all over Joshua’s head, face, and the cafeteria ceiling.  Everyone just stared at me and the girl sitting next to me said in a nasty tone, “Really Lydia?”  Joshua just sat there with pink strawberry yogurt dripping down his forehead and chin.  First the lunch table in my grade started laughing then the entire cafeteria started laughing.  I could feel my face turning bright red and my voice was totally frozen.  Joshua took it pretty well though.  He said, “It’s okay Lydia, it’s just Go-Gurt, a little sugar and milk won’t hurt me, just think of it as hair gel.  And I needed a bath anyways.”  He was a real trooper about the situation.  Once I was able to think again, I got up and went to the kitchen and grabbed lots of paper towels.  I offered to help clean him up but Joshua declined this offer and said he could do it himself.  For the rest of the lunch period, I was dead silent.  I felt like this was the most embarrassing moment of my life. 

     Joshua left my school in seventh grade and I kind of missed him.  A few of my friends remembered this lunch period and would tease me about it from time to time.  Now that I am older, I know that embarrassing moments are only temporary and they will eventually pass.   When faced with an embarrassing situation, I sometimes get through it by thinking of Joshua and the Go-Gurt moment.