For Shame

Les Coutumes De Toulouse / Musee

Hello, welcome to The Weekend Gene Pool, where we offer you a bum deal, and you fall for it. The deal, inevitably, involves our offering you tepid entertainment in return for your sending us humiliating personal anecdotes, which we will use as fodder for our collective amusement next week.

For example, here is your tepid entertainment for today, a joke I just now made up all by myself: Did you hear about the new musical interpretation of The Nutcracker, performed by a all-farting band? It’s called the The Toot Suite.

Okay, now we get to your part.

For Today’s FIRST CHALLENGE: Tell us the most embarrassing thing you’ve ever done, and what, if anything, you learned from it. This is the second time in the last two years that I have raised this subject, but the Earth has since made two revolutions around the sun, and your defenses are down, and — in a timely coincidence — this question was actually one I had proposed that the moderators ask Trump and Harris at their debate. It turned out that such a question was unnecessary, since Trump managed to do his most embarrassing thing right there at the lectern.

@independentAfter being quizzed about immigration, Donald Trump went off on a wild tangent, bringing up recently (and debunked) claims that Haitian immigrants in Springfield, Ohio, have been abducting local pets. “In Springfield, they're eating the dogs, the people that came in, they're eating the cats. They're eating they're eating the pets of the people that live there. And this is what's happening in our country,” he said. Springfield police have previously denied that any such reports have been made. When challenged on this by the ABC moderator, Trump responded: “I saw it on television!” #fyp #viral #trump #eatingcats #kamala

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As we all know, this has not gone over well with the general public, or with cynical celebrities. I give you Mr. Hank Azaria, as Chief Wiggum.

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I myself have done many embarrassing things, most notably my somewhat boisterous behavior at a magazine conference in Louisville Kentucky in 1985 after having been upgraded to first class on my flight over from Miami. First-class passengers, at least back then, got unlimited free champagne.

But my favorite embarrassment story isn’t my own. I reported on it. In 2000, I decided to do a column in which I called professional marketing people and offered to write — and publish in The Washington Post — a glowing review about one of their clients’ products if they (the marketing professionals) told me a deeply embarrassing true thing about themselves.

This was the winner:

Alicia Levine, 28, is a PR person for Pan Communications in Andover, Mass. Alicia listened to my pitch, then said she'd think about it. I took that as a no, but she eventually called back, whispering furtively so her co-workers couldn't hear. She spokerealfastlikethis.

"In my sophomore year of college I was on an intramural basketball team, and I was up late the previous night, too much partying, and there were about 100 or 200 people in the stands and as I got out on the court, I had those Velcro pull-off pants? And I pulled them off? And I realized I forgot to put underwear on."

Not so bad, I observed, since she was wearing trunks, right?

Long pause. Very quiet:

"I was buck naked from the waist down."

Wow, I said.

"I got a standing ovation, " she said.

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So that is your challenge. What was your biggest embarrassment and what, if anything, did you learn from it? As always, I will not use your name unless you specifically ask that I do.

Send your embarrassments here:

To get an inspiration for today’s SECOND CHALLENGE, I decided to Google “I once accidentally…” and the dropdown immediately said “… bought a horse.” It was a hilarious clip from the wonderful British improv comedy game show “Would I Lie to You?” So your second challenge is to TRUTHFULLY complete the phrase. What funny or outrageous thing did you once accidentally do?

Also, send these here:

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And finally, our Gene Pool Gene Poll.

Okay, that’s it. See you on Tuesday, when I will explain why Trump is still alive in the presidential race. The explanation will be historical, and involve Nazis.

                                               

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