The Adventures of the Embarrassing Incidents
Being dyspraxic can be really embarrassing. A lack of co-ordination and clumsiness leads to endless scenarios where you want to crawl into a hole and never come out. This week, I thought I'd share some of my most embarrassing moments.
February 2001, Center Parcs Longleat Forest
We were on a family holiday in Center Parcs- my parents, my brother, a family friend and me. Someone had the bright idea of hiring bikes. I was about nine at the time and was just about able to ride a bike around the local housing estate without falling off. What nobody considered was that Center Parcs is not a flat housing estate and has plenty of hills.
Shortly after hiring the bikes, we found ourselves heading up an incline. It wasn't exactly Mount Everest but I was wobbly at the best of times on a bicycle. The incline slowed me down enough to cause the wobbling to be somewhat worse. Inevitably, I wobbled too close to the edge of the road and ending up tipping off my bike. To make matters worse, at the side of the road was a muddy ditch which I went straight into. Everyone laughed and my family and the family friend still joke about it today, which I hate. My bike was quickly returned to the hire shop and a 'tag-a-long' was hired instead- it's essentially the back half of a bike which can be attached to an adult bike. I zoomed through Longleat Forest trailing behind my father and every now and then we'd pass another family with a tag-a-along. Sat on these would be some tiny toddler and I would feel like a giant in comparison.
May 2003, Portsmouth Ferry Terminal
Our French exchange trip, the first time I had been away from my parents for any length of time. Though we were only eleven and most of the responsibility for the trip went to our teachers, we were still called on to manage some minor things. One of these was holding our boarding pass for the ferry. I clutched it for an eternity in the terminal and eventually we got on a bus to board the ferry. It was only as a man at the other end of the bus journey starting looking at our boarding passes that I realised mine was conspicuously absent. I wanted to just keep quiet, as I was my usual policy when I lost something important, but obviously without the pass I couldn't get on the ferry so I was forced to tell a teacher.
The rest of the kids on the trip headed into the ferry and I had to stand with a teacher outside whilst the headteacher got a bus back to the terminal to find the pass. It took an age but eventually the bus returned with the headteacher triumphantly waving a boarding pass above his head. Some sixty other people of the same age had managed not to lose their pass and I'd never felt so singled out and inept as I did then.
September 2003, Secondary School
My first day at 'big school' and it felt enormous. I was used to a junior school housed in one building and you rarely even moved classrooms. Now I had to negotiate some twenty odd buildings and follow a timetable telling me where to go. I headed out of the English block and felt in my new blazer pocket for my timetable. It wasn't there. My heart raced as I felt hopelessly lost and alone. I put all my stuff down on a bench and searched through all the likely places but my timetable was no-where to be seen.
I returned to the English classroom in the hope my timetable was there but it wasn't. By this point everyone else had found their way to their next lesson and there was no-one around. An English teacher spotted me looking distressed and offered assistance. I told her my predicament and that the only thing I knew was that my next lesson was French. She led me out of the English block and there I spotted the bench I'd placed my stuff on- indeed, my PE bag was still sat on said bench so I scooped it up and pretended this mishap was intentional.
Eventually we were in the French corridor and the teacher proceeded to knock on each classroom door and asked the teacher if they were missing a Daniel. Each room was full of students from my new cohort who stared at me, the idiot who hadn't managed to find his way to the correct place. It turned out that my classroom was the last in the corridor and therefore I endured eleven groups of students staring at me in this manner. It was even worse being told that the twelfth was my classroom and having to walk in and find somewhere to sit whilst everyone looked at me. I got out my stuff and opened my pencil case to retrieve my pen and what did I find in said pencil case? My timetable of course. I was at that school for seven years including sixth form yet the very first day is the most memorable because of how distressed I was!
June 2007, a dormitory in Belgium
Another summer and another trip abroad. It was a history trip looking at the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium. None of my friends had ended up going to I found myself staying in a dormitory with several unsavory characters. They were the sort of people that everyone in the year-group didn't like and caused endless headaches for the teachers- indeed, I'm amazed several of them were even allowed to go on the trip.
The toilet to the dormitory had a really fiddly lock and when a call of nature came I did my best to ensure it was locked. So there I was doing what you do on the toilet when the very worst of my peers manages to open the door because I'd failed to lock it correctly. The last thing you want when you are fifteen is to have one of the most horrible students in the year group to walk in on you when you are having a poo. It was horrific.
Summer 2007, the local field
There was a playing field at the end of my street where the local kids would play football and other sports, especially in the summer. Some of my year group had a small plastic ramp which they'd jump over on their bikes. One evening after school there was a knock at the door and several familiar faces demanded my presence to join them in jumping over the ramp. They weren't my friends but for some reason they wanted me to join in. I didn't want to but peer pressure took hold and next thing I knew I was on the field on my bike.
I was fifteen by now and could ride a bike without falling in a ditch, even up a hill. I was not however equipped to do jumps on it. I was assured that it was easy and felt a huge surge of delight when I successfully jumped the ramp. We all took it in turns to jump but disastor struck on my third or fourth attempt. Things went wrong and I went flying over the handlebars, bashing my face on the hard, dry ground. In those days any slight injury to my nose caused a nosebleed so I felt the blood begin to gush down my face. I quickly leapt on my bike and cycled away from the field, leaving a trail of blood like clues in a murder mystery. I didn't let my peers have any chance to criticize me but I could imagine what they thought as I dripped through the housing estate.
March 2012, a primary school in Hampshire
I was now at university, studying to become a primary school teacher and was on my second placement. I can't remember the circumstances but for some reason I was tasked with making up a load of bread rolls in the staff room. I'm still hopeless at cutting rolls now and as often happens, I ended up failing to cut them effectively. It ended up with a tiny portion of the roll at the top, like a little hat rather than roughly equal halves as it should be. One of the teachers saw this and laughed at my ineptitude before I was taken off roll duty. I remember comments about my gender and my mother doing everything for me which I felt was unfair because I knew neither were responsible for my failure, that I was just naturally bad at things. Besides, it was hardly like I'd made the rolls inedible. I'd done what had been asked, just to a particularly low standard!
Summer 2018
One afternoon I headed out for a walk as I so often do. It was a bright, sunny day and I passed plenty of people and even had short conversations with a few because I was in a particularly good mood. It was only when I arrived back home and happened to glance in the mirror that I realised my face had a huge smear of marmite across it from my lunch. It was not something you could fail to notice and every one of the people I'd greeted must have seen it and laughed internally. Not one of them had commented and left me to repeat the same embarrassment time and time again. Whilst it would have been embarrassing if someone had pointed it out, it would have been better than loads of people noticing and decided not to point it out. Note to self: always check how you look after eating anything.
I could have gone on all day but I feel this is a decent curated selection of my embarrassing moments. Thanks for reading!
February 2001, Center Parcs Longleat Forest
We were on a family holiday in Center Parcs- my parents, my brother, a family friend and me. Someone had the bright idea of hiring bikes. I was about nine at the time and was just about able to ride a bike around the local housing estate without falling off. What nobody considered was that Center Parcs is not a flat housing estate and has plenty of hills.
Shortly after hiring the bikes, we found ourselves heading up an incline. It wasn't exactly Mount Everest but I was wobbly at the best of times on a bicycle. The incline slowed me down enough to cause the wobbling to be somewhat worse. Inevitably, I wobbled too close to the edge of the road and ending up tipping off my bike. To make matters worse, at the side of the road was a muddy ditch which I went straight into. Everyone laughed and my family and the family friend still joke about it today, which I hate. My bike was quickly returned to the hire shop and a 'tag-a-long' was hired instead- it's essentially the back half of a bike which can be attached to an adult bike. I zoomed through Longleat Forest trailing behind my father and every now and then we'd pass another family with a tag-a-along. Sat on these would be some tiny toddler and I would feel like a giant in comparison.
May 2003, Portsmouth Ferry Terminal
Our French exchange trip, the first time I had been away from my parents for any length of time. Though we were only eleven and most of the responsibility for the trip went to our teachers, we were still called on to manage some minor things. One of these was holding our boarding pass for the ferry. I clutched it for an eternity in the terminal and eventually we got on a bus to board the ferry. It was only as a man at the other end of the bus journey starting looking at our boarding passes that I realised mine was conspicuously absent. I wanted to just keep quiet, as I was my usual policy when I lost something important, but obviously without the pass I couldn't get on the ferry so I was forced to tell a teacher.
The rest of the kids on the trip headed into the ferry and I had to stand with a teacher outside whilst the headteacher got a bus back to the terminal to find the pass. It took an age but eventually the bus returned with the headteacher triumphantly waving a boarding pass above his head. Some sixty other people of the same age had managed not to lose their pass and I'd never felt so singled out and inept as I did then.
September 2003, Secondary School
My first day at 'big school' and it felt enormous. I was used to a junior school housed in one building and you rarely even moved classrooms. Now I had to negotiate some twenty odd buildings and follow a timetable telling me where to go. I headed out of the English block and felt in my new blazer pocket for my timetable. It wasn't there. My heart raced as I felt hopelessly lost and alone. I put all my stuff down on a bench and searched through all the likely places but my timetable was no-where to be seen.
I returned to the English classroom in the hope my timetable was there but it wasn't. By this point everyone else had found their way to their next lesson and there was no-one around. An English teacher spotted me looking distressed and offered assistance. I told her my predicament and that the only thing I knew was that my next lesson was French. She led me out of the English block and there I spotted the bench I'd placed my stuff on- indeed, my PE bag was still sat on said bench so I scooped it up and pretended this mishap was intentional.
Eventually we were in the French corridor and the teacher proceeded to knock on each classroom door and asked the teacher if they were missing a Daniel. Each room was full of students from my new cohort who stared at me, the idiot who hadn't managed to find his way to the correct place. It turned out that my classroom was the last in the corridor and therefore I endured eleven groups of students staring at me in this manner. It was even worse being told that the twelfth was my classroom and having to walk in and find somewhere to sit whilst everyone looked at me. I got out my stuff and opened my pencil case to retrieve my pen and what did I find in said pencil case? My timetable of course. I was at that school for seven years including sixth form yet the very first day is the most memorable because of how distressed I was!
June 2007, a dormitory in Belgium
Another summer and another trip abroad. It was a history trip looking at the First World War battlefields of France and Belgium. None of my friends had ended up going to I found myself staying in a dormitory with several unsavory characters. They were the sort of people that everyone in the year-group didn't like and caused endless headaches for the teachers- indeed, I'm amazed several of them were even allowed to go on the trip.
The toilet to the dormitory had a really fiddly lock and when a call of nature came I did my best to ensure it was locked. So there I was doing what you do on the toilet when the very worst of my peers manages to open the door because I'd failed to lock it correctly. The last thing you want when you are fifteen is to have one of the most horrible students in the year group to walk in on you when you are having a poo. It was horrific.
Summer 2007, the local field
There was a playing field at the end of my street where the local kids would play football and other sports, especially in the summer. Some of my year group had a small plastic ramp which they'd jump over on their bikes. One evening after school there was a knock at the door and several familiar faces demanded my presence to join them in jumping over the ramp. They weren't my friends but for some reason they wanted me to join in. I didn't want to but peer pressure took hold and next thing I knew I was on the field on my bike.
I was fifteen by now and could ride a bike without falling in a ditch, even up a hill. I was not however equipped to do jumps on it. I was assured that it was easy and felt a huge surge of delight when I successfully jumped the ramp. We all took it in turns to jump but disastor struck on my third or fourth attempt. Things went wrong and I went flying over the handlebars, bashing my face on the hard, dry ground. In those days any slight injury to my nose caused a nosebleed so I felt the blood begin to gush down my face. I quickly leapt on my bike and cycled away from the field, leaving a trail of blood like clues in a murder mystery. I didn't let my peers have any chance to criticize me but I could imagine what they thought as I dripped through the housing estate.
March 2012, a primary school in Hampshire
I was now at university, studying to become a primary school teacher and was on my second placement. I can't remember the circumstances but for some reason I was tasked with making up a load of bread rolls in the staff room. I'm still hopeless at cutting rolls now and as often happens, I ended up failing to cut them effectively. It ended up with a tiny portion of the roll at the top, like a little hat rather than roughly equal halves as it should be. One of the teachers saw this and laughed at my ineptitude before I was taken off roll duty. I remember comments about my gender and my mother doing everything for me which I felt was unfair because I knew neither were responsible for my failure, that I was just naturally bad at things. Besides, it was hardly like I'd made the rolls inedible. I'd done what had been asked, just to a particularly low standard!
Summer 2018
One afternoon I headed out for a walk as I so often do. It was a bright, sunny day and I passed plenty of people and even had short conversations with a few because I was in a particularly good mood. It was only when I arrived back home and happened to glance in the mirror that I realised my face had a huge smear of marmite across it from my lunch. It was not something you could fail to notice and every one of the people I'd greeted must have seen it and laughed internally. Not one of them had commented and left me to repeat the same embarrassment time and time again. Whilst it would have been embarrassing if someone had pointed it out, it would have been better than loads of people noticing and decided not to point it out. Note to self: always check how you look after eating anything.
I could have gone on all day but I feel this is a decent curated selection of my embarrassing moments. Thanks for reading!
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