In an effort to stop remembering pointless embarassing stories that still make me blush today, I am trying to flush them out of my system and onto this blog. Maybe making them "public" will at least reduce the amount of times per year the haunting images flash through my head.
In my first semester at a new university, I took a Spanish class. My teacher, a hilarious and determined professor who obviously knew his stuff, had decided we were to go over Chapter 3 - clothes and clothing stores.
"Can I try this on?"
"I like this blue shirt. How much is it?"
Etc.
The topic required we clarify the various types of apparel, as well as the usual adjectives used to discuss it: color, size, striped, polka-dotted.
So we learned all the terms, discussed them at length, and then went around the room talking about our clothes, or our neighbor's clothes, our favorite outfit, what have you. Each student was asked a question like, "Jamie, can you describe Jason's outfit?" and then Jamie would say, "Jamie is wearing a flourescent green latex shirt with yellow stripes, and vinyl black pants with high-heeled leather boots." Or something of the sort.
Now I won't be shy and say I wasn't one of the better students in the class. Most days, I was very studious, paid attention, and rescued the teacher during the long lulls when nobody dared answer. For this reason, he usually asked me (and my other Spanish-obsessed classmate) a bit more complicated questions to keep me on my toes. But that particular day, I was sleepy, spaced out, and generally unenthused by the whole clothing chapter.
So when the teacher turned to me and says, "Lee Ann, describe your undergarments," I looked around the room blankly, suddenly forgetting what the word for undergarments was. And everybody was looking at me with a silly little grin. I leaned into the girl next to me and asked her what exactly he was asking for, and she said, "Your underwear, dude."
"You want to know what my underwear looks like?" I said, without thinking. And blushed. Blushed terrifically, in that way that only people who have a chronic blushing problem like myself can understand.
I realized after the fact that I would have saved a lot of face if, upon realization of the vocab word, I had described my underwear as being red leather panties with lace around the edges with a silver bra made of metal, but I instead honestly thought about my skivvies and told the entire class what kind of panties I had on.
The class erupted in laughter, I turned an even darker shade of red, and the worst was that it wasn't over: I still had to describe my bra. Well, black satin, too, I said, just to get out of the spotlight.
I normally don't care about these sorts of things, and had I had my wits about me I oviously wouldn't have described what I was actually wearing. But my general confusion which lead to excessive blushing which in turn lead to uproarious laughter on the part of my compadres made that moment disturbingly memorable.
Why oh why was your teacher asking about your underwear?! Surely thats a little...inappropriate... or maybe i'm just very british.
My favorite thing about foreign language classes is making up lies just for the sake of talking. Our dialogues in high-school French were always amusing, and we had a series of recurring characters, including the very suave Jean-Jacques-Pierre, who was always played by a female in a paper moustache. Did you take French at Huron?
Yeah, Lottie, you're right. Rather inappropriate. But I think he thought that I wouldn't ACTUALLY describe my REAL underwear, you know? Like I'd come up with something goofy. No. That didn't happen.
Srah - yeah, I did take French at Huron. I saw your post about Isabelle and giggled. And I also agree with you - I have only been back to Huron once but damn, that smell was the first thing I noticed, too.
You know what? I was on your blog the same time you were on mine. How 'bout that?