It’s been a long time since something has really embarrassed me. In fact, the only time where I really felt embarrassed about a situation was back when I was in Grade 4. Let me paint you a picture:

It was the school concert and grade 4N was putting on the fairy tale of Snow White and The Seven Dwarves. My best friends had some of the main roles: Anashya was the Evil Stepmother, Kaveera was Snow White, Siyabonga was the Huntsman and Yasthiel the Prince. I had the honour of co-narrating the play with my saviour Janine.

There we were in our magnificent fairy princess costumes presenting with an air of confidence, smiling, keeping eye contact and pronouncing each word with the precision of a seasoned actress. After all, two months of rehearsals had made sure that we little 10-year-olds were able to dazzle the audience with our proficiency.

Everything was going smoothly and we had reached the point when the dwarves had discovered Snow White lying unconscious on the floor of their little home. Janine narrated her lines explaining the sadness the dwarves felt at discovering Snow White in this condition.  The dwarves then said their lines, making their decision to put her in the glass coffin. I was supposed to start speaking as soon as the dwarves had put Snow White in the coffin but I couldn’t. You see Snow White was wearing a microphone attached to her dress and the dwarves had three microphones between them. So when Dopey muttered to himself, ”Eish, she’s heavy!” as they tried to carry Snow White to the coffin, his comment was picked up by the microphones and the audience heard it. I got the giggles, not realising that the audience would never have known that this was not supposed to happen if I did not start laughing. To make matters worse, Snow White then says “Hey, hey, hey, be careful – my head!!!” and she was supposed to be unconscious! At this point I was in stitches. My cue had come to say my lines and I tried:

“The sad dwarves–hahaha, the sad–hahahaha, the...hahaahahaaha”

I could not for the life of me regain my composure! I just couldn’t stop laughing! It was so embarrassing! Thank God for Janine – as I said, my saviour – she realised I had basically lost it and quickly took over and read my lines. It was my most embarrassing moment ever but luckily it wasn’t that bad. For a while my friends referred to me as Laughing Beauty but it is all long forgotten.
 
Recently, my embarrassment has been limited to the odd slip of the tongue, the “wearing-new-clothes-without-taking-off-the-label” and the disastrous breaking shoe syndrome (I mean SHOE, not heel! All dressed up in my punjabi, pretty jewellery, etc, we went to my cousins house for a prayer. Everyone is dressed “properly” and the front strap of my sandal breaks! I ended up wearing a classy punjabi and boys beach tongs!).

Anyway, you’ll have to admit Snow White and the Seven Laughs is a terrible joke! Till next week...