One of many
Embarrasing moments, but probably the most cringeworthy. I was 17, and working in a local decorating shop. Now I was spectacularly shy at that age, and I always seemed to get tongue tied around women. not women I fancied or girls my own age, but all women, with the possible exception of coffin dodgers.

This particular day I had been left on my own in the afternoon, and due to it not being busy, I buried myself in a copy of the local evening paper to pass the time. Iwas reading the story of a local man who had stabbed his wife to death and must have been engrossed because I was only dimly aware that a customer had walked into the shop and was browsing the paint aisle.

As was the custom, I would immediately ask them if they needed assistance. The trouble, on this occasion, was that I still had the story from the paper clearly in my head, and once I saw the customer was a youngish woman, the combination of shyness and an inability to shake the story led to the following line from me..

"good afternoon, can I hurt you at all?"

She stood there looking at me for what felt like a lunar year before laughing and saying that she was ok thanks. I was probably giving off the same heat from my face as that Olympic torch by this point and simply walked back to the counter to see if It were possible to physically tear out my own tongue. She left the shop without saying another word.
(Ovon Bort Wondering why he chose this username, since 1999, Thu 16 Aug 2012, 20:42, Reply)