For years, my most embarrassing moment was my first date - as in, my first date with a boy in a car ever. I was trying on two different but very similar shoes when he arrived to pick me up. In my teenage fluster, I left the house with different shoes on my feet. We went to his house and I met his parents and grandmother. They kept looking at me like I was a freak and I didn't know why. Then, as we got back in the car to go to a party, I saw. Oh, I wanted to die. I asked the boy to take me home - "just for a minute!" - but he wouldn't move the car until I told him why. And then he took me home so I could change one of my shoes, but he totally laughed at me. And Erika made sure that everyone at school knew about it on Monday. It was terrible. Terrible, terrible, terrible. That all changed, though, and became a nothing story after THIS though...

I have never been one who is fond of the gym. I'll do it if I have to, but I'd rather be doing just about anything else. Unfortunately, if I don't get enough exercise and eat right, I start to look plump. I don't like looking plump so there you go. The beauty of having two 2-year-olds is that they keep me pretty active (but I'm still going to get a home elliptical machine). ANYWAY. For several years in my twenties, I took dance classes at my local community college instead of paying for a gym membership. Ballet, modern, Afro-Brazilian - I took 'em all. Each class was an hour long, four or five days a week (I usually took two back-to-back) and they were $11/credit. All dance classes were only one credit each, so do the math and you see what a bargain this was. PLUS - and this is a big plus - I was listed as a "dance major." SCORE! It was like living out some alternate world fantasy. Now, I took tons and tons of these classes but I really am not a very flexible person, so you know, I was only so good. Which is to say that I was incredibly mediocre. At best. But I didn't care. I had a lot of heart and I wasn't trying to be the best in class. I just wanted a good workout, which I surely received.

My ballet teacher, though, was not about mediocre. She wanted the best. She demanded the best. She liked me well enough because I tried my hardest to be good and she knew that she didn't have to break it to me that I wasn't a real dance major (and never would be). It was sort of our unspoken understanding. She was incredibly tough and looked a lot like Susan Powter - which is to say, yikes. Nobody messed with her. Her name was Charlotte.

Charlotte let it be known on the very first day of class that the "final" was the big recital at the end of the semester and we were going to start learning our routine after the warm up at the barre. Oh yes - we WOULD be the best dancers up there; and oh yes - we WOULD make her proud; and oh yes - there WOULD be hell to pay if we didn't. This recital was sort of a big deal. Every single dance class in every single genre performed. The audience was all of the other students and any guests they wanted to bring (which meant a lot of parents with video cameras). I didn't sweat the recital, though, because Charlotte and I had our little understanding. The class was divided into five rows and I was in the fourth one back. It was exactly where I wanted to be.

The semester waned on and every class we perfected and added on to our recital piece. Charlotte chose three soloists. She moved those who were getting better and better forward in the rows. Those of us who remained mediocre stayed in the back. Then I had a family emergency of sorts that was taking me out of town and I was going to miss the last three classes before the recital. I asked Charlotte if I could just skip it. She said no, that I had to perform in order to pass the class. I knew the routine at this point, so I wasn't really worried. Charlotte said to just remember who was next to me in my line and to be sure I was in the correct spot when entering the stage and she wasn't worried either. So good. I went out of town.

The day of the recital, I went to school and found my class in the auditorium. It was PACKED. Every seat was taken and it was standing room only in the aisles and along the back of the room. Holy smokes! I started to feel a little nervous. I found the girl who I was to follow onstage and waited until our class was called "on deck." All of a sudden, we went to the side of the stage OPPOSITE what we'd rehearsed for months. I grabbed the girl's arm and asked her what was happening. She said that Charlotte had made some last minute changes at the dress rehearsal and we were entering from the opposite side, starting in the opposite pose (turned toward the right instead of the left), but once we started moving, everything was exactly as it had always been. "Are you SUUUURE that's it?!" Yep. She was sure. Okay. I could handle that. Like I said - I knew the routine. We were called out from the wings to take our places. I followed my girl closely. Wait. What was happening? Where were we? FUUUUUUCCKKKKK!!! Apparently, my girl - whom I was always a little surprised was lumped back with the rest of us very average dancers - had been moved to the front row. And now I was there, too. And I couldn't just slip back four rows. I was stuck. There were seven dancers in the front row now - me in the middle and three on either side. I was having trouble breathing. Everyone struck their opening pose and I mentally gave myself a pep talk, "You can do this. It's 3.5 minutes of dancing. You. Can. Do. This." I was sweating under the stage lights and the music hadn't even started. "Remember - once we start moving, it's the same as it's always been." I could do it. Besides, it was really about one minute of dancing, everyone but the soloists leaving the stage for another 1.5 minutes, and then the full class for the last minute. I planned to slip into the back after the soloists. I only had to make it through one minute of front row center. I felt confident. And man, I was fooling myself something fierce.

The music started and I went toward the right just like we'd always done. Except everyone else came left, so I actually knocked into the girl to my right. I tried to recover and go left, but then everyone was going right, so I knocked into the girl to my left. Yes. That's correct. Two dance moves into the recital and I had taken out two girls. And there was Charlotte, in the front row, breathing fire as the rest of the audience roared - ROARED! - with laughter. I did what I could to finish out the other 56 seconds with some sort of dignity, but it was a total joke. I was so shaken and frazzled that I pretty much forgot the choreography and was just making shit up. I wondered if there was a trap door in the floor through which I could flee. Finally the minute ended and we exited stage right while the soloists soloed. I wasn't about to go back out there - not even in the last row. So when everyone went back out for the last minute, I stayed in the wings. I shoved part of a curtain in my mouth to keep from vomiting. Then the class took a bow and started to exit... the other side of the stage! Because of the way things were set up, the only way for me to get out of the wings, off the stage and out of the auditorium was to go with them. So I ran out after them with my arm extended like all of theirs - but about five feet behind the last dancer. When the audience saw me, they erupted in laughter again. Somehow, I got my bag and left the building before anyone could say anything to me and Charlotte could behead me and take a dump down my neck.

I got in my car and drove home, shaking my head the whole way and saying repeatedly aloud, "Disaster. Complete disaster." I went home and crawled into bed, grateful that neither Dude nor either of my two girlfriends I'd invited had been able to attend. I kept replaying it in my mind and it was like some America's Funniest Home Videos clip that seemed fake. Except that it was so very, very real.

Seriously. My heart is pounding just typing this out.

Needless to say, I didn't take ballet the next semester and told my other dance professors that I was taking the class pass/fail with the understanding that I did not have to perform in the recital. Everyone agreed (they'd all been there to witness the debacle, right?). When I saw Charlotte in the hallway, I hid. It was a full four months before I turned a corner and there she was right in front of me. She smiled at me menacingly and said, "Rachael. Hello."

"Uh, hi, Charlotte. Listen - I'm sorry. I can explain. No, I can't. Yes, I can. Just kill me now and get it over."

"I'm not going to kill you. Hundreds of people saw you make a fool of yourself. I figure you've suffered enough humiliation. I like you. You can take my classes again if you want - just no more recitals. Sign up pass/fail next semester if you want. It's fine." And she walked away.

I did take more classes from Charlotte and I rehearsed for the recital just like everyone else, but I was always a no-show on performance day. I couldn't bear to set foot in that auditorium again.

The only performance that I ever participated in after that was a parade, in full costume, with my Afro-Brazilian dance class. My two girlfriends who had missed the ballet recital were there early to get good seats and had their cameras at the ready. They were sorely disappointed when I followed the routine to a T and didn't have any wardrobe malfunctions or take out any other dancers. How boring. They thought they were there for a show...