Me: What are these, anyway? Mums?
Mark: Don’t know. But they’re probably cursed!
I did something that could only be described as unequivocally, sublimely disastrous. It beats the incident of accidentally getting locked in a cemetery at night, giving my friend a black eye with a badminton racket, even the number-2-in-Brooklyn-bridge-traffic-in-the-back-of-a-mini-van fib pales in comparison. And that’s saying a lot.
Like most respectable disasters, it started out simple and got more complected as it progressed. I was on my way home from the post office when an unusual sight caught my eye: an arrangement of 5 candles (unused) and a bouquet of white flowers (fresh, still in wrapping paper) sitting on the ground at an intersection. Whoa, Nelly! I looked around, expecting to see a horse and a carriage at the minimum – maybe even a man in a white tux – but saw nothing. Why on Earth anyone would leave such pretty flowers to die on the sidewalk, was beyond me. I couldn’t imagine one possible situation that could justify such sinister treatment of the flora. The light changed, and I crossed the street with a bundle in my hands.
To my disbelief and elation – I thought I had died and gone to freeloader heaven! – the same arrangement was awaiting me on the other side!!! What glorious luck! I grabbed the other bouquet and skipped home, thinking of the vase to put them in.
Do you sense where this is doing? Mark got home and saw the flowers. When he found out how they were obtained, his facial expression went from ‘normal’ to ‘pure horror’ in about .5 seconds. He told me exactly what they were for: someone had died on that intersection and the flowers were there to honor their memory!
Holy shit. I stole a dead guy’s flowers!!!
To describe my emotional state as ‘ashamed’ would be like calling porcupine a cozy, snugly animal. How could I live to be 27 and not know of such things?! Granted, you rarely see these memorials in the city, but still! And what if someone saw me taking them and recognizes me later on the street?!! Oh, the horror! The guy who had put them there was probably just coming back with a lighter, too. At least I had the decency to leave the candles alone.
I honestly considered taking them back. But the prospect of encountering the livid face of a relative – who, undoubtedly, knew I’d come back and was hiding in the bushes, with a chainsaw – threw a wreck in that plan.
Now I am officially going to hell. How can one top stealing flowers from a dead guy?! You wait, someday I’ll be dead and someone will steal my flowers.
Deerlings: have you ever done something so embarrassing, so mortifying, you could just die? I need your stories to make me feel better!
HAHAHAHAHA!!! i’m sorry, but that’s hilarious! now, it’s not entirely your fault, you know. if they had put a “In Memory of *so and so*” sign up, this wouldn’t have happened! i actually have a silly story that made me certain i was going straight to Hell!
when i was about 15 around this time of year, my brother and a friend and i got the bright idea to go trick-or-treating… except it was well into November! we didn’t care, so we hurried into our fanciest around-the-house costumes and headed out! granted, it was about 8 or 9 o’ clock at night, so you could imagine the curious faces of our neighbors as we banged on their doors looking like circus performers. no one answered their doors, instead they shut the blinds. except for one quite older gentlemen, who had lived in the neighborhood for years. we knocked on his door, and as he opened his face lit up! he was so excited as he went for his candy dish to have all these fancy trick or treaters to give candy to!
well, to our misfortune, the next day as we drove by, there was quite a commotion going on around his home. we decided to stop and ask what was going on. “Well didn’t you hear? my father died last night around 9 of a heart attack”, his sister told us solemnly. around 9?! that’s when we went trick or treating! so, either it was the ghost of the old man, or we were the last to see him before he passed. either way, it’s kind of sad and makes me feel guilty we went out for candy when it wasn’t Halloween!
@Elizbeth: Maybe you gave that old man a little bit of happiness in his last hour. Don’t feel badly!
Oh honey! That is pretty bad. I can just imagine how excited you wee to see those beautiful flowers, and realize that you could have them for yourself! I dont know if my story will help, but it made me feel pretty horrible…….
I used to work at a local video store. All of its’ customerswere regulars, people that came in about twice a week. I was in an exceptionally silly mood, and was dancing around the store with a couple of other employees. We were laughing and having a good time when I heard the most annoying noise in the world. It had been droning on for a little while, squeeking and whistling in a high pitched mixture between a dying bird and a very bad opera singer. It became too much to bear. Who could be using that horrible voice? What annoying teenager was shreiking like an idiot? So I screamed ” Who is making that ridiculously annoying sound?” in my most perturbed and authoritative voice. Everyone looked at me in shock. The silence lasted a few minutes, with poeple occasionally shooting disgusted looks in my direction, and then everyone resumed what they were doing. The sound began again. I looked up. It was one of our less frequent customers. He was deaf. THE SOUND WAS HIS VOICE. HIS VOICE. He was talking. It was his voice. I just melted into the shadows.
Oh nooooo! I have totally, totally been there.
When I was 24, I moved to Taiwan to teach ESL. Of course, you can imagine that the cultural learning curve is pretty damn high but I had done a fair bit of research and was pretty impressed with myself that I knew not to wear entirely white outfits (for funerals only) give a watch/clock as a gift (it means “I’m waiting for you to die”) or eat the grey tofu kebabs (actually congealed duck blood).
Taiwan is a fairly dirty and crowded place, oddly lacking in public rubbish bins. I am militantly anti-litter, so I’d end up with a purse full of trash at the end of every day, rather than tossing it into the street. But as the end of August rolled around, I began to notice more and more red metal rubbish bins now lining the street. I was thrilled that I wouldn’t have to tote around my trash anymore and began blithely tossing all my Doritos bags into these bins.
This went on for at least a week, until a Chinese co-worked witnessed this. She rushed over and blushingly informed me that these ‘rubbish bins’ were actually used to burn ‘ghost money’ as an offering to ancestors, during ‘ghost month’ – August.
I’m guessing that said ancestors weren’t particularly impressed by my used Starbucks cups.
Ok, maybe this will sound even worse, but to be honest….I HATE THOSE MEMORIALS!!!!!
The only time people ever memorialize the spot where someone dies is in car crashes. I think it’s disgustingly morbid! That’s what the GRAVE is for. Go be like normal people and lay the flowers on the GRAVE, not at the damn crash site!!! Ugh. I mean, you don’t leave flowers in the bed of your uncle who died in his sleep. You don’t leave flowers at the construction site where someone was crushed! You go to their grave!
Maybe next time those people will realize that they should put their nice flowers in the cemetery where they belong and not on the side of the road!
You know what, if that man is looking down at the girl who stole his flowers, you made him laugh. :]
Poor thing.
When I was about 13 I was at a birthdayparty and sat on a guys lap(I was soooo in love with him!). Then I started to laugh so hard that I peed my pants and(of course) his pants to. I was soooooo emberrassed at that moment but now I can laugh about it.
I agree with Ashley, if there’s an afterlife, then the man the flowers were for is hugely amused right now!
We have all done things like this. At the time not knowing what we have done and later feeling stupider than stupid. I am sure the dead person doesn’t really mind. Maybe you could take some new and different flowers there for him/her.
I agree with momo. I’m sure the dead guy/gal… wouldn’t really hate you… it was an honest mistake anyone can make. Don’t be too hard on yourself. I’m sure it’ll be fine if you leave some new flowers there and appologize to the ghost. :) Cheer up Deere!
I agree with Caroline in some aspects, its the grave (and their final resting place) that we remember people. We dont remember them at their death site.
However, I do think that the road side memorials also help in some ways. By my house there is an on ramp where a girl my age died, and there are flowers there and it makes me remember to take that corner a bit slower.
I once called a woman ‘sir’… I was so embarrassed!
Oh goodness, that is bad, but if you don’t know then you don’t know. But I bet you will NEVER do that again.
It’s okay. What I’ve done could fill a rather large book!
When I get uncomfortable I
A. Talk about my mom and her pill habit
B. Start speaking in a London accent.
I’m a bit more alarmed at the notion of the number-2-in-Brooklyn-bridge-traffic-in-the-back-of-a-minivan incident, TBQH.
DDD:
even though i was young, my most embarassing moment still makes my stomach lurch. i was three at max and our next door neighbour had just planted a large, gorgeous flower and they were standing there admiring it. i thought if i ran fast enough they wouldn’t see me. so i sprinted and yanked the flower out of the bed and gave it to my mother.
That would be horrible. But you didn’t know, so it’s not your fault. And next time(well, hopefully there wont be a next time) you’ll know.
I think you should get a different arrangement and put it in place of the flowers you took. That way you’re not just bringing back the old ones, you’re putting extra effort.
Don’t worry – my entire life revolves around doing horribly inappropriate things and not realizing it. I’m constantly insulting people, taking things I shouldn’t, and causing problems, and it’s always because I’ve got my head in the clouds.
You know how when babies are born, they make little prints of their hands and feet for the parents? Yeah, when I was six I spilled ice cream all over my cousin’s, and my entire family was furious with me. How was I to know?! You and I will just have to make the best of Hell, I suppose.
Okay, this is just highlarious…and… How were you to know it was a shrine?
Aww, that’s not so bad, although I did chuckle a little at the image of you picking up the flowers and skipping merrily home, hehe.
I used to work at Ikea, in the supervised children play area. A mother with a baby in the cart came up to the window to pick up her other son, so I went and got her paperwork. But I dropped it as I was coming up to the window. As I rose up with the forms, I came face to face with the baby. The poor thing had permanently crossed eyes, and I gasped out loud. Dx I’m still not very found of myself over that one. Luckily, the mom didn’t seem to notice, she was on her cellphone!
I quite agree with everyone else. Drop by and put some new flowers there. It completly wasn’t your fault so don’t make yourself feel guilty over it! =]
As for my own moment, when I was in year 5 it was obviously common for all the girls to go to the bathroom together. One day I saw one of my friends had a small plastic bag and the bottom of her bag and I curiously asked what it was. She wouldn’t tell me and I stubbornly kept asking and asking for the rest of the day *blushes* How clueless I was when I was young xD I obviously later found out during the compulsory ‘girls talk’ at school that it was a pad. I felt so stupid at my persistant questions, hehe.
Oh my! That’s quite a thing to happen to someone :P
Aww don’t feel bad – you didn’t know. That’s a pretty common thing on the NJ highway..I guess it’s not in NY. You should check out an episode of curb your enthusiasm..Larry David purposely steals some flowers from his friend’s mother’s site because he couldn’t get any from a flower shop..it’s really funny. It might make you feel better.
I suffer from constant “foot in mouth” syndrome. I talk so much it was bound to be something that I would suffer from. So I constantly embarass myself.
Anyways if you think that you will have any karmic kick back from the flowers, than just go put some there today. since you honestly didnt know but only found out after then replacing them voids your taking them.
aw!! haha your so unbelieveably naie and adorable love. This story so reminded me of this one show called Curb your enthusiam where the main character (an older sarcastic man) literally picks up flowers off of someone’s grave in hopes to makeup with a woman he hasnt recently pissed off only to find that the woman he is trying to makeup with works with the wife of the deceased who is terribly upset that someone stole the flowers she left on the grave It really hilarious. So dude dont be embarassed learn to laugh at yourself it was an honest mistake no biggie.
I meant to say NAIVE and HAS
Aww, don’t feel too bad about it hun. There are lots of those memorials around where I life and I ways find them to be somewhat in poor taste. Leaving a teddy bears, flowers and candles to rot on a dirty highway on-ramp is not how I would want to be remembered if I died in a car accident. There is one right near where I live. A motorcyclist was actually distracted by it and gt in an accident. The side of the road is NOT a good place for funerary offerings.
I am a girly-girl but I also really like old cars. Just about a week ago I was walking across my college campus when I saw a car that I really like, its called an MGB Midget and its a really cute little old English roadster. I pointed it out to my friends and exclamed loudly, “Look! A Midget, isn’t it SOOOO cute!” Then I realized that a little person was walking just past me, in front of where I was pointing. Everyone around me gave me just the dirtiest look ever. The little person looked stunned and horrified that I was pointing at him and calling him a ‘midget’ as that’s an offensive term to people with dwarfism. I tried to fix things by saying ‘I love that CAR, those CARs are neat…ramble on…” but the damage was done. Because a lot of Americans don’t know about English cars everyone seemed to think I was talking about the little person. I still feel ill when I think about it. *sigh*
aw, well I’ve had many embarassing moments too. They’re just not as note worthy. I don’t know what the person who put the flowers there might be thinking, but it was an honest mistake… You didn’t know any better so I doubt you’d be going to Hell over something like that. lol
It’s OK… Just do what I do: hope no one will remember. xD
This was a couple of months back- I work retail, and one day we were all working. We take turns ordering lunch for everyone. One busy Saturday, I was helping a customer and I saw an asian man standing behind him, looking around. He was holding a box wrapped in one of those smiley face plastic bags. I started loudly asking who had ordered the chinese for lunch and no one seemed to know. My manager was even confused. So when my customer left the register, and this guy stepped up, I realized with horror, that he was carrying books in the bag. Luckily, I don’t think he spoke enough English to realize what I had said. I felt so bad!
I try never to assume after that one.
I do agree that it’s a little weird to leave the on the sidewalk anyway. I’ve seen them on the highway which is bad enough, but the sidewalk??
WOW just WOW!!!!! I can’t believe what I just read! If you were in Tucson you would have been murdered or at least hospitalized! Then again when your from here you’re born knowing what that is seeing as its EVERYWHERE!. But luckily it’s harder to mistake since they’re most often accompanied by a cross and cheesy Jesus candles. the intersection where a kid my brother went to school with was recently hit by a bike is quite elaborate. There’s a giant photo and numerous crosses bouquets, candles and god knows what else. It’s amazing to see how many people die on the streets i drive on.
By the way, sorry if i sound serious and depressing. Just typing my thoughts. Your story actually made me laugh. You make me smile =)
That is so completely ignorant and disrespectful. I would not have had to say this if you had the decency to go back, return them and apologise. You have just cost someone the flowers they bought for a loved one who has passed away. Can you imagine how upset they feel? Jesus Doe I thought you were more mature than that. And if you were *really* that ashamed – you wouldn’t be posting it on here like it is some kind of achievement.
Poor u. But it could hav happened 2 any1. I once was away at a meeting at my work so when I came back 2 my office everyone was working on computers. I sat down at the nearest 1 and logged on only 2 find that 1 of my work mates had been about 2 use the computer and had gone to get head phones. I felt so ashamed of stealing my friends computer/seat!!!!!!!!