Cringe of the Week 5/26

I thought it was pretty bad when I pocket dial randoms while driving and singing Spice Girls numbers, but being taped while acting like a Royal (couldn't resist) douchebag is probably a little bit worse. Fergie Ferg!! How could you be so brainless? Info 4 dosh meetings are only conducted in Klingon or Pig Latin in the basement of Dumbledore's potion lab. Schoolboy error, Duchess!!

First of all. If you are in any way related to the FPR (football, politics, royalty) of England, you are fair game to be set up in extremely awkward situations that are filmed, distributed, and endlessly replayed on the BBC for weeks until Cheryl Cole gets a new hairdo, or Victoria Beckham smiles.

Just look at Sven Goran Eriksson. Svenny! Treasure of all the land! Publicly shamed! Who would have thought that such a mild-mannered sex god would be assaulted by shameless faux-sheikhs???

So Fergz, really, the fact that you have not been caught off-guard doing something embarassing (whiskey-fuelled flirtations with Prince Harry? Table Dancing at Ascot with Liz? Peeing in Albert's closet and blaming it on the dog?) is extremely surprising and you should have been counting your days of dignity as numbered.

Although I do not have direct access to Fergz phone, I should imagine that her BBM correspondence with Queen Liz after the news broke looked exactly like this:

Fergalicious - Yo Liz, dont wanna wake u but there's a bit of a sitch. Do U remember big fab party I went to last week? Well, Willz gave me far 2 many G 'N T's and got bit bladdered. Thought I woz in with this man so took him into priv. room. The Bend N Snap routine wozn't working so I offered him royal info 4 dosh.

QueenLiz4Life - Bollocks. Told u 2 stick 2 bacardi breezers. You r a shit drunk.

If I were Fergz right now, this is what I would do:

1) Ask PA to offer crap apology to press
2) Hide in bed, eat ice cream.
3) Say to myself 'at least I'm not lindsay lohan'
4) Grab a toothpick and try to dig tunnels connecting my house to Harrods.
5) Live in Food Hall until the World Cup starts.

Here is the Video: Please note Red Wine next to Duchess Fergz (essential to all cringe-related incidences)

The Two Waves of Cringe

Who, pray tell, is the knob-end who invented waving? I get that it has some practical purposes (children lost at disney world trying to attract frantic parents attention, dramatic goodbyes at airports when your loved one is slowly walking away, emotional departures when your kid is going to college for the first time and waves goodbye from an overstuffed Subaru)

BUT as far as I'm concerned, since I don't have children and am emotionally stunted, waving is just another social convention created for cringe. Since waving is generally a two-person game, there are therefore two main ways in which this seemingly harmless activity can make even the most saintly maiden blush:

1. The Over Enthusiastic Wave That Was Not Intended For You......

But you wave back anyway.

This is the wave you get when you are at lunch, or perhaps at a crowded venue, and you see someone way off yonder, approaching aggressively. You vaguely know this person, and they are on the cusp of people you can be arsed to say hi to/ people you avoid by quickly averting your glance to your phone. You're debating if you should say hi (if you have already seen them) or you are simply sipping your espresso and minding your own business, when said vaguely recognizable person (friend of a friend? person met while drunk on Saturday? person met while drunk on Sunday?) starts waving like an excitable buffoon. They are SO excited to see you.

Now you have noticed them, the countdown has begun. You are probably feeling a little bit smug and superior because you must have had such a big impact on this person that they clearly have such a burning desire to make contact with you again. Perhaps they have been waiting all week to bump into you, and they are just GUSHING with a week's worth of excitement at the mere PROSPECT of being near your divine, witty, intelligent, unparalleled charisma . Normally, you may have simply ignored the person, but that just seems too cruel. They are still waving with the same vigour. You really cannot ignore it anymore. Obviously, because you are so chic and controlled, you opt not to go for the same wind screen wiper hand motion that Batty Hand Waver McGee has gone for, so instead you opt for a more restrained, yet respectably enthusiastic hand wave.
The other person does not seem to notice at first, so you continue. Maybe your hand motions get a little bit more aggressive and insistent. When said batty hand-waver finally does notice, it is only to give you a look of bafflement followed by a brief look of recognition followed by a sidewards comment to their friend.

No, asshole, they were not waving at you. They were waving at their spouse/best friend/relative/bffffff sitting behind you. You are none of these. Obviously that wave was not intended for you. Get back to your salad and stop bloody waving. Fool.

2. The 'I'm Pretty Sure That's Them, And They'll Get Pissy If I Don't Wave' Wave
But no, it's not them.

It isn't your mother (since when has your mother been 73 and worn fanny packs?). It isn't your best friend (pretty sure she doesn't have acne or a nosehead). It isn't your sister ( she lives 5000 miles away, is only 12, and definitely should not be in New York at a nightclub at 2am).

But for a split second you are sure that it is your relative/friend/boyfriend/family friend and you know that absence of a wave would induce some kind of mildly narky comment via text/facebook chat/ your mother, so you decide to go for some form of hand movement to signal your awareness of their presence, and perhaps also indicate your elation of having so serendipitously bumped into them.

They turn around. Of course it's not them. You were a complete twat for thinking it was them in the first place. Time to start a) pretending you're waving at the person behind them, and continue the waving shenanigan b) stretching c) pretending you're trying to get cell phone service d) drop your hand immediately to your side and saunter off into the shadows.

I propose that, in order to avoid these awkward scenarios, we all adopt the Barack Obama point-and-smile with the John Travolta disco strut. Everyone gets love. Win-win situation.

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Lindsay Lohan: High Priestess of Cringe

I am a strong believer in the idea that everything put on this large mass of compost we call Earth, does indeed have a purpose. Tonsils for example, I think are quite clearly God's way of telling us that we have been working far too hard and deserve to spend a week in bed with a tub of ice cream. Michael Jackson's family, as well, whilst seemingly useless, are a reminder to us all that no matter how totally insane Aunt Maggy may act after a bottle of sherry, she is in no way in the same stratosphere of crazy as the lunatic Jacko clan.

In this train of thought, I recently realized an astonishing thing. By this logic which I have so masterfully been harbouring for years, it must surely also be that Lindsay Lohan has some kind of purpose. But what on earth could that be? It might seem tough at first folks, but I think it is quite evident: Lindsay is the indicator of rock-bottom cringe. It doesn't matter whether you just woke up next to a stranger, just inadvertantly flashed the world as you changed with you curtains open, or just pocket dialled your crush while gushing about them. You will never be as cringe as Lindsay Lohan. Ever.

Why? Because Lindsay's sort of cringe is a kind that is carefully harboured over years of public embarassment. Her cringe knows no limits. She is immune to cringe. She does not even acknowledge cringe. Cringe is as part of her being as the vodka that runs through her veins, the crabs that thrive in her crotch, and the dead animals that cling to her head. Whatever cringe incident you have just endured, Lindsay has probably done five times this week infront of a much larger audience in between outbursts of queefing and drunken recitals of Mean Girls quotations.

In case you needed a reminder, here is a collection of visuals to confirm my thoughts. There are definitely worst shots out there, but I'm sunbathing right now and am beginning to feel drunk after spending five minutes looking at Lindsay Lohan images on Google. Advice: If you want to get wankered for cheap, just create a slideshow of Lindsay images and play them on the TV whilst listening to "La Cucaracha". The room will start spinning in no time.

Vintage Cringe: School Dances

I challenge anyone within the 50 US states above the age of 20 to tell me in good faith with a christian twinkle in their eye that all proms, winter formals, and homecoming dances were not the most cringe events in their delicate teenage existences. Because they're wrong. Or lying. Or now work at JC Penney and start every sentence "hey girl hey"

Coming back to my mother's house, I was reminded of this fact in quite spectacular fashion when I opened up a lesser-used closet to find what can only be described as the most horrific beast of barbie-pink tulle loafed on the floor. For a second I wondered whether Elton John had stopped by and pooped in my closet, but after I worked through my repressed high school memories, I was disgraced to realize that the decaying flamingo explosion was actually my Junior Homecoming dress. Great, thanks for that one Betsey Johnson.

Recalling the horrific memories that I will probably need counseling for at some point, I realized that this sacrilegious mess of psychotic pink rage was by no means the worst part of these evil school-orchestrated 'dances', and in fact the whole evening was created at the sadistic humor of faculty members at the cost of their students dignity. From beginning to end, the whole night is like a continuous chain of cringe:

1. The Date

First of all, if you were awkward, slightly overweight, and rejected tweezers like I did, finding a date was by no means a small feat. It is so easy for parents to judge and giggle over their evening sherry when some acned fool drops by in a 1989 Ford wearing a tuxedo last worn by their father in 1977. Waiting awkwardly in the living room, making strange conversation with your mum as he tries to pretend that his glove compartment is not stocked full of condoms and that he made a bet that he would at least see your daughter's nipple by the end of the evening. Sorry mum, but that was the only one desperate enough to take me out, and the only one who had a car so I wouldn't have to drive myself (I had some dignity, you know).

2. The Dress

My mistake is upstairs in my closet, so if anyone wants to pop around and have a good laugh, the door's always open. If you need anything to fuel your campfire, I'm pretty sure it's as combustible as they get. Equally, if you are planning a terrorist attack, whilst it might be slightly more embarrassing to explain coming through security, I guarantee you it will be easier to get on the plane than a bomb and equally as effective due to the many layers of synthetic fabric of which it is comprised. You could also use it to smuggle Mexicans through the border since it flairs out about six feet. Someone. Please. Take. It.

3. Getting Ready

For guys, I'm guessing this involved jerking off to youporn in order to practice their skills and hone their technique for the evening. For girls, the whole process is comparable to preparing troops for a major assault on enemy combatants. The hair, the nails, the makeup. So much time is devoted for such little results. In fact, I'd argue that the whole process actually negates the whole 'beautifying' idea as one ends up with about five layers of foundation on one's face and about five cans of hairspray in one's hair which leaves one looking more like a drag queen than a prom queen and will actually melt on the dancefloor once one gets one's groove on and starts to sweat profusely. Some element of alcohol is also probably involved, although to go to one of those things again I'm pretty sure I'd get wankered beforehand so props to 16 year old me for at least having some sense of propriety.

4. The Dance

I don't even know where to begin with this one. Poor chaperones. If anyone should have sued me throughout my life, it is the chaperones of these dances for the mental damage my high school inflicted on them. Standing for three hours straight having to watch a throbbing embreyo of sex-deprived buffoons as they misguidedly revealed their mating calls must have been like whipping yourself continuously with barbed wire. Screw 'waterboarding', if the US had been more hardcore, they would have made the Guantanamo prisoners chaperone high school dances one after the other.

5. The After Party

Whilst I was not cool enough to attend after parties for all of the dances I so self-hatingly attended, the one for my Senior Prom involved beer in red cups and involved me suggesting that everyone walked around topless for the remainder of the evening. Which they did. There are pictures.

For the sake of all students out there, I suggest that we end this abhorrent practice and replace it with something far less cringe. Homecoming Karaoke anyone?

Bathroom Cringe

Public bathrooms. One of life's little mysteries. Everyone skips in and out, footloose and fancy free. Everyone looks so normal and chipper, grooving through their day and briefly stopping to relieve their bladders in a communal stall before prancing back to their happy little lives.

Do not be fooled. If my library's bathrooms could talk, I'm pretty sure they'd reveal the ugly truth about these dirty non-flushing sharters. 

Why, fellow toilet users, is it that almost 50% of most bathrooms contain unnessecary deposits of human origin which float creepily like a poisoned dead sea creature? Is it that 80% of all public toilets genuinely don't work and will clog at the mere sight of toilet paper? Or, more likely, is it that these evil little loo abusers, are simply indulging their wanton toilet behavior in a more low key environment. 

What is scary is that, the chances are, one of us knows these bathroom bastards. We may even have shared LUNCH with them, discussed politics, or, god forbid, had DRINKS with them. They could be one of your friends, family members, or love interests. They mix amongst us, revelling in their dirty bathroom ways, laughing at us inside. 'It was ME' they all giggle viciously to themselves 'I am the reason you could not wee in stall #9 this morning'. As you still shove the memory of the strange cluster of unidentified objects lurking in the seven toilet stalls you attempted to use, they smurk cruelly at the toilets they have defaced.

I'm sure they each even have their own trademark. But, luckily for them, no-one would ever be so blatantly self-hating as to ever carry out a full investigation into these vandalizing non-flushers. 

They relish in the thought that what would be considered cringe in private domains, becomes a more acceptable en masse assault as they namelessly slink from bathroom to bathroom rendering toilets the world over unusable.

Laugh on, toilet bastards. One day I have faith that a bathroom cleaner will out the lot of you. Your days are numbered.

The Cringe List: People I Should Not Text While Drunk

If BlackBerry could ever be so kind as to devise an application prohibiting inappropriate drunk texting/emailing/facebooking, I do believe that my dignity would sky rocket. However, since I am inclined to assume that the elimination of alcohol-induced texting is not on their to-do list, I have compiled a list of people I should not text as an attempt at self-regulation (which I will definitely pay no notice to)

1. My Father

Being five hours ahead of me in London, it is understandable that he does not appreciate receiving messages on his morning commute randomly detailing my grandiose life plans, asking him precisely what room he plans to put his impending child ('you shouldn't take mine, it's on the top floor, that baby would just roll right down those stairs like a BOWLING BALL') or detailing the ins and outs of my day ('I helped my boss do some stuff and then I had a PANINI! How GREAT are PANINIS?!')

2. My Ex-Boyfriend

While I am inclined to be less controlled around the Useless Worm of Lies, and often find it amusing to wind him up at any and all points of the day, for Karma's sake it is probably best that I strive to avoid text messages designed solely to piss him off (inquiring into the health of his anorexic girlfriend, mocking his lack of employment or asking him to verify his increasingly dubious sexual orientation)

3. My Professors

It is not normal to ask unnecessary questions regarding the class curriculum after 1am. It will not help my grade.

4. My Boss

It is not kosher to preemptively assume that I will be too hungover to work the next day and imply the possibility of a bout of 12.30am food poisoning as to my reason for probably not being at work the next day. It does not aid my future employment prospects

5. Romantic Interests

Misspelt messages containing bold, aggressive, flirtatious material are not sexy.

.......so basically that just leaves my friends. who are probably at a nightclub behaving inappropriately or texting one of the above people.

My dignity is doomed.

The Four Falls of Cringe

Falling in public is a tale of differing degrees, and no one fall can be described without first considering the many circumstances which can serve to either alleviate or aggravate the fall in question. With all this in mind, I would like to present to you: The Four Falls of Cringe.

1. Falls with Friends

By far the best of all falls. You have company and you're strolling - strutting, in fact, when all of a sudden some awkward pavement gap sends you flying. Your friends gasp, and immediately offer to help. You jump up, and you all laugh at the sheer hilarity of the fall. You recap the events loudly, and all passers-by are merely enamoured by the endearing show of comedy achieved by the group of carefree girls embracing their flaws and demonstrating their unity. It's fine, you can shrug it off, you are so bloody fantastic walking with your equally fantastic companions that if anything, the fall should in fact enhance your shagging powers. You fly high girlfriend, you are above the fall.

2. The 'I'm not drunk' Drunk Fall

So it's 2am. And yeah, you lost count of the number of alcoholic drinks consumed and aren't even considering the bottles of wine drunk with dinner (that happened yesterday - doesn't count). You feel great. You are reveling in new found confidence and are rapidly making new friends. You are a goddess. Sure, you have mispronounced a few words and merged a few sentences together. But really, who needs consonants?

To be quite honest, it's getting rather irritating that so many kill joys have felt the need to question your sobriety. Move on, kind sir, you tell them. You are indeed sober (enough) and they clearly have some puritanical complex you'd rather not involve yourself with. You are a flaneur, strolling easily through the party, loudly proclaiming the lack of alcohol you taste in your mixed drink. When, all of a sudden, tout a coup, some sneaky little object entangles itself with your Alexander Wang heel (spring 2010 - the amazing grey leather studded boots, natch)

Yard sale. Your shit is everywhere. You find yourself on the floor, straddling extremely pointy objects, with everyone around you staring. Conversation has stopped. The air is tense. Some random asshole pipes up "I think someone should take her home". Anger takes hold. With a dash of shame.

You slowly rise like a creature from the deep. Groping objects to aid you in your journey to the upright position. "I'm not drunk guys" you say casually, "it's these shoes look at them, they are just so intense" You die inside. You can't really look around for fear that any ex, potential fling, or frenemy may have just witnessed your dramatic fall from grace. Time to go. Don't even bother saying goodbye to anyone. They'll understand.

3. The Random Solo Street Fall

You are actually sober. Probably. You aren't wearing heels. It's not that late, or that early. You are walking from A to B. Maybe walking in time with your Ipod music. You aren't with anyone, you are dreaming of dinner, thinking about what that asshole Geneiveve said in class today (you are quite frankly appalled by her lack of social etiquette), musing on some recent cat videos you saw on youtube- life is good. You cross the street, the pedestrian light is red but whatever, that car should stop for you anyway- you're in the groove of your ipod stroll, when suddenly, you miscalculate the height of the curb and fall like a plank.

The pavement is hard. The fall was fucking painful. Your Ipod is still running. You are aware that several concerned people have gathered around you but you aren't responding because Arcade Fire is still loudly blaring in your eardrums.You quickly spring up. Smile vaguely at everyone around and march rapidly to whatever corner will hide you first. You die of shame. You can't laugh out loud. You'll just look crazy. Damage control is necessary. Walk on. Don't look around. Didn't happen. Don't stop walking until you get home and above all else, KEEP YOUR FEET PICKED UP WHEN YOU WALK AN DO NOT RE-OFFEND.

4. Models Falling on the Runway

These falls are just funny for everyone. Proof that karma exists, and even the skinny, stupid, and beautiful can be brought back down to earth and thwarted with a good helping of cringe.