Kids, dentists, and fate can be so cruel.

I tripped over a full garbage can today, spilling it and myself all over the place. In that spirit, I submit for your schadenfreude two tales of public humiliation from two of my favorite lady correspondents, Katherine and Janet.

Katherine:

I'm feeling rather crushed this morning.

Walking to the bus-stop, late as usual, hair still wet, listening to the today programme.

There are two infant-school-aged girls jostling behind me, they're being pretty noisy but it's only when I hear one of them say "that girl can't have any ears" that I realise they might be talking to me.

I turn around and take my earphones out and say hello.

"Girl, girl," one of them says. "I really like your hairstyle. It's gay." And they run off.

Janet:

When I was in grade six I went to the orthodontist to have 'magnets' put in my mouth. Lucky for me the magnets had just been developed to go in place of the lovely 'headgear device'. I would have been very unpopular with the headgear device; however, after having these magnets in my mouth for two years, the headgear would have been preferable. The problem with the magnets was that they were fastened together with a bridge type device that spread across the roof of my mouth. The whole insane thing was then cemented into my mouth. It took me two months to learn how to talk properly.

Anyway, I had numerous enemies in my grade six class, one of which was this total bitch, Claire. One morning I had my usual peanut butter sandwich on my way to school. As I walked along I could feel a big glob of peanut butter stuck in the space between the bridge of the magnet device and the roof of my mouth. I ignored it, as dislodging it could create some embarrassing sounds and as I was walking down the street, I was shy about it.

I was late for class so I just ran into my classroom instead of going to the washroom. Our teacher had us get into groups of four, those who sat right around you. Of course, Claire who sat in front of me ended up in my group, and so was a boy that I really liked. We were discussing something and the cute boy made me laugh. That's when the unthinkable happened ... in slow motion, I watched as the huge glob of peanut butter flew out of my mouth, barely scraping the nose of the cute boy and landed splat on Claire's open notebook.

I remember a moment of silence, then screams -- bloodcurdling screams -- not only from Claire (of course) but also from the cute boy. The screams spread from the initial circle of witnesses to the entire class. The teacher started to panic and flick the lights on and off, only causing the brown blob to look more horrific every time the lights went on.

I don't remember anything after that. I may have passed out, or actually died for a few minutes. Horrible.