Talk About Embarrassing! (Mary Strand)
This month at YA Outside the Lines, we're talking about the most embarrassing thing(s) that happened to us as a teen ... and how that helps us write humor in our YA (young adult) novels. When I think about teenage embarrassments, I usually come up short ... except for the two most embarrassing things I can remember. But I also think I don't remember many embarrassing things because, even as a teen, I always used humor to get out of tight (or, say, embarrassing) situations. If everyone sees that YOU'RE laughing, they're far less likely to laugh AT you. The first event was embarrassing by any standard. I was in 7th grade. The Cutest Boy on Earth was in 9th grade. I don't even know (or remember?) his name, but I think we rode the same bus to school. The bell rang for a fire drill, and I was on the third floor, so there was a mad scramble of a zillion kids racing down the stairs to the first floor. I was wearing my pride-and-joy plaid elephant pants with cuffs. (Yes...
