It is better to be thought a fool than to open your mouth and say, "Hi, I'm Emily."

I've had my cranky pants off and on intermittently this week. To be clear, cranky pants are imaginary, and I haven't been randomly taking my pants on and off. In light of that tense, my shoulders-are-around-my-ears, feeling I've been rocking this week, I decided, after Smitty pointed out to me something stupid I said, to share with you the truly stupid actions and comments that have highlighted my 33 years....

1. When I was about 16, we had one of those stay-over parties no 16 year-old has any business having, and the next morning, we set about making breakfast. My gentleman caller at the time, Jon, who I am still friends with to this day (we're both happily married; don't judge me), asked me how many eggs I wanted in my omelet. I didn't care for eggs at the time and said, "Ew, just make mine without eggs," to which I was rewarded with mocking and ridicule that lasted about three years. Here's my justification: I had never had an omelet, my mother didn't make omelets, I knew that they existed as a food, but I thought they were made with butter and bread and maybe flour. I had never really thought about it before, and thus, was the butt of many, many jokes.

2. Again, when I was 16, actually, no, I was 15, I went to high school in New Hope, MS, which was about 45 minutes from Macon where we lived. My mother was the guidance counselor and made me change schools when she thought that the private school in Macon had "bad influences." In retrospect, that's pretty funny, because I came into contact at New Hope with some fairly shady characters, there were gang fights in our common area, and they had the highest rate of teen pregnancy in the state. I digress. So, all my actual friends lived 45 minutes away. I had a '87 Oldsmobile Firenza (which a. is NOT a Mexican car, and b. they don't make anymore), which I used to "go riding" in Macon every weekend at 6 p.m., and would drive to New Hope, hang out with my unbelievably trashy boyfriend (only dated 3 weeks), and then drive home by curfew. That particular night, my friend Jessica convinced me to drive back to New Hope at midnight to hang out with my trashy boyfriend and her and his older brother, who she was dating, although I used the term loosely.

I did, in fact, do that. I put Emily-size pillows in the bed in case my dad checked on me, climbed out the window and down the tree and set off for New Hope. I stayed there until about 3 a.m., drove back and assumed I could climb back in the window, no muss, no fuss. Well, I left the window cracked about 3 inches so I could get back in. It was about 20 degrees that night. So, when my dad checked on me, God bless him, he did that, he felt a brisk draft wafting in from the window. Then, he cracked my devious plan by pushing on the pillows and discovering I wasn't there. So, when I rolled in at 4 a.m., the window was closed. I didn't immediately panic, thinking, "well, maybe he just closed the window and didn't know I was gone. I'll just use my  key, and they'll be none the wiser." HA. I opened the door, and he was lying in wait behind the refrigerator.

He asked me if I had a nice time, and I said "It was okay, I think I'm gonna break up with Shane," because I am THAT stupid, and then he gave me a 5-minute lecture about irresponsibility and what if something had happened to me, etc...then, he told me to go to bed...at 5. Then, I was awakened for church at 8 and threatened with what I'm sure they're not allowed to threaten you with anymore if I didn't get up and go to church. I was grounded for a month, which, in teenager time, is really, really long.

3. You'd think I used up all of my "stupid" in high school. You would be dead wrong. I actually hadn't even planned to tell this story, but it just occurred to me. When I lived in Huntsville, all of us went to Crossroads, which is still in the top 5 of coolest places ever...and I had too much to drink. A guy who worked at a restaurant in downtown Huntsville offered to drive me home, with my caveat that his friends that I knew would follow us. Apparently, there was a serious breakdown in communication, because they did not follow us. And when we got about a half mile from my apartment, Mr. Designated Driver got grabby. I told him to stop, and I told him to pull over and he wouldn't.

I made him pull over at a gas station under the guise I had to pee, and when I ran inside to call a friend of mine, author of http://amyblam.com/, he totally stole my car. I had the clerk call the police, who came and interviewed me as I described, "I dunno, he was a really gross guy who was sweaty, and I had no interest in him whatsoever." They found my car that night when he was arrested for DUI. A wonderful designated driver, eh? He also had thrown up several times in the car, and when I went to get it out of the impound lot, I had to have my dad, the registered owner, fax over a notarized statement to release the car to me. Then, I had at least 4 calls from a Huntsville detective who really wanted me to press charges for sexual assault. I declined, even though I would've been within my right, just because I handled it, he didn't really do anything, and they're not usually so nice to the female victims in court..

Wow, I haven't even scratched the surface of recently putting plastic lids on dishes and causing a fire in the oven or falling in a hole in the yard and tearing a ligament in my foot or burning my tongue every other effing day because I can't wait for stuff to cool, or when I lived in Philadelphia, I leapt into my bed, only to bounce off the bed and slam myself into the radiator, which caused bruises that looked like I was dating Ike Turner..I guess I'll save those for later.