Week three! We made it. Thanks again for hanging around for this series, today is going to get deep into my past. Also, I’m going to be real with y’all for a minute, I have not seen nearly as many entries from the audience as I’d like to. So quit messing around and send me your stories! The world needs to know about your childhood (and I’m going to run out of topics real quick).
The first two From Toddler to Teen entries focused on my wedding and how Morgan and I planned it. This week, I’m going to let you all in on a story I’ve only ever told one other person.
To save a little New Haven face, I’m not going to use my bully’s real name. We’ll call him Peewee, because that’s demeaning and he deserves it. And I know this goes against my Christian beliefs, but I still hate Peewee. He was a smart kid, everyone liked him (on the surface) and most importantly, he was cool. And before I watered the front of my freshest khakis, I wanted to be just like him. Peewee was the kind of bully that got popular because his insulting jokes were legitimately funny. Terribly rude, but clever. If you were his friend, you were on the laughing side. From a very young age (we went to the same Sunday school) I yearned to be on that side. Not only because of the social standings, but being his friend probably meant I wouldn’t be the butt of his jokes.
Real talk, I was a sensitive kid. Sticks, stones and words could definitely hurt me. In this Seventh Grade Social Studies class, we were assigned a project concerning Ancient Egypt. I can’t recall if I was put in a group with Peewee or if he chose me, but I was one of his partners nonetheless. Again, Peewee was smart and funny. He was the kid in class who made video projects (undeniably the best kinds) and do them justice. It meant the world to me that I was going to star in one of these famous productions (possibly where my planet-sized ego came from).
The plan was to sleepover at Peewee’s house for a weekend and complete the project. Teen Chris wasn’t a huge fan staying at anyone’s house but my own, but I was ready for this one (I wasn’t). Peewee, several other boys and I began filming and let me tell you, it was good. The Oscars really snubbed us that year. With our limited technology, we had several Christopher Nolan-esque shots prepared, like the world-renowned Pharaoh Boxing Match to see who would rule Egypt. My favorite scene consisted of one boy filming, one holding Peewee’s dog’s mouth open and another playing the Godzilla 2000 dvd at the right time to capture a monstrous scream as the Pomeranian knocked over a paper pyramid.
Let me tell you, this was the funniest shit I had ever seen in my entire life. Watching some of these scenes play out, while I was dressed in all khaki as the lead archaeologist, was hysterical. Tragically hysterical actually, as those freshly ironed shorts quickly became a soggy reminder that I would never be a cool kid.
I scanned the room. Did anyone see my shame? Did I need to transfer schools? No. No one in that room to this day knows that I peed my pants that night. I somehow escaped and changed into whatever sleep pants I had brought. I thought I was in the clear. I was wrong.
Archaeologists don’t wear flannel pajamas! I was ridiculed for changing clothes. I would ruin all the shots if I wasn’t in costume! Unfortunately, we were children without changing trailers, so I was out of options. I had to tell them the truth.
Except I didn’t. Instead of facing my fears and peers and explaining what had happened, that they were just too funny to expect me not to wet myself, I bailed. I woke Peewee’s mom up at what had to be well after midnight, and demanded she take me home. I offered no explanation as to why she had to drive a child across town late at night, but I’m thankful that she did. I didn’t tell my own parents when they found me in my room, either.
No one (other than Morgan, whom I told on Sunday) before today knew this whole story. I was so afraid of being made fun of for peeing my pants that I’d rather face the ridicule for being a baby that can’t handle sleepovers.
That day was the day the real Chris Tulley was born. The Chris Tulley who doesn’t give a fuck about being liked by other people. That wouldn’t allow others to be put down. I never cared for Peewee (I have no clue what he has done since high school, maybe he’ll read this) or any cool kids again.
I am someone who values their social standings, but they aren’t decided by what others think of me. I am the captain of my own destiny. In high school, college and still today, I have no interest in other people thinking that I’m cool. I am cool by my own means, dammit. If I like me and other people don’t, that’s not my problem.
Also, because I left early that night, I did’t get a passing grade on the project. Peewee did. It payed to be cool.
Chris Tulley Is V Cool 
This is the best thing ever.
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I want to be president someday, so I have not smoked marijuana. I ate a brownie once. At a party in college. It was kind of indescribable really. I felt like I was floating. It turns out that there wasn’t any marijuana in it, it was just an insanely good brownie.
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I have long referred to this story as my most embarrassing moment. And it happened when I was about 5 or 6 which is completely ridiculous. I am sure more embarrassing things have happened to me since then, but my dad has NEVER let me live this situation down. Of course, at the time, I didn’t see why this was such a big deal. But now that I am older, it is a bit weird. I am a bit apprehensive to share this because, as I said, my dad still brings this story up. But in the spirit of your post and not giving a crap what people think, here it goes.
When I was in K-5, I had one really good friend and I was invited to her house along with another friend for a sleepover. Looking back, K-5 seems awfully young to have my first sleepover. Anyway, my memory of the whole thing is pretty cloudy. Except for one detail. I remember going to bed and sleeping on my friends floor in a sleeping bag when all of a sudden the heavens broke forth and the rain was coming down and the loudest clashes of thunder and brightest flashes of lightening were tormenting my sleep. I tried to be cool and just tough it out. I hated storms growing up and was upset that a storm was ruining my first sleepover experience. Full disclosure, I love them now. The storm was not letting up, so I did the only thing I knew to do. My little 5 year old brain just figured, well this is what I would do at home, so let’s go. I got up, didn’t wake up my friends, and walked into her parents bedroom and CRAWLED INTO BED WITH THEM. I don’t even think I asked. I just made myself comfortable and there I slept for the remainder of the evening.
So yeah. I have not told this story to many people. And when I have there’s always that one super nice person who says, “Oh! You were just a little kid. You didn’t know what else to do.” And then there’s always the mortified few, who like my father, think it is just the most insane thing ever. He still cracks up laughing anytime the story comes up and can’t figure out what possessed me to do what I did.
Here’s to not caring what people think.
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This will be included in my wrap up. Too perfect
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Too good! I guess I’ll share mine. This isn’t necessarily the most embarrassing thing that’s happened to me, but it’s one of my earliest memories of feeling deeply ashamed and wanting to hide what happened.
It was October of 1999, and pretty much every kid in my elementary school was trying to figure out what they wanted to be for Halloween. I was in first grade, and I remembered how fun it was to parade around the school in my costume with the rest of the kindergarteners the year before.
There was an issue though. My parents weren’t into Halloween at all. They actually thought the costume/candy part of Halloween was fun, but on principle, they didn’t like participating in a holiday they saw as celebrating darkness. Life of a pastor’s kid.
Anyways, after much deliberation, my mom told me that I would be allowed to dress up in my costume for school! Of course, she helped me pick something super uplifting from our church costume closet, so I went as… an angel. I had this hugely oversized white tunic with gold on the hem and sleeves, sparkly gold tinsel wings that I strapped over my shoulders, and a gold halo pinned in my hair.
On the morning of Halloween, I got all dressed up and walked to school with some of the older neighbor girls. They thought my costume was cute and told me so! I noticed they weren’t dressed up, but figured that the older grades must not get to do that.
My heart sank into the ground though when I got to the spot where all of the first graders waited outside the school to go in, and I saw that NOT ONE of them was in costume. The girl next to me saw my wardrobe choice and commented, “Didn’t you know that only the kindergarteners were supposed to dress up today?” I was SO embarrassed, and I didn’t know what to do. I looked down at my costume and tried to stay near the back of the line. I put my backpack on over my angel wings to hide them.
When the bell rang and we went inside, I went straight to my teacher and told her what happened, trying not to cry. She asked if I had school clothes on under my huge white gown, but sadly, I was only wearing shorts and a t-shirt on this chilly October day. I ended up taking my halo and wings off and going into class in my giant white gown. This kid John gave me a funny look and asked if it was supposed to be a dress. I told him yes. My mom must have been teaching that day, because she wasn’t able to come bring me a change of clothes, so I stayed in the “dress” all day. I didn’t tell a single person that asked about my outfit what really happened, though I’m sure a lot of them probably knew. I played it off and pretended that everything was normal.
On my way home, when the girls asked about why my halo and wings were off, I made up some story about them being itchy. I think the only person that felt worse than me was my mom. I told her what happened when I got home, and she felt so bad about misreading the parent newsletter.
I’m not embarrassed by this story now – I was a kid, and honestly, my mom made an honest mistake by sending me to school in costume. But it does remind of my natural tendency to hide, to lie, to cover for the things I feel shamed by. To run instead of confront. That M.O. sucks.
Let’s be brave. Let’s be real.
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I was 14 (yes, four-fucking-teen) and walking down a dirt road with my best friend, his crush, and my crush. We were all kicking rocks as awkward 7th graders often do on walks with their crushes. I had known that I needed to drop a deuce for at least a half hour or so. We were probably a quarter of a mile away from arriving at my house when the prairie dogging began. I had this dope pair of silk boxers at the time and was wearing them under my white-washed, ripped up, bootcut jeans.
I was listening to my friend’s crush talk about how her dog bit her and they didn’t have any bandaids so she wrapped a tampon around her arm. I laughed along and then thought innocently to myself, “What’s a tampon? It sounds intimate.” My friend, on the other hand, shamelessly posed the question out loud. The girls laughed and my crush began to explain.
I missed the entire explanation because I was focused on the sizable chunk of crap that had forced its way out of my anus and was now barely caught between the silk and my gooch. Of course within a few steps it fell quickly down to the frayed hemline of my jeans. As I felt it nearing my flip flop I spun around and kicked a rock as hard as I could. The rock and the turd flew down the road, and there was no distinction between the two. Nobody even thought to look twice. I thanked the Lord for a swift BM and then returned to the usual fantasy of a potential first kiss in the tree behind my crush’s house.
To this day, I still don’t know what a tampon is.
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