Last Thursday was my school’s senior awards night. About a third of my class was there, with their parents, to accept awards.

I chose to wear a skirt and a dressy shirt, but on the way out the door, my mom said, “Elizabeth, go put on a necklace.” I did, and it became my downfall.

I was called on stage after winning the award in the name of the man who founded the English Department. I went to gave our Director of English a hug, when my necklace latched on to a sequin on her sweater. We were stuck.

For about 30 seconds, we flailed our arms helplessly, but we couldn’t get at angle to unhook it. I heard out assistant principal in the background saying, “Oh! I saw this on Seinfeld once!”

After what felt like an eternity, two of the 30 other people on stage got up to help us. The assistant superintendant tried to yank it, but it wouldn’t come off. Finally, the principal just had to break my necklace. I descended the stairs to the loudest applause of the night.

The funny part is, I wasn’t even embarrassed. I was standing on stage saying, “This type of stuff always happens to me.”

It’s true; I have some sort of magnetic attraction to embarrassing moments. The next morning, a friend said, “Liz, at this point we don’t even notice it. We kind of expect it from you.”

He was alluding to the time I was emceeing a poetry read, tripped on a wire and had a large light fixture fall on top of me, all in front of a hundred people. If that wasn’t bad enough, the whole ordeal ended up on YouTube.

The good news is, like I said, I no longer embarrass easily. And, more importantly, I can laugh at myself. I probably told the story about getting stuck 15 times on Friday, all the while laughing hysterically. After all, it’s classic Elizabeth.

It’s probably one of my best characteristics, my ability to laugh at myself. And I owe it all to my attraction to embarrassing moments.

So what about you? Any embarrassing moments? More importantly, what did you take away from them, anything?