We recently asked members of the BuzzFeed Community to tell us about the most embarrassing thing that's ever happened to them at the mall. Here are some of their responses!
1. This case of mistaken identity:
"I was in a fancy underwear shop and found a disgusting lime green negligee. I began stroking my friend's arm and was like "hey hey hey hey hey.....let's wear this to the club." I didn't realise she had gone to look at something else, I looked up and I was stroking an old lady and my friend was looking at me like I was crazy."
2. This shocking discovery:
"I was out shopping with my boyfriend at the time and we had sex the night before and couldn’t find the condom. While I was trying on clothes, I feel something straight in my yoni. I reached in there and I pulled out the fucking condom. I came out and said I found the condom. We left immediately and got a plan B."
3. This error of judgement:
"When I was little my dad asked me to go with him to the bookstore inside the mall. I tagged along for quite some time until i realised that I felt tired. Without thinking much I proceeded to put my butt inside one of the shelves for like a quick rest, but broke the whole shelf in the process."
4. This vivid visual image:
"When I was little, I leaned in too far over a fountain and fell in. I also had on an extremely puffy winter coat, so I looked like the Michelin man when they pulled me out."
5. This easily-solvable fiasco:
"When I was like 13 I was going down the escalators with all my friends and my shoelace got stuck in the escalator so naturally I started hysterically screaming and crying thinking I was going to get sucked under. The whole damn place was staring whist I was frantically trying to pull my lace from certain death. It didn't occur to me to just take my shoe off until a security guard came over with scissors and suggested just that."
6. This not-very-good friend:
"My former friend and I were trying on clothes at a new store. Since the shop’s dressing rooms were pretty crowded, we decided to share one. She was secretly on her period, and tried on a pair of jeans, creating a massive blood stain. She then hid it from me and left, saying she had a ‘family emergency’. A few minutes later, when the salesgirl checked it, she noticed the stain and blamed me for it! I was fined, and the girl only paid me back after I was forced to badger he about it, and even then she had an attitude about it. Needless to say, it was our last shopping trip!"
7. This diaper disaster:
"I started my period for the first time ever while at the mall with my best friend. Went to the women’s bathroom and they had no feminine products! They had diapers though! Next thing you know I’m waddling through the mall, praying no one can tell I’m wearing a diaper!"
8. This unpleasant discovery:
"I used a fitting room in Forever 21 on Black Friday and the place was a mess. On my way out I picked up some of the clothes left over in my room to find a MAXI PAD FULL OF DIARRHEA. I was mortified, but I couldn't not say anything!!! I told the fitting room attendant and I still get anxiety at the thought they think I did that..."
9. This embarrassing accident:
"I went to the mall and the movies for my 12th birthday with just my friend, no parents for the first time. We went to see a movie and I had to pee the entire time but it took me so long to find a bathroom that I peed on myself. I had to wrap my jacket around my hips to hide it. The worst part is that my birthday is in January so when we were outside waiting for my mom to pick us up, I had to pretend like I wasn't freezing my ass off so she wouldn't ask why I didn't just put my coat on."
10. This big ol' burp:
"I was on a mission with a friend to find the perfect formal dress a few years ago. We decided to stop in the food court because food is delicious. Now, soda makes me burp but nothing makes me burp more than cherry cola...which is what I got with my food. We finish eating and we're gathering our things when I let out this HUMONGOUS burp. I'm talking Buddy the Elf level. It was just ten seconds of noise erupting from my body so I couldn't pretend it wasn't me. Everyone was staring at me and I'm pretty sure that the mall itself got quieter. I sat back down, put my head in my hands and started laughing so hard. I didn't move for five minutes and my friend laughed with me. That was fun."
11. This serious stomach bug:
"When I was 16 I was at the mall with a bunch of friends and a crush of mine, looking cute doing my best to be funny and charming and all. We’re walking into Gadzooks and all of a sudden, I feel ILL. It’s like there was a stomach bug light switch. I locked eyes with my crush, who asked, “are you ok? You just went white!” I then proceeded to double over and vomit ALL over the floor. Everywhere. It splattered onto every shoe and pant leg within a four-foot radius, including my crush’s. This was before Uber, and we had taken the bus, which I was far too sick to take home again. I ended up sitting on a bench with my friends, vomiting constantly, waiting for a friend’s mom to come pick me up because mine couldn’t. They were very nice about it, but it didn’t stop the major embarrassment."
12. This period mess:
"I was at the lingerie section at Dillard's, shopping for my first pair of spanx to wear under my prom dress. While trying them on, I unknowingly started my period and leaked all over the spanx. I was mortified and instantly started crying, plus very nervous that I would have to buy this spanx that didn't fit. Thankfully, the attendant that was helping me out was the sweetest person alive, discreetly took them away, and told me not to worry. I ended up buying another pair, but did not go to that Dillard's again for many years!"
13. This toilet tale:
"My middle school was down the road from our local mall so we used to go there right after school. One day I had some heavy books in my bag and decided I didn’t want to carry it around the mall, so I hung it up in a bathroom stall, locked the stall, and crawled out under the door. My plan was to go back and get it when I was done, but somebody reported to security that a door was locked and they evacuated the mall because they thought my backpack was potentially holding an explosive device."
14. This prank gone wrong:
"I had just gotten threaded, both my eyebrows and my upper lip. My face is very sensitive to threading or waxing and will stay red for the rest of the day, sometimes into the next day and right after I get it done sometimes it swells a little. Well I was going to meet my mom in a store when I was done and decided to scare her. She was looking at some clothes and I duck down almost crawling in the row behind hers. I then hear someone say my name and look up to see my middle school crush staring at me. I shot up, brushed myself off and tried playing cool but I just looked like a monster. It was so embarrassing and I didn’t get to scare my mom."
15. This escalator nightmare:
"When I was ten, my glasses broke. Even back then, I was blind without them, so my mom had to take me to replace them immediately. We went to the Pearl Vision at the nearby mall- which was my favourite place at the time. I loved to window shop, and usually my mom was happy to oblige, but this day we were on a mission. We had to go to the eye doctor. Eager to do what I had to do, so I could what I wanted to do, I rushed ahead. I walked up the escalator.
"Everything was fine until I got to the top. Because I couldn't see what I was doing, I missed a step and tripped. Somehow I ended up on my back, and my shorts got caught in the part where the stairs disappear under the floor. Someone, my mom or some bystander, pressed the emergency stop button. Fortunately, aside from a bit of scraping, I was fine. My shorts...not so much. A security guard had to take my mom's statement, and-worse – pictures of the damage for an incident report. Then I had to walk around the rest of our time there with a hole in my black shorts exposing my white underwear."
16. And this flashing incident:
"I was out at the mall with my boyfriend and everything is going great...or so I thought. I was wearing a thin double-layered sundress and uh made the conscious choice to not wear anything under my dress (please don't judge me I know y'all have done it before!). Anyways, I notice people are giving me strange looks but I'm not paying too much mind and continue on my merry way. Keep in mind that my boyfriend is also being totally cool and everything to my knowledge seemed fine. Well long story short, a random girl comes up to us (bless her damn soul) and tells me that my purse has been snagging on my dress and exposing my BARE ASS to the entire mall every so often. ~Sigh~ at least now I know for sure that at no given time is my boyfriend ever checking out my butt."
– Raquel Elaine via Facebook
Note: submissions have been edited for length and/or clarity.