On the other hand, I did inadvertently stick to the theme, so that’s something.

in awkwarding brings us together, Random Crap

So there’s a chapter in my next book (coming 2021) where I talk about how the most embarrassing moments in our lives are the ones that really bring us all together and I wanted to quote a bunch of tweets that you guys sent me a few years ago when you shared your most mortifying moments but I also wanted to make sure that it was cool to publish so I sent about 100 DM’s to people asking if I could share their story and today when I checked back in almost everyone was like, “Yes, and also it’s kind of awesome that a moment that used to make me cringe so hard is now something I’m so happy to share” and I was like, “YES!  THAT IS THE WHOLE POINT OF THE CHAPTER.”

And it was all really lovely except for one DM I’d sent to this lady where I’d said, “Hey, remember in 2015 when you told me about how you fell so hard in the mall that your tampon shot out?  Can I put that in my next book if I credit you?” and I got a response back from a guy who was like, “WHO ARE YOU AND WHAT IS HAPPENING” and turns out I’d mistyped the twitter name and sent a DM about accidental tampon-launching to a complete stranger.  And it was mortifying for a minute but also a little bit funny and I just want to apologize in advance to the three (and counting) other people I have also misidentified and sent questionable DM’s to about horrifically awkward things that never actually happened to them at all.

Now I’m going to go hide under my desk for awhile.  The usual.

102 thoughts on “On the other hand, I did inadvertently stick to the theme, so that’s something.”

Read comments below or add one.

  2. So many glittery, sparkly thoughts swirling through my head. That was such a fun/cringing/shuddering/smiling/sigh-of-reliefing stalking experience for me!

    Happy happy stuff. I hope one day he realizes he talked tampons with Jenny Lawson.

  4. Oh, oh, oh, I am dying,,,, gasp,,, that is one of the funniest things I have ever read (both the launching and the DM sending
    PS What is a DM?

    (A direct message on twitter. ~ Jenny)

  6. LOL. This blog post is the best thing that has happened to me today. Thanks for sharing!

  7. I imagine that receiving that DM is almost as good as a letter to Hogwarts.

    As sad as I am that my personal humiliation did not make the cut, I laughed at that thread until I couldn’t BREATHE, and I can’t wait for the book to become available! I will happily beta-read.

  13. I remember that thread!!! It was soooo good and funny. I’m gonna go back and see if I can find it now

  22. Oh you need a tampon launching gun/cannon for your next book launch now. Those things are expensive so it would make a topical, generous and feminist statement. Tampons for everyone! Pew pew! You’re welcome.

  23. Something that I remember reading about way back when has stuck with me. When “I Love Lucy” was a top TV show in the 1950s, Lucille Ball offered a (Camel?) cigarette, a competing brand, to one of her show’s sponsors (Lucky Strike cigarettes?). She said that she was truly mortified, as I remember reading it. And I thought, well, if she can do something embarrassing, and then reveal it so publicly, I guess I can live through my own many mortifications which are generally far less widely known!

  27. This should definitely be the ending to that chapter. It fits perfectly 5 years later

  28. I hope he realizes how many people would love to get that DM from you. If it makes you feel any better, the other day at the grocery store the very sweet and proper (we live in England) old lady behind us was chatting with my 3yo and telling her how nice she was to be so good while I was shopping. My three year olds response? To ask this very nice old lady, “Did you know it’s important for blood to stay IN your body?”
    3yo and I both looked at each other awkwardly and slightly horrified. The old lady took a few steps back from my apparent junior serial killer.
    It’s not a tampon but kind of under the same Umbrella? A very disturbing umbrella…

  30. Um, so I had a tampon launching incident once and I didn’t realize that tampon launching was a thing but apparently it is. My tampon launch was waterslide related.

    (OMG, I love you. ~ ~ Jenny)

  31. Omg I’m laughing so hard. This is so something I’d do but more importantly I can’t wait to read this chapter!!!!! I hope the original rocket launching tampon lady says yes 😂😂😂😂😂

  32. My toddler sent random peacock pictures to about a dozen people on pinterest the other day. Of all the things I pin, he picked my colorway inspiration and sent it to 12 people I do not know remotely… not quite the level as tampoons but still weird.

  33. Oh I am at work and SNORTING! Laughing so hard people are staring.This is perfect for today. And every day. I hope the tampon-launch makes it into the book. Life cracks me up.

  36. I completely needed to read this. The depression monster is trying to eat me over the past few days. And now I need to check Amazon to see when the release date is if there is one yet…

  37. So, I’m still stuck on ‘my next book will come out in 2021’.
    I thought it was coming out later this year. Not that it’s not worth waiting for…
    Btw, I am using your first two books as great examples of how to cope with depression at our church’s women’s retreat on Saturday. If I can get to the bookstore I’ll use all three. While I’d love to share the tampon-launching story with the group I think I’ll just provide the link to your website and let them be surprised. (I just realized how I phrased my fourth sentence; hopefully there will not be any depression at the women’s retreat.)

    (Me too but apparently the election sort of fucks up everything and I took too long for it come out in the Spring. I am an impossibly slow writer. ~ Jenny)

  40. This is the first time I have EVER regretted not being on Twitter!!! My life is really just a succession of those moments stitched together 😉!! I love that you’re turning those stories into something magical, Jenny 😊💕

  43. I am going to buy each of your books (I’ll buy the new ones as they are published) and simply read them over and over and over… I’ll put them on a turnstile shelf and they will be my constant companions forever until I die because there is NO OTHER AUTHOR QUITE LIKE YOU.
    I told my sister to read your first book and she said she peed a little while reading the first page. THAT’S how hilarious you are. You make 60-year-old women pee. She, in turn, told all of her friends about you and also the ladies at church!!!
    Heaven help us all! Cannot wait till I have your new book in my hot little hands!

  44. Absolutely fantastic. I would find even misguided DMs from you charming! Even tampon related!

  45. You know if men had to use tampons, tampon launching would be an olympic event. They would spin around like the hammer throw, belly flop in the circle and 3 guys in top hats would run out to measure the distance and angle and leave little flags for the best attempts.

  46. runs off to check DMs on Twitter

    That was such an awesome thread. And this is an awesome epilogue. <3

  50. Oh, my! That would definitely grab my attention and entice me to read your book if I didn’t know who you were and want to read your book. I have a morbid sense of humor though. I can understand why the man was horrified. Then I can imagine it being my son-in-law and then him laughing and telling all his wife and friends after you explained. Thank you for sharing. As you well know, you aren’t the only one that’s done embarrassing things! I’ve been there, done that and couldn’t unshare it.
    {hugs}
    Sandy/Aset/Wynterose

  52. Well, i am sure that Kieran’s response will light up additional thoughts on more Olympic events with tampons! I have laughed so hard, my nose is running along with my eyes….you guys are the best!!

  53. That can happen? Cool. I mean the tampon thing. I’ve had to help dig for one before and didn’t gross me out…strange huh, just glad to be part of the team I guess. Good luck on the book!

  54. Your books have sustained and helped me in ways you cannot imagine. 2021 can’t get here fast enough!!

  56. My entire life is embarrassing moments. Some funny, some sad and some so sick/sad they are funny. Contact me when you start your next book. I even have photos!

  57. I started reading this thinking, “huh, I can’t think of anything cringe worthy enough to make a book of your caliber”. And then read “tampon shooting out” and immediately said, “oh yeah, there was that time I was trail running with 20 strangers and had gone through a waist high river. My pad lost its “stick” and, absorbed with water to its max, fell out onto the ground while I was in full stride. Yep, that was embarrassing. So I’m part of the cool kids club now, right?

  58. Things like this are one of the many reasons I love you.

    And just to make you smile: The time I read Cosmo (because I was young), called my husband home for lunch, then: wrapped myself in saran wrap and a bow, left my bra on the door knob of our apt. (knowing no one’s home mid day); left a trail of clothing to the bedroom, and waited (provocatively)… (you should know this won’t end well from Cosmo on)… only to hear my husband trying to explain to his boss, why someone would leave a bra on our door. It’s VERY hard to unwrap saran wrap by yourself. I was mortified!

    Can’t wait for the new book! ♥

  59. That thread was one the best parts of twitter. I’m so sad I deleted my account now on the off chance I was one of the lucky mortifying yet hilarious tweets 😂. I’ll never forget that vajazzeling article. ❤️

  60. I have never been so sad that I deleted my twitter account 😂 That thread still makes me giggle and was one of the best parts of twitter. I have friends who will never let me forget sending a vajazzeling link to a client. Love this amd can’t wait to read the book!!!!

  62. So first off I absolutely love how this happens when you are oking embarrassing moments, seems rather fitting that it did happen because of course it would. I so can’t wait for your next book trying to be patient but I just absolutely love your books. They not only make me laugh a ridiculous amount but they have helped me so much mentally!!

  63. I have been having a shitty, shitty, SHITTY week (well, six weeks actually, due to injury) and I needed that laugh today. Also..sorry if you tried to send me a DM on Twitter and found out my Twitter account no longer existed. I had to shut it down because I was getting overwhelmed with all the negativity and bullshit.

  64. I am not sure what my most horrifying moment would be. They all seem to be part of life. Maybe getting older has softened my edges and thinned the skin. Then again, I have always been pretty transparent about my faults.

  65. It’s not that I want people to be embarrassed by the awkward things they do…it is just that I don’t want to be alone.

  67. I loved that Twitter thread! I don’t have Twitter, so I didn’t post originally, but I have a good one. I was shopping at Costco and had a bunch of diaper-related things in my cart – diapers, wipes, diaper genie refills, etc. I lost track of my cart and saw that an older man (maybe late 70’s) was pushing it by accident. I said, “I think you have my cart. I don’t think you need any diapers.” What I meant was, you are older and probably don’t have babies at home. What he heard: You are old, but not so old that you are peeing in your pants yet.

  69. I would really like to see this original thread that you are speaking of! Today is a day where reasons to laugh are very much needed.

  70. We need our own giant desk to hide under all together after our humiliating adventures. So many fresh stories to tell each other…..we’d be like the rebel camp at the end of Ray Bradbury’s Fahrenheit 451.

  71. ps—hmm….guess that’s what this blog site is all about….like Fahrenheit 451, only better!

  72. My Aunt once told me a story about she was a teenager she swimming with a tampon in and somehow the string was poking out of her swimsuit and a fish chomped onto the string and pulled it out. She was so upset she decided from then on to only use pads. Later on she would be able to laugh at it. Nothing beats a good tampon mishap horror story! I swear you could do a one woman stand up show just talking about our most horrifyingly embarrassing incidents and it would be the best stand up show ever! Laughing beats crying every time…
    I can’t wait for your new book.

  73. I am literally laughing out loud. The irony of this happening for this chapter of your book just means that it must go in!

  74. Tampons coming out unexpectedly is honestly part of the reason I’ve never used them. Not that I think it happens frequently, I’m just so awkward and anxious in general that I can’t imagine how I’d feel if it did happen.

    Sad to hear your new book isn’t coming out this year, but of course it’s worth waiting for. In the meantime I’ll just keep listening to your audiobooks, I’ve lost count of how many times I’ve gotten through each one. Your voice is soothing. Listening to them more than usual at the moment while trying to cope with new-med side effects.

  76. This is sounding very good. In fact, I could probably fill a whole library with embarrassing moments. I wish I could put some here, but I’m standing in a bucket of wet cement.

  78. No! Do not cringe about it! This is the BEST WAY EVER to get people to really appreciate their own lives (Well! Things at be stressy at work, but at least I never…”) and to feel some empathy for others!

  80. Can someone pretty please post the link to that thread? I don’t remember seeing it!

  81. You are a fucking national treasure. Just don’t let Nicholas Cage try and track you down.

  82. 800 kind of hilarious and timely and wow and awesome. Thank you, Jenny and all the peeps who leave comments. Weirdos Rule! XO

  85. Oh my gosh! I’ve got to get your next book! It sounds hilarious! I have never heard of anybody’s tampon falling out because they fell down!

  86. Wow! great job with this write-up. This is creative proficiency at its best. I am very pleased with the plot and how it unfolds through-out the narrative. Great job and well done once again.

  88. Wow wee!! I just finished Furiously Happy, and this book get’s me or I get it!?! Never the less it was absolutely wonderful!! So it is OK to be a little kooky or crazy sometimes. I cannot wait to read your other books and found your bolt today. Thanks for being You and giving others the opportunity to be themselves!!! Great work! 😋. ✌. 👽. 🌈. 👍. 🙋. 😱

  91. I shouldn’t be this excited about a dress but I am. Also, I agree about fancy gowns and robes coming back.

  96. I just adore you! That’s hilarious! I can’t tell you how happy I am that you’re working on a new book! You basically just made my whole year! ❤️

  97. The recipient of the misdirected tampon email was probably like “How did she know??”

  98. I love The Jenny. My dog accepts your challenge and wants me to get a dress so he can prove his hair will stick to everything. Game on puppy!

  99. I don’t usually wear dresses but I think I might just have to try this out! Pockets!!!

  100. Leave it to Jenny Lawson to single handedly bring back the fashion trend of wearing dressing gowns as street wear. I’m not even mad. I want one.

  102. That’s awesome, Jenny! I just got my first eShakti dress (based on your prior post about them), and I love it!

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