Bare-assed and grinning.

This one time, about two years ago, I was at a callback for a new musical theatre workshop. I had auditioned the day before with a song and they had really really loved me. The director actually said, "I really really love you. You are so good-looking. Will you go out with me?" All right, I'm kidding. He didn't ask me out. But he did say, "I really really love you, will you come back for a callback tomorrow? You're the most good-looking and talented girl I've ever met," (Or at least that's what I chose to hear.)

There are about twenty other girls at the callback and a choreographer. And a boombox. And a shiny hard-wood floor. And the walls aren't walls, but giant floor to ceiling mirrors. And it becomes clear to me that I'm going to be asked to dance.

You may not know this about me, but I'm really not a dancer. I am super bendy and really strong because of all the yoga I do, but I am not a dancer. In fact, I believe myself to be a very bad dancer, so the very thought of dancing in a room full of strangers is enough to send me into Full Panic Mode.

So here I am, in a room full of dancers, surrounded by mirrors, and a very uptight and irritated-sounding choreographer is there and she's yelling at us to chasse and patada and releve and she might as well be speaking French. Which I actually think is exactly what she's doing. The dancers are dancing all around me and I'm trying desperately to copy what they're doing. And I think, considering that I am not a dancer, that I'm doing pretty well. I'm actually kind of having fun. I'm actually not panicking. And then it happens.

In the midst of my pathetic attempt to patada, my foot gets caught in the leg of my very stylish goucho pants and in less than a second, the waist of my pants is wrapped around my ankles, and I've fallen on my face in the middle of the room. The dancers continue dancing around me as I feverishly try to get my pants up where they belong, but because my feet are so tangled in the fabric of the damned goucho's I am not having much luck. Instead, I'm rolling around on the floor like an upended beetle with my bare ass hanging out (because of course I'm wearing the ittiest bittiest thong I own) and I can see myself in the mirrors, red-faced and grappling with what seems like yards of unending fabric and my ankles are completely tied together and I just keep rolling around on the floor, my ass in full view and the dancers are whizzing around me and hissing at me to GET OUT OF THE WAY.

I finally righted myself and got my pants back in place. But after that, it didn't really matter. The director, who'd seen the whole thing, looked - well, he clearly wasn't impressed. Neither was the choreographer. I tried to keep a smile pasted on my face and I tried to keep going, but it was only a few minutes before they said, "thank you, we'll give you a call," and I was (blessedly) allowed to go home.

No, they never called.

And yes, I made a similar mistake another time, but this time in front of a Tony Award Winning Playwright. No, I didn't get that role either. I am awesome.