A LIKELY STORY: LEARNING TO LIVE WITH A RED FACE AND SNEERS

My life is cluttered with bloopers, blunders and a lot of stupid remarks.

I wonder if Bill Daley plans to go back and re-write that old high school essay about his most embarrassing moment now.

Daley is the Chicago lawyer who took a tumble at President Clinton's news conference last week, lunging forward off the stage minutes after he was picked to head the Commerce Department. Apparently he fainted.

If the same thing had happened in a grade school, chants of "Have a nice trip, see you next fall" would have followed him around the playground for days.

When I saw the television footage, I cringed. Was it Steve Martin who made the joke about vuja de? He said that was when you remembered something that never happened to you.

I could see something similar happening to me. That is if I had the good fortune to ever be appointed anything except being the guy who will bring the chips to the party.

In fact, I'm sure I would have done much worse than Mr. Daley in his situation. Not only would I have fainted, I probably would have landed on the first lady and promptly wetted myself.

I felt bad for Daley and knew that he might never live this down. Just like I will never live down some of the 10,565,433,765 embarrassing things that have happened to me.

* My adventures with stupidity started as early as grade school. I used to put on plays for the class. Much like Spike Lee, Woody Allen and Alfred Hitchcock, except with much less talent, I would cast myself in various parts of the production, usually the ones with the most lines.

In my third-grade production of "The Rabbit and the Hare," the rabbit (with an otherwise stunning performance by the director) tripped over a desk and broke his glasses and began to cry. In case you don't know the story, that's not in the script.

I was taunted by peers who just couldn't understand my vision ... or lack of vision. "You didn't see that table four-eyes?" one girl sneered. I've linked all of my trouble with women in my life back to that moment.

* Later that same year, I was climbing a rope in the gym after lunch. My family wasn't big on buying quality clothes so my brief moment of achievement was shattered when I slid down the rope and ripped my jeans right at the crotch. It was even worse than you might think. Let's just say I was unfettered with any sort of undergarments.

I had few secrets after that.

* In junior high, I fainted once, too. I was sitting in a chair in music class and we were doing breathing exercises before we sang. I guess I sent too much oxygen to my head and down my head went.

Not on my desk, though, that would have been too easy. My head went into the lap of the guy sitting next to me.

"I knew it," a guy in the back yelled when he saw my head resting comfortably in another man's lap.

* Not all of my embarrassing moments stem from elementary school, far from it. While in college, I had finally gotten up the nerve to ask out this beautiful girl over the phone. When I got her machine I said "Scott, this is Jennifer ..." Needless to say, she never returned my call. I spent weeks with horrible thoughts that the girl was inviting her friends over to play my message and laugh.

* Once, while I was a cashier at Del Farm, a fellow checker called me over to a register and asked me if I knew Dr. X, who teaches a course at the university. I immediately frowned and told him yes, he was the worst teacher I had ever had.

The cashier smiled, pointed to his customer and said: "Well, this is his wife."

The only time I ever open my mouth is to change feet.