Humiliation has developed a bad reputation for itself. In the damp litter tray of human emotions, people mostly agree that a profound sense of achievement, or even mild titillation, is a much happier feeling than a hot wash of mortified regret. They are all wrong, and this is why.

About three years ago, I nipped out to the supermarket. I have nipped out since, but to be honest, it has never been a story worth telling. I had wheeled my bicycle on to the pavement, and during my pocket-patting inventory check, I realised that I did not have my keys. I turned back to go inside, as a gust of wind pulled my front door gently to.

Nimble as hell, I hopped towards the door. A casual observer might have sworn that a fat, hairy gazelle had pranced into the savannas of Ealing. Sadly, my wallet chain looped treacherously around a fence post, and I crashed to the floor. From my new disadvantage point, I noticed two things: the front door had shut with a wooden chuckle, and the button of my zip-fly trousers had popped clean off.

I realise this sounds like I have watched too much old TV and decided to steal all the stories for myself, but it is true. I was locked out with a pair of droopy trousers, and saddled with a ruddy great bike. I could not ride it - the circular motion wound off my downbelows. I could not lock it up - its keys were inside with the others. My flatmates, not usually the types to stray too far from the TV, had chosen this weekend to be 50 miles south in Brighton, and - if this isn't over-egging the pudding, I don't know what is - Japan. Hobbled by circumstance, I phoned a few friends, who all agreed that my situation was indeed unfortunate, and why I had chosen to live in a place as deserted and barren as Ealing was quite beyond them.

For some things in life to make dramatic sense - I mean, if you want to honestly feel like you are starring in your own Truman Show - you have to believe you are being watched. So, I like to think of a cluster of hovering eye-gods jeering at my situation, only to give up in disgust when they find me hiding in a garden and giggling like a grotesquely oversized schoolgirl. And that was when my day became a life-affirming chick lit novel.

You can't tell someone your trousers have been ripped off without laughing. It is not as good as a bra catapulting off, granted, but as a man, it is the best I have got. Like a crap Messiah, I told my story in the nearest coffee shop. The man laughed, put my bike in the back, and gave me his belt. The belt he was wearing. I went to our letting agency, and told my story again. Estate agents gave me coffee and talked to me, and at no stage did they make me sign a one-sided contract or charge me an admin fee. They did not have a key, but we both felt that we had done our pariah outreach work for the day.

My embarrassment was peculiarly innocent, I know. I am aware that my story might not have turned out as jubilantly if I had been caught pleasuring myself in a cinema. But just imagine if all embarrassment was like this? People hopping along in handcuffs and a ballgag, joyfully miming that an adventurous sex act had gone hilariously wrong? Fat kids transforming the failure of coming last in a race into a cheeky self-parody, by pulling a Toblerone out of their shirts and winking to an imaginary camera? It would be fantastic.

We have got guilt to stop us being evil. All humiliation does is punish us for being idiotic or naughty - and both those things are brilliant. It even stops us asking for help. It makes people laugh at you, sure, and if you are blushing and coy, that laughter can be like having your soul on a bacon slicer. It is only when you laugh along that you realise that they are more likely remembering the time they got told off for farting in a courtroom. They will probably do anything to help, short of trading places with you.

As for getting back into the house, it turned out that I had given the mate I was meeting in the pub our spare key when he was between houses. How's that for good-deed-rewarded dramatic completeness? Almost makes you believe in hovering eye-gods.

Jon Blyth is a video game reviewer jon@disappointment.com