Embarrassing Moments

We all have a few. Some store them in a dim, dark spot, never to be mentioned again. However, in my family the tradition has always been to get as much mileage out of these as possible. You can bet that when someone says “Do you remember when…” , there will be an revival of someone’s buried secret, bared for all to consider. Since they are all fodder for other peoples sic amusement, I thought you might as well enjoy them too.

Scenario 1: I am about 5. My Uncle and I are sitting in front of an ancient apartment building in San Antonio, Texas, where my parents are negotiating rent and move in details. It must be 110 and we’ve been in the car for a long time. I need to pee so bad that I am holding my breath to keep from releasing anything, even air. My Uncle gives me a small coffee can and I promptly make an effort to fill it, squatting dutifully over the can on the floorboard of the car. I am successful in filling the can, but my bladder keeps going. Said Uncle realizes the problem and snatches me out of the car, through the window, still peeing. There are people on the lawn watching. To top this off, HE was upset with me. My mother was rabid that the car had been soiled. I was teased mercilessly about my capacity. It was insensitive, but no one meant any harm. I cried for an hour and still never pee in strange places unless I’m absolutely forced. This is the first time I ever remember being embarrassed or knowing what it meant.

Scenario 2: I am 13 and in the first year of Junior High. I decide for the very first time that I am just NOT going to go to school on this particular day. We live in an apartment in back of a funeral home (my father was a mortician), and there is very small employee bathroom about 6 feet down the hall from our apartment door. Being super cool, I walk out the front door as if I’m leaving for school, but I duck in to the bathroom so that I can go back in the house after everyone clears out for the day. Footsteps. Oh Shoot! Someone is coming. Panic sets in and I step into the shower behind the shower curtain, books in hand, heart pounding so loud I thought it was going to thump through my chest. Water running…ok, maybe it’s just a hand wash…oh no, someone’s sitting on the toilet. There’s nothing between us but about 4 inches of shower wall. I am stupefied, mortified, terrified that I will be found out. Then things get worse. There are noises that clearly indicate that this is my father’s boss. It is obvious that he is going to do his daily…right there, with me in the shower next to him. By this time I am all but dead with fear. Alfred Hitchcock’s panic scenes were nothing compared to this. Without being too graphic, I will say that the topper of all toppers to this already sloppy scene was the stink. Try holding your breath and trying to ignore stench at the same time. End of story; he left, I was not caught, I waited 5 miserable minutes in the bathroom then went into our apartment and lost my breakfast. After that, I gathered up my books and WENT TO SCHOOL. I waited at least 30 years to tell this story to anyone.

Scenario 3: I am maybe 15. My Dad has a new emerald green Rambler with lay-back seats. I borrow it to go on a date to the drive inn and the next day my Dad discovers the driver’s side head rest sticking into the back of the driver’s seat. Go figure.

Scenario 4: Same year. My biology teacher lives 2 doors down and at the end of the street. Every time I go to class, he feels obligated to comment on my social life and report to the class who was at my house the previous evening and ask rude questions about where we went and what time we got in, and the inevitable jab about whether I had quality time for my homework. This went on for an entire year. It would never fly in this day and age.

Scenario 5: Flash back to age 12. I’m getting undressed to put my pajamas on, but I stop by the closet mirror to see how things are growing, if you get my drift. As I walk away, I hear giggling and my young cousin reveals that he has been hiding under the bed watching. I didn’t tell on him, but I got a lot of mileage myself out of this as a blackmailing tool for ice cream, sodas and other essentials.

Scenario 6: Age 14: I am “seen” in a car at the local fast food drive in talking to two boys at once. I am called on the carpet for this by my social club sisters (really their up-tight mothers) and told that if this ever happens again that I will be black balled. I never could quite understand what the significance of that would be for my future, but it was clearly embarrassing in the present. I find out later how immediately significant this is when I ask one of my “sisters” to visit my house during a phone call and I can hear her mother in the background replying that she is not allowed to hang out with “trash”. WOW! Hurt first, then embarrassed and in retrospect very angry.

Scenario 7: I’m a young busy mother of 3. I haul myself out of bed on a Saturday morning, grab my jeans from the day before, put them on and head for the grocery store. I’ve been there about 45 minutes, perusing the isles, when I look down on the bottom shelf for something. When I bend over, I see one leg of a pair of panty hose trailing about 2 feet behind me. They had been in the leg of the pants when I put them on! I can’t believe people were mean enough to see this and just let me suffer through it and find out myself. Live and learn.

Scenario 8: My first job interview after my husband came home from Viet Nam was at a car dealership in California. I have no panty hose, so my husband runs in a department store on the way to the interview. He brings out the package and we start toward Santa Anna for the interview. I’m supposed to put the panty hose on in the car. They are entirely inappropriate and I don’t have the heart or the guts to tell him. They are black and have seams up the back…to boot, my clothes for the interview are way out of sync with California life (red, hot and too dressy) and I look like a complete idiot. They felt sorry for me and I got the job anyway.

I realized while typing these that I probably have several hundred more. Some are not amusing. Eight is enough! Maybe I’ll confess again another time. For now, I’ll just tell you that somewhere around age 40 I decided that embarrassment was just a gross waste of time and energy. If I get caught in an act of stupidity these days, I just laugh it off, admit the sin and chalk it up as experience. Who really cares? As long as I’m trying my best to please God, everyone else will have to live with my faults.

The reason I got that job with the stupid panty hose and the wrong dress for an interview is that I obviously needed it, deserved it and could do it. When you deal with decent people, that’s the way life works anyway.

Till next time.

Paula