Oh, I Was So Embarrassed

 I would love to say that I was a perfect person.  Ladylike at all times, always graceful, never got pimples or cavities.  Every day I had perfect hair and make up.  But in reality, there are all sorts of opportunities for embarrassment.  Common wardrobe malfunctions, any kind of singing in public ever - especially if you are trying to match the singer on the radio.   Those are more along the lines of my life. Tonight my husband and I went out to Taco John for dinner, and he brought along a fancy notebook and expensive pen combo.  I used the back of the receipt and his special pen to jot down some thoughts for tonight's post.  What could I write about, I wondered.  Then I realized that the lid which probably cost more than our entire meal, had fallen off when I had dropped the pen on the floor.  I had to lean my entire body, hair on the floor, off the seat to move the table around and around to find that stupid lid.  And hence, we have a post that was very easy for me to write, about embarrassment.  Here are my tales.

My earliest embarrassing moment is locking myself in a restaurant bathroom and having to yell and bang on the door through the whole restaurant until my parents finally heard me and came and somehow got the door unlocked from the outside.

In jr. high, I used to love to go to basketball games with my friends.  One of my friends was a boy who loved to pull pranks on me.  This was in the winter and my coat that year was a black leather men's coat - I thought it looked cool - and my friend kept hiding it from me during this particular basketball game, because it made me mad and he liked to do that.  So....for hours I kept looking over and my coat was gone - and he would not tell me where he had hid it, so I kept having to walk all over tarnation to find where he had put my coat.  After a while of this, and my patience running thin, I got up to go to the concession stand to get a "trashcan" (cup with all the sodas mixed together).  When I came back to my seat, there was a grown man in his 20's wearing my coat.  I had had it!

I said to the strange man, "Alright, you're real funny, now give me my coat back."  (Of course you realize at this point that he was not wearing my coat, but I didn't realize that yet.)  He very good naturedly laughed me off and said, "This is my coat."

"Look, I know my friend told you to put this on to get a rise out of me, and LOOK FRIEND I am making a scene so just tell him to give it back!"  I at one point even tried to pull the coat off of this grown man, insisting it was mine.  He was so nice.  He could probably have had me thrown out of the basketball game for assault.  I tried everything I could - my knee to his chest to peel this jacket off of this complete stranger.  Only when I noticed my friend laughing so hard behind him that I figured it out.  And as my friend pulled my coat out from behind the bleachers, the man was really nice during my profuse apologies.

As I reached the age where my friends and I could drive, that provided lots of opportunities.  Once a really exuberant friend and I went to the theater to watch the movie Independence Day.  During a climactic scene she stood up and applauded in front of all the moviegoers.  She and I both worked together at a grocery store with the most trying high school boys.  After a certain point in the night management would go home.  The boys called more than once (from the pay phone outside - pre cell phone, really dating myself here) and asked us to page all sorts of super embarrassing and crude fake names.  You know the kind.  With customers in the store.  Who could recognize my voice - it wasn't that big of a store.

Eventually I grew up and fell in love.  You usually just can tell when you meet the-one and I knew with my husband.  One evening we went to the movies, and I wore my super cute but impractical shoes.  After the movies we hit the parking lot and my husband challenged me to a race to the car.  Most girls, who knew what they were doing would inhibit a little feminine charm and coyly protest, dignity intact.  Of course, the girl who accosts total strangers at public functions says, "OK!!" and tries to run in super cute shoes, which let you down every time.  Not only did I fall but I rolled across the parking lot quite a ways.  All kind of witnesses.

We got married and had kids, and you don't know embarrassment until you have kids.  Kids love to tell ANYONE all kinds of things about you.  I run an in home daycare out of our house, and kids tell me all sorts of things about their parents so I can't imagine what they tell their parents about me.  One day a daycare mom sent me text telling me the time she was going to drop off her daughter.  The other kids and I had sat around awhile waiting for them to get here.  When they finally did, one boy wasted no time in telling the mom that "Miss Jayne thought you would never get here."

With my own children - I would have to give some credit where credit is due and that would land on my stepson.  Did you know...that swim diapers don't hold poop in, so if your, oh, let's say hypothetical 2 year old is in the public baby pool and has diarrhea.  That it will leak out of the swim diaper and float everywhere and they have to shut the whole pool down to drain the whole pool.  And everyone there knows it's you!!  And we have all been in the McDonald's play land, after foolishly dressing in a skirt, because our kid hasn't gone to the top of the play land and refused to come down for months.  Friends, never let your guard down.  If there is ever any playground equipment within 5 miles of where you are, dress to climb!  Because I found myself with a little guy on my lap coming down a slide after a daring rescue, to my skirt flying up over my waist and a whole GROUP of people waiting at the bottom of the slide to make sure the crying little boy made it down ok.

There was the trip to Fazoli's with my good friend Denise and her daughter of the same age, where we were sitting relaxing (our first mistake) in a booth with our toddlers.  Of course before you can blink both of our kids had gotten out of their booster seats and were hanging over the back of the booth talking to and touching the poor people on the other side.  Our same group tried to take a picturesque walk with the toddlers in a wagon, packed with blankets and snacks, just down the road from her parents house to a cute little park.  I can't imagine how, but we got lost on the way back (the park was on a road, but I guess one of us thought up a "shortcut".  How were we supposed to realize that there was a small, but deep creek that separated us from her parent's neighborhood?) Hours later we pulled into her parents driveway, dirty, hobbling, but wiser from our experience.

This same group decided to drive 45 miles away to shop at a mall, and ended up taking what we thought was an interstate exit, but ended up being a small road to a semi truck weigh station, where we had to take our turn sitting behind all the semi's getting weighed before it was our turn and a man had to wave us though before we  could go back on the road.

Now I have a large brown labrador retriever named Finn who offers me lots of opportunities to want to change my name and identity.  She is very exuberant and loves to live in the moment.  Very little self control.  I have never really gotten to know the neighbors catty cornered from our house, but I guess they look out their window enough to know Finn.  Finn goes with me in the car every morning to take my daughter to school.  When we get home they always have taken their small adorable dog Suzie out to potty.  I mean, the moment Finn and I pull in the driveway, they yank sweet little Suzie to GET IN THE HOUSE! before the crazy dog gets out of the car.   Two days ago I took Finn for a walk around the park where she did not need to poop once until a convoy of men on lawn mowers came straight at us.  Then I got to bend down a pick it all up and try to maneuver the bag closed all the while in front of our lucky spectators.

We have these moments.  When embarrassment strikes, I try, try, try to just remind myself what is life without a little flavor, and these are character building moments.  I also thank God for them, because at least I do have an interesting life.  And by now - I have built a lot of character.  Thank you God!

So do not fear for I am with you,

Do not be dismayed , for I am your God.

I will strengthen you and help you,

I will uphold you with my righteous right hand.

Isaiah  41:10