Friday, November 19, 2010

Embarrassment.....

I know kids tend to embarrass you when they're young, and then the tables get turned when they're older, and they're humiliated by you.  Henry seems to time loud farts and projectile vomiting so that he does both in public places with an attentive crowd.  Now, when he farts really loud, he looks at me, very surprised, and says "OH!"  I'm sure we're not far from the point when he's announcing that he pooped his pants or commenting on strangers loudly.

I don't know how much luck he's going to have making me blush, though.  I'm the kind of person who is constantly in embarrassing situations.  I always say or do the wrong thing, miss the obvious joke, have the fly undone, the tampon hanging out of my backpack....it's at the point where I don't really get bothered by it.  Here's an example.

A few years ago I was having a sharp stabbing pain in my right side, so I go to the doctor.  I had to go to one of those urgent care places, where there's just one main room, where all the doctors and nurses hang out, and smaller patient rooms with curtains and windows.  The doctor does an exam, and given my history, is concerned that I have an ovarian cyst, so they want to do a pelvic exam.  The nurse tells me to take my pants off and cover up with a sheet (ladies, you know the drill).  So she hands me the sheet, then leaves and closes the curtain.

I drop trou, and fold my pants and underwear and put them in the chair.  Here I have a dilemma.  It was about one pm, so my socks and shoes had been on for a while.  I was really worried that my feet would smell, and, if you're familiar with a pelvic, your feet are basically up by the doctor's ears, so no way are they missing it.  As I stand there in a dress shirt, black socks, and nothing else, I decide to attempt to lift my foot closer to my face to see if it's that bad.

At that moment, the nurse bustles in, clearly trying not to laugh.  She says "Let me just close this" and I turn.

Then I realize that while she closed the curtain to the DOOR, the one to the glass window is not closed, and all of the doctors, nurses, and patients standing in the main room can clearly see me, ass to the window, smelling my own foot.

I mean, what do you even do at that point?  I just got through the exam, went back to work, found one of my friends, and said "I have to tell you this or I'll never get over it."

I've found the sooner you share the story, and the more people laugh at it, the sooner you get over it.  If you never share it, it just hides in the back of your brain and picks the perfect moment to pop out and make you do that "AUUUGGGHHH" cringe you do when you remember a time when you've made an ass out of yourself (or in my case, shown one).

So with that in mind, I have to relate a story that just happened.  I was on my way to class, in the business school.  I realized as I was walking down the hall that my shoe was untied, so I step to the side to tie it.  There's a guy sitting on the floor next to me.  As I kneel down, the weight of my bookbag and the crouching position results in...well, there's no way to make this sound dainty.  I farted.   Pretty much right in this guy's face.  Loudly.

As I look up, I realize that although there are literally hundreds of people in the building, and I"m not even on the same floor as my classroom, the guy I have just basically farted on happens to be the guy who sits next to me in class.  He wouldn't even look at me through a three hour long accounting class, so I couldn't even make a joke about it.

So bring it, kid.  I'm not saying I'm embarrassment-proof, but I wonder if the brief few years where you talk about your penis in public and tell people you know where babies come from is going to equal out the lifetime you have to deal with me.

1 comment:

  1. Yea, that happened to me a couple of weeks ago at school. I'm sitting in the library with another assistant and we are working, all of a sudden on of those farts that creep up on you REALLY loud just shot out of my ass. needless to say, the hard wooden chair didn't help much, but make it 10 times louder! oh well.

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