– Lord Byron
The web is full of urban legends about embarrassment, like the woman who uses holiday glitter spray instead of feminine hygiene spray before a trip to the gynecologist…
But there’s plenty of fodder closer to home.
My boss told a lovely story at a women’s lunch about returning a pair of jeans she had bought and having her knickers fall out on the counter.
At the time, I couldn’t come up with a story. The only ones I could think of had a cringe factor too high (like being drunk and embarrassing – pick a time) or were simply not funny (telling an amusing tidbit as my own, only to realise I was relaying it to the originator of said tidbit).
On reflection, it was pretty embarrassing the time my (then) partner and I had friends around and we all decided to hit the town. We put on coats and scarves and headed out the door and up the driveway, only to remember we had week old twins in the nursery.
Winding up in the middle of the Moomba parade in a rusted out Datsun 180B was also pretty spectacular in the embarrassment stakes.
And then there was fondlilng the wrong guy’s butt in Allans music. (Mind you, I don’t think he was upset.)
There have been other moments – a dropped motorcycle is always embarrassing, as is a skirt too short or top too revealing. Turning up at the wrong time or on the wrong day can be right up there. And toilet disasters are high on the list. Not to mention the ‘tried and trues’ (or at least ‘tried and only moderately embellisheds’) my family dredges up at the slightest provocation.
When you’re 14, everything is embarrassing: parents, uncool food in your lunch, parents, a bad fringe day, carrying a fold up table across the road, being in town during school time, parents, shopping in a store where you bought something you’re wearing, asking a stranger for help and anything to do with underwear.
I know. These things, and many others, trigger hissing, shouts, stamps and blushes from the teen of the house.
I have some sympathy.
I can remember my mother taking me shopping when I was a teen at a discount store called Venture. It was okay to be seen outside the store, okay to be seen in the store (if ‘they’ could see you, ‘they’ were in there, too) but those fraught seconds as she led me from the concourse through the doorway were pure hell. What if someone from school saw me? What if they thought I wanted to venture in to Venture? What if they found out my mum actually bought some of my clothes there? I would surely die.
My teen’s embarrassment has one advantage. If I need some solo shopping time, I just claim to be buying myself some underwear and she runs a mile.
There’s a little conundrum attached to this, however.
If we’re buying bras for the teen, I have to carry them around the store and in to the change rooms, pretending that they’re mine because it would be embarrassing if someone thought they were hers (because no other teenage girl on the planet wears bras, obviously).
On the other hand, carrying bras that really are mine is so embarrassing, she can’t even come to the store.
Mind you, I can do without her input. The one time she was with me, she told me, ‘You don’t need to get matching sets – it’s not like anyone ever sees them.’
In her eyes, I guess forty’s the same as dead. You can’t imagine the temptation to really ramp up her embarrassment factor with a correction!
Or maybe you can.
Image: Suat Eman
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