Bad Mommy Epiphany

I don't get embarrassed anymore.

No, seriously. I don't. I used to. I remember that I used to get embarrassed. Mortified, actually. But now? Yeah, not really.

Take my peeing in the steam room. I SHOULD be embarrassed. I should be HORRIFIED, both by getting caught, and just generally for my behavior.

But I'm not.

I should have been darn near suicidal after the alli incident. Haven't heard that one yet? The hub and I heard that our favorite upscale restaurant does breakfast, and immediately found occasion to make reservations. I took my alli, like the giant ass that I am, (pun intended,) and then ordered a breakfast burrito. Topped with guacamole and sour cream. Smothered in tomatillo sauce. YUUUUM. And then, toward the end of the meal...WAIT! I DIGRESS! First, let me assure you...we were the ONLY PEOPLE IN THE RESTAURANT at 7:30 AM on a Thursday in, like, October. JUST US. Okay. Anyway, toward the end of the meal, I feel the need to pass a little gas. But when said gas bubble emerged from my patoot, it seemed, momentarily, to swell inside my unders and fill my pants...and then burst.

When you're on alli, that's BAD. REALLY BAD. It usually means you're in for a bright orange mess.

I was thinking to myself, "Man, I hope we go soon," and the bill came, hub paid, and we got up to leave...me walking with my bum angled to make certain none of the few servers milling about could see it...and I noticed that, there on my beautifully upholstered, silvery-looking chair was indeed a half-dollar-sized bright orange grease spot.

Have I ever mentioned that alli grease toots smell like death? So allow me to correct myself: there, on my beautifully upholstered chair, was a half-dollar-sized bright orange DEATH STANKY grease spot. Which grease spot was also on my jeans in about the same size. Oh, and I had to destroy that pair of unders. And wash the jeans three times...in hot water...with stain remover...every time...and then throw them away. Yes, I went to the bathroom and blotted my jeans and stripped off my unders and shoved them in my purse and sat with a giant wad of TP in my pants on the ride home, keeping my bum delicately off the seat so as not to press against it and leave a stinky orange stamp...and with all that...no embarrassment. Just a funny story.

Speaking of TP...and, by default, peeing...as a freshman in college, I went to the dollar theater with my roommate and some of the girls on our floor. 7 of us piled into a little Rabbit, and off we went. On the way back to the car, I hit a patch of ice on the sidewalk, as did 3 of the other girls following along behind me, and we all spun and slid and groped for each other until we fell off the sidewalk. I laughed so hard I seriously, honestly, no lie, pee'd my pants. I "sat" in the front passenger seat on one of the girls' laps with my bum hanging over the edge of the rolled down window in 20 degrees with wind. Everyone was horrified and shocked...mostly by the fact that I wasn't really embarrassed.

Similar pee-related happening as a newlywed. My husband still doesn't know about this (unless you're suddenly reading my blog, love), but one night after we'd been married maybe a couple months, I had a dream about walking through a giant jacuzzi from one end to the other...and woke up having wet the bed. I'm laughing now, just thinking about it. It was maybe 4 AM, and I got up, pee'd the rest in the bathroom, grabbed a towel and slept on it for the next hour and a half 'til we had to get up, and then "kindly" offered him the first shower so I could leap out of bed and change the sheets. (Oh, and put a washcloth over the still very-slightly moist area under the new sheet set.) Hub was baffled that I'd changed the sheets and made the bed while he'd been in the shower, and I think I told him I just needed something to do while he showered, yada yada.

Embarrassed? Nope. Even if he'd known? Probably not. (I still hid it, thinking he'd be disgusted, but...I seriously doubt I'd have been embarrassed.)

So why no embarrassment? I think it stems from my senior year in high school in my Spanish 2 class. I'd already taken 2 years of German, I didn't care about Spanish and couldn't speak a lick (outside of "Puedo ir el bano?") and my Spanish 2 teacher HATED Spanish. (He also taught Portugese, and you know how Latinos can be about Mexicans and anything to do with them. Whatever. I don't get weird about Irishmen, or Scandinavians, or...well, I get a little weird about the French, but again, whatever.)

So one day on a test, we were supposed to write sentences in Spanish at the bottom of our test paper, and I didn't have a CLUE what to write. My answers looked kinda like this:

47. This test is a giant bunch of crap. 51. of my time to be here, so I'm just going to
48. Senor ___ will never read this anyway, 52. write whatever I want, and I guarantee
49. so why do I even bother? 53. I'll still get an A from this stupid class.
50. I hate this class, and it's a total waste 54. Just get me out of here!!!

Turns out, we had to exchange papers to correct them in class. And we did. And when we got to, say, number 49, Senor so-and-so called on...the little chickie correcting my paper. Who hesitated. And said, "I think she got the wrong answer." And he said, "Well, what is it?" And she said, "Um...I don't know if I should read this." And then he DEMANDED she read it, so she did. And he wanted to know what else it said, so she read the entire thing. And then he wanted to know whose paper it was...so I raised my hand, stone-faced. And I swear to you, he had this look on his face...not like he was gonna kill me, but like he was trying his DAMNEDEST not to laugh. And he said he wanted to see me after class. And I said okay, and that was that.

I remember thinking to myself, "Well, self, you can be embarrassed until you cry in front of all these sophomores who are in awe of your balls-i-ness, or you can realize that a few months from now, this experience will have you in tears of laughter." And there was only one answer to that problem: no embarrassment, only amusement. So I look back on peeing my pants, wetting our newly-married bed, streaking upscale restaurant upholstery with death-grease and peeing in a steam room with a mystery woman present as incredibly funny rather than totally mortifying.

Wrong? Perhaps. Easier to live with? Most certainly.

Why be embarrassed when you trip over your own two feet? Why feel humiliated when you try to put on your pants - both legs in one pant leg - and fall over? Why run and hide when your milk-engorged breast leaks through your Sunday dress while chatting up the minister? These things are just too funny! Laugh and share! Don't shrink and fade away!

Anyone else want to share embarrassing moments? Whether you were embarrassed or not, of course...

Oh, for anyone who was wondering...Senor what's-his-name waited 'til everyone left, asked me to be sure to take at least a BAD stab at it in the future...and then started to laugh.

I got a B on the test.

And an A- in the class.

And I still mix German words into Spanish sentences: "Yo soy...um...eine kleine...um...senorita." "Wait, crap...that was German, wasn't it?" C'est la vie.