Who Gives a Fig Leaf

We had a kitchen table discussion last night about our most embarrassing experiences. DH told us how he choked on water in the middle of a lecture and cough/sprayed it all over himself and the room. Yup, moderately embarrassing, but in the big scheme of things probably only a 2/10 or so. I was going to give it a 1/10, but then Medium Fry told a story about how she was - I'm not really sure what - rummaging in her backpack at the bus stop? And people were judging her for being disorganized? At 7am? Yeah, nope. No one even noticed. 1/10 for entirely self-manufactured discomfort, which bumped DH's water story to a 2/10 by default.

DH anted up: he spilled coffee on his lap at work and spent an hour hanging out in his underwear with his pants tied to a fan to dry out. Sure it's a group office, but only one other fellow was there to witness the scene. If there had been a larger audience, or even if DH didn't have such excellent legs, I would give this story a 4/10, but even he wasn't all that uncomfortable about the whole thing. (His colleague, on the other hand...) 3/10 for semi-private, highly relatable clutziness, with solid pants-free-at-work plot twist.

Small Fry, who still runs around the house naked telling everyone to "squeeze my chubby buns!", surprised no one by not having any embarrassing moments to share at all. (I'm helping his future self get over himself by posting the chubby buns thing here. You're welcome, Future Fry.)

These people! It's like they've never lived! I sometimes say I'm not easily embarrassed but in reality I used to be like Medium Fry, imagining my way to mortification over every little thing. I've just built up a tolerance by repeatedly making an ass of myself. I think of it as being sortof like the flu vaccine in that it's demonstrably helpful in protecting yourself from embarrassment, even if not 100% effective against every strain you're likely to come up against, plus you have to keep doing it regularly to reap the benefits. Hence the repeat offences.

The family-friendly story I shared was about a time I was doing field work with a bunch of men (not unusual, but important here for flavour). I had a site map rolled out on the hood of one of the work trucks and I was being so boss babe, jabbing at the map, delegating and directing: you'll tackle this and we'll tackle that; we'll adjust the site to accommodate these issues; I'll check this out to make sure it's not a problem; etc. "Everyone on board?" Nods all around, so I pushed back off the truck and there they were: two enormous dust-free circles, obviously boob in origin. We all just... looked at them for a bit. The silence was such that you could hear my boss-ness deflate slightly. And then we went about our work and never spoke of it again. 4/10 for mild group discomfort coupled with unfortunate ego effects.

The not family-friendly story I didn't tell was about a time I accidentally left a "small appliance" in a hotel bed one morning when I was out for a field stint. (What can I say? Guess I'm just a roll-over-and-fall-asleep-after kind of gal.) I came back to my room that afternoon and the first thing - the only thing - I saw was my trusty travel companion on my pillow, tucked halfway under the blanket like it was having a li'l naparoo. I could literally see the housekeeper in my mind, torn between full pillow display acknowledgement and discreet tucked-in plausible deniability. I do not get paid enough for this shit. Is there anything in the training manual about this? Please let there be gloves in the cart somewhere.

This was day one of my week-long stay, and I honestly, truly considered packing my bags and leaving town. All my previous inoculations together were only like 10% effective, tops, so I had to fall back on a combination of, 'You'll never see these people again' and 'They're [profession] - they've definitely seen worse.' (Have they, though?)

The scars are still too fresh for me to rank this one accurately - personally, it's feeling like at least a 7.5/10, but I'll leave it to you to decide for yourself. Just as soon as I work up the gumption to press the Publish button...