All of us have them. Those horribly embarrassing moments. Some of them are very public, others more private. Some of them make you want to put your children and or house up for sale. Others you can quietly bury under a carton of Ben & Jerry’s.
Just for fun, and as an important safety lessson (aka warning to others) I’m going to share a Very Embarrassing Moment with you today.
So, this happened about 15 years ago, in our first tiny home. I had just finished buckling the 4 kids we had into our full-sized 1976 white Chevy van, when I realized I had forgotten to lock the front door. I climbed back out of the van and traipsed up the driveway to secure our residence. I did not take the keys with me. It was cold outside and I had already started the van, and turned on the heater, which was old and needed a minute to warm up, so I figured I would enter the house, lock the deadbolt from the inside, then exit the back door, locking it’s doorknob on my way out.
The backyard has an aging 4 ft chain link fence around it, with a gate that we kept padlocked to prevent the kids escape wandering into the road. I realized as I approached the gate that the key was on my key ring, in the van. I decided to climb the fence. The toes of my shoes (which were hideous, by the way, but this was before I became aware of the awesome power of amazing shoes) were too big to fit in the holes of the fence, so I was trying to scale the fence by hoisting myself up with my arms, which under normal circumstances, serve me well, I might add, but in this case….not so much. I confidently swung my right leg over the top of the gate, which, tragically, had one of those decorative thingys:
on top of it. I am not, nor have I ever been, in possession of any sizable amount of upper body strength, which fact became glaringly apparent as I was trying to hold myself up and not permanently damage any of my personal body parts. My big-toed shoes were in no way helping support my bod as I precariously straddled the gate. Feeling concern over the very real possibility of bodily pain and or harm, should my now trembling arms give out, I attempted to swing my left leg up and over the fence, planning to jump to the ground. Alas! The ‘swing my leg’ part went fine, but the jump went horribly awry.
My body was all on the right side of the fence. Yes! But…my feet were
NOT TOUCHING THE GROUND.
(enter colorful language)
Frantically assessing my situation, I faced the horrifying reality. I was in fact, HANGING from the decorative thingy
By. My. Pants.
The back of my black stretchy pants had gotten caught and I was
very stuck.
As I looked up, my first thought was, of course:
“Did anyone see this happen? ”
Three of my kids had unbuckled themselves and were now waving happily at me through the windshield of the van. A quick scan of the street showed no one in sight. This was only somewhat reassuring.
How to get myself down? That was the question. I tried to lift myself back up but I was too low and my puny arms had long since given up doing as I asked. I tried to get my shoes wedged into the holes of the fence, but they were too big.I couldn’t get them off because they were laced. I took a moment to consciously and with fervor, hate those shoes.
I seriously and vigorously squirmed for several minutes.
Nothing.
Then I spotted the neighbor across the street coming out to get his mail. I was saved!
Except.
If he came over to help, he would know.
He looked over at me. And waved. I waved back. He called, hello! I yelled hello back. He went back in his house. I hung there on the fence.
(enter more colorful language)
Feeling like a total loser, nerd, idiot, and failure as a person, I squirmed, writhed and wiggled like a woman possessed. And then….
RI I I I I I P!
Suddenly, I fell, plop, face down on the cement. I got up, and cautiously patted my backside.
Well, I could unfortunately feel my backside.
The pants, and underpants had abandoned their post and left me…. um, shall we say, a bit, immodest?
It became vital to climb into the van, retrieve the keys, go back in the house and change my clothes.
All while carefully facing my front to the street.
The kids had questions.
What happened to your pants, Mommy?
I ignored them.
Upon further examination in the safety of my room, I also discovered several scratches and one giant bruise forming on my posterior.
My pride was in tatters.
I felt there were several lessons to be learned:
1. No climbing fences for me.
2. No big-toed shoes, which are not only ugly, but completely useless in an emergency.
3. No doing dangerous stunts in stretchy pants.
From that time to this, I have followed these rules and to this day have not lost any clothing in any fence incidents again.
Now if only I could somehow keep my clothes on at church….
LOL I love that you could just wave and act normal to the neighbor 🙂 I too, have had pants caught on chain link. I think that stuff needs a warning sticker on it! “Warning: This fence might look climbable, but it is guaranteed to snag and rip your pants if you try.” 😉