Was my face red?

Heather's Wednesday Challenge wound up being posted on Thursday this week, so I'm not the only procrastinator. For week #6 she's asking for new stories about embarassing moments.

I don't think I embarass easily. Maybe that's because my high school job was as a costumed character for the Indianapolis Zoo. I played Shivers the Penguin, among other things. Once you've worn a (shared) fur suit in August, done butt-shaking dances with hundreds of children (and a giant tail), and had your theatrical dreams lead to a role as a giant six-year-old in stage skits, all for $6 an hour, you're really beyond embarassment.

But I will do my best:

The first is my classic story. I was young, maybe seven years old. We never went on many family vacations, but we'd all get to tag along when my father went to business conferences - if a hotel has a pool and some video games, kids don't really care what city it's in.

This particular conference offered a dinner with the Governor as one of the activites. My mother went to the dinner, while my father kept an eye on my brother and me. This is a bit like expecting Ward Cleaver to make the Beav's lunch and sew on Wally's buttons. So when we said we wanted to see the Governor, my father agreed to take us to sneak a peek from the back of the hotel ballroom.

Since we'd been cautioned to be unobtrusive, I tried to squeeze behind a wall. But it wasn't a wall. It was a giant wooden screen, probably 10 feet tall, not attached to anything. And it fell with a loud bang when I bumped into it. A bang that sounded rather like a gunshot, according to my father.

My memory is of standing in the open while everyone in that ballroom, including the Governor (who'd been making a speech) was staring at me. But my father and my police-mad brother informed me that state governors are also followed around by guys in grey suits with earbuds.

If you asked my father for his embarassing moment, that might be his story, too.

The second is more recent:

I may have mentioned that Oscar is kind of bad. And that he likes to get into things.

Oscar and Max have a doggie friend, Maggie, who lives in our building. She's owned by the apartment's caretaker, and he kindly fenced in most of the back yard so the dogs can romp and play.

So we were all out together whan Oscar needed to do his business. And the caretaker noticed that he seemed to be having difficulty. Almost as if he'd eaten something he shouldn't.

"Something he shouldn't" quickly proved to be fabric. Pink, lacy, slightly elastic fabric. Fabric which could have come from only one place - a slightly naughty set of underpants. That really wasn't something I wanted to share with my neighbor.