I don’t have alot of embarassing moments-mostly because, in yet another trait I get from my fahter, I’m not usually self-aware enough to be embarassed when I should. For example, I should have been embarassed when I wore a white shirt and khaki pants every day for at least six weeks in middle school, but I didn’t think it was weird at all. I was slightly embarassed when I accidentally snot bubbled while talking to that one girl who was a model (literally- she was in the JC Penny catalog).
One of my best, most embarassing moments took place on a brisk, fall day in College Station during my freshman year in college. I don’t normally take pride in my clothes, but this particular day, I was sporting a cardigan, cool jeans, and a really cool, long scarf wrapped around my neck in a very trendy, hipster way.
I was trekking across campus, probably on the way to Spanish, enjoying the weather and feeling like a really classy college student. I was really digging the changing leaves and the cool breeze on my face when all of a sudden….a balled up sock suddenly appeared in the crotch of my jeans. I mean, it felt like I had accidentally left a sock in my jeans and it chose this, the coolest of all my college moments, to suddenly appear between my legs inside my jeans.
No worries, I thought. Maybe it’s a fluke. I’ll just keep walking and it will go away.
Guess what. It didn’t go away. It got bigger and bigger. I thought it might be slightly embarassing to stop walking and stare at my own crotch or try to clear the thing until I could get to the privacy of a bathroom so I just kept on walking.
Finally, it had to stop. If I kept on going, I was going to roll into my Spanish class on a gianormous sock ball that had lodged itself in my jeans, like an acid trip James and the Giant Peach . So I stopped and looked down.
Let’s imagine for a second that you are one of the normal A&M students who is just walking innocently to class. All of a sudden, the crowd parts and you see this:
Horrifying, right? For you AND me.
Now, if I had corrected this little problem when it began, it wouldn’t have been embarassing. But I didn’t. Nope, not me.
Instead, I walked a quarter mile across campus, between classes, with thousands of other cool A&M students, with a scarf wedged between my legs like some weird winter bathing suit that I like to wear over my clothes.
Then, I kind of blacked out from the embarassment and ran to class with a bag over my head.
To be honest, I’m kind of surprised it didn’t make the school newspaper- “Freshman Girl Traverses Campus with Scarf Wedged Between Legs and Instantly Loses All Hope of Finding Boyfriend”. I guess I should be happy that it didn’t happen in the age of Twitter or I would have ended up on one of those Wal-Mart people websites in ten seconds flat.
At this point, I could launch into a lengthy discussion of how God always takes me down a notch when my head gets too big….because He does. I mean, you know that old saying “Pride cometh before that scarf gets wedged between your legs and you walk across campus in front of a million people like a freak.” (Okay, maybe most people are quoting Proverbs 16:18- “Pride goes before destruction, And a haughty (prideful) spirit before stumbling.”)
God is good at helping me remember who I really am (a little peon)and reminding me who I am not (Queen of the Universe). Sometimes the humbling process is painful and sometimes it is humorous. Either way, the end result is the same- remembering that God is God and I am not.
Merry Christmas, everyone.
The placement of the reenactment was perfect. I don’t remember this story for some reason. How did that scarf get lodged in such an awkward place????? Inquiring minds want to know.
Ah. The snaky tendrils got stuck between my leg and pulled the rest in. It’s one of my favorite stories!