Things We Will Never Speak Of Again, or How Humiliation Moves Me

So Carolyn's telling this funny story today about making an ass out of herself and of course I find this brilliantly inspiring because I

a) feel for her and compassion is good for creativity

b) started imagining standing there, pointing and laughing

c) found b) very John Hughes-ian which made me think of screen plays

e) am trying my best not to write anything about dog poop

but mostly, it reminded me of something.

A few years ago, when I was not even 40, I found myself as if by some weird magic, in the Mall. The Mall! And even more outrageously, I was in a store with very very loud music that I did not know the words to, and most surprisingly, I was happy... I was on the kind of high you get when your old skinny jeans suddenly fit and you realize -- CLOTHES! Clothes are fun and new and pretty! It's like I'd been rufied by my temporarily skinny self.

I was pushed for time (back then I was picking up the GFYO at 12:30), so I engaged in this supermarket-mania mad-dash through the racks of shiny "ohmygodthatscutes" -- grabbing, feeling, nabbing, holding a skirt, wait a shirt? up to myself in some teeny tiny jewelry mirror and running like hell for the dressing room. Basically, I was looking like a very bad shoplifter (with a credit card) on meth.

Flinging off clothes and pulling on new ones, I stood under awful lights tugging and pretend-hemming, zipping and tying bows in all the wrong places, checking out my ass over my shoulder, and then, the coup de grace, I did the "pretend talking to someone at a party" thing -- laughing, posing, "oh no sir"ing. (You know you do it.)

And then I hung up the discards (hung 'em up, because I wanted those cool shop girls to like me), set the two keepers aside, put my old clothes back on, checked my watch -- 20 minutes left! -- and emerged for one more walk amongst the hot people who listen to the loud music. I was happy the way people on drugs are.

Dangling my awesome skinny girl clothes off my arm, I wandered a bit, calm now, calmer at least, and I noticed these very, very pretty college girls nearby. (Very pretty college girl catch the eyes of everyone, isn't that true?) And in that drug-induced moment, I felt comfortable amongst them -- like a big sister, a cool older friend or at least someone with excellent taste in music who could school them, you know?

Everywhere I went, they went. (They like me!) When I checked out the dangly necklaces, an impulse buy for sure, those girls were there. (They admire me! Maybe they want to interview me for "Career Day"?") (Note to self, I thought: update "career" talk.) (Maybe resume, too.)

I tripped a little bit on the wide-legged hem of the super-trendy pants it turns out I would never wear and that's when they worked up the nerve to approach me.

"Ma'am," they said.

Um, who? I thought, as I whipped myself ever.......so......gracefully toward them -- smacking the blonde in the gut with the giant sack of a "handbag" I was carrying.

"Ohnonomygod, sorry," I said, "Oh my god, you okay?"

"Yeah yeah, but...uh...um," the blonde whispered, all low-down and conspiratorial like we were friends, "Your shirt is on inside-out and the tag maybe ripped or something, so it's kinda flapping around behind you."

OH! I said, or maybe I didn't. I have no idea what happened next. The music was really loud and the high was wearing off and I must have paid for my loot, because somewhere in my closet is a sequined halter top we shall never speak of again. Never. We shall never speak of it. Ever. Never. Not once. Done. K? Okay.