Fig-Leaf Fiasco

Have you ever felt entirely alone in a room full of people?

I walked into a party once feeling that way.  Not because I went solo and didn’t know a single soul except the host.  That didn’t help, but it turned out, I had inadvertently tucked my skirt into my tights at my last “pit” stop before arriving at the party and didn’t realize that my backside (save the tights) was completely exposed when I walked in.

I was mortified, of course.  Who wouldn’t be; mingling, sashaying, and eating all night long.  All the while I was looking like a stuffed fig leaf and thinking to myself: “Wow, I am really funny.  I’m really making people laugh tonight.  I’m not even using my best material, so if I’m this funny now, I might never go home.”

That night was a lesson in humility and fashionable tardiness, or tartness.  Take your pick.

But it could have been a lot worse.

I could have walked into the party backwards or doing a handstand.  Fortunately, since I stopped drinkin’ the hooch, I walk up-right and face-forward – mostly.

Tall Tales

It’s not often that I gather my children around my knees to tell them the tall tales of my past.

If they’re gathered around my knees, it’s probably because I’m on the floor teaching them again how to pick up and put away their gosh darn things!

Me: “I’m here to teach you, not to serve you!” I scream, in a decibel reserved by moi. (A reward to myself, if you will, for asking something nicely fifty times in a row!) “Geez-oh-Pete,” I huff and puff to the bitter end of a very dramatic, exhausted and exasperated breath of deaf vears – ears, I meant ears there.

Then:

Mark: “It’s Mark, mom.”
Me: “What?” I snap. “What are you talking about?”
Mark: “My name. It’s Mark. You said Pete. Geez-oh-Pete. It’s Mark. And Danny.”
Me: “Sorry, Mark,” I say, hoping really to receive their forgiveness for my outburst.
Mark: “It’s okay. Sometimes people get us confused. Mostly at school though. Like on the playground, someone might say, ‘Hi, Dan’ (he reenacts by waving his hand) and really it’s me – Mark.”
Me: “Whatta you do when that happens?”
Mark: “I just laugh and tell ‘em my name’s Mark.  Then we just play.”
Dan: “Mark, we don’t even look alike.”

If there’s any tall-tale-story-telling-time, it’s more shoulder to shoulder these days, as both boys are catching me in height. (Which is really inconsequential at this age.  If they’re twenty and I’m saying that, it’s an entirely different scenario.)

And my story-tales are more of the cautionary kind because 1) the older they get, the more worried I am for their safety, and the preservation of my sanity, and 2) I don’t have to exaggerate when it comes to all the ways I’ve truly embarrassed myself in life because the truth is funnier than anything I could try to imagine.

If there’s any sprinkling of hyperbole, it’s in telling you that I reward myself by screaming after repeating things nicely, fifty times in a row.  Forget that.  Three times in a row – max, and maybe I’m nice.  And maybe I have a dish of ice cream.

The only other hyperbolic sprinkling is my use of something I have termed, “Hindsight Wisdom.”  (I’m trying to keep it PG. Obviously, it can be called many things; have fun with it and make it something easy to remember.)

The basic premise of “Hindsight Wisdom,” uses any knowledge and wisdom I’ve ratified, personally, to teach my kids what self-acceptance and self-esteem feel like; that what they do or what they have in their lives will mean zippo compared to who they are and what they give back.

I should probably take this opportunity to say that our “kids” now includes our spiritually “adopted” daughter (22) who has lived with us for two years.  It’s nice having another girl in a house full of testosterone (who isn’t our dog) for soooo many reasons.

Although I think my self-proclaimed “Fig-Leaf” fiasco is killer funny now, thanks to irony and absurdity, my kids probably don’t need to know (yet) that after peeing, mommy jumped up and down in a bathroom stall to be triple-extra sure that her tights were pulled all the way up and that she proceeded, unknowingly to walk around a party all night with her skirt shoved inside of her tights, because they’re not allowed to go to parties unchaperoned, until they’re at least thirty-five.

And if my kids can’t laugh at my Fig-Leaf fiasco, whose kids are they really?

I’m not saying I would disown them for not laughing, but it could be a valid argument for a parent’s emancipation (mine), especially if I wait ’till they’re thirty-five to drop them off at their first unchaperoned party.

OMG – what if that really happens?  What if they’re thirty-five and still living in our house?

What if I keep creating scenarios in my head that will probably never happen?

But what if they are living in our house then?

Geez-o-Pete, if that’s the case, forget any “olive branch” extension, I’ll file for emancipation under, “Article Fig Leaf” of the “Parental-Emancipation-Extrication from a Child” Act.

(Mental Note: Remind kids that laughing of any kind is good for their health – even the conciliatory kind, but write a first draft of Article Fig anyway and petition Washington to pass an Act of Congress for parents who need their children, of a certain age, to move out!)

To Be Continued: The Business of a Mommy’s Legacy and Synchronicity

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Tagged as: Compassion, Forgiveness, Gut Instincts, Kindness, Life Legacies, Life Lessons, Love, Self-Acceptance, Self-Respect, Trust