My New "Most Embarrassing Moment"

OK, this is embarrassing, but it’s funny and I figure if it makes someone else laugh then I might as well share it.

I dressed up for church on Sunday. Now, this isn’t the embarrassing part, but understand our church is fairly casual keeping up with contemporary trends. Jeans are the common attire. In the summertime, to the dismay of our dear elderly members¸ shorts adorn the younger crowd.

It wasn’t always this way. Growing up in the Church of the Nazarene we attended services dressed to the hilt. Women wore an array of “Sunday dresses” with frills and lace and never went without panty hose. The men were in nothing less than a tie but usually in a full suit, even in the summer. It was one of the ways we showed respect for the house of the Lord. It wasn’t a bad tradition, but it has faded away it seems.

So, feeling nostalgic, I wore a dress to church that I haven’t worn in several years. (Yes, I’ve gone against the advice of the style editors and haven’t gotten rid of the things I haven’t worn in over a year.) It was made of a fairly sheer material and required undergarments. Since panty hose really aren’t worn now, I had to have something…you know, to hold things in. And of course you can’t wear sheer material without having on a slip. So, after digging through my drawers for the required underwear that I hadn’t seen for probably a decade; I dressed once again to the hilt, wearing under my dress a half-slip with worn-out elastic and a “slenderizer” that did not allow me to feel anything worn over it. Do you see where this is going?

So I attended the service with my children and everything went according to weekly ritual. After the service let out, the crowds filled the front foyer and busied themselves with jovial conversation. I was visiting with some very elegant and proper ladies of the church, friends of my mother-in-law, when I noticed something brush my ankle. To my horror, I realized that I was standing in the middle of a crowd carrying on a conversation, with my slip in a heap on the ground circling my ankles.

Now, what is one to do in this situation?

First, don’t draw attention to it. “Do NOT look down!” I thought to myself as I nodded to my companions, trying to look completely engulfed in the conversation. Second, get rid of it. I casually took a step to the side and with a quick flick of the ankle, kicked the dreadful thing to the wall. (“I don’t know who’s that is.”) Solved. No one even noticed. (I keep trying to tell myself this.) When it was time to go, I sneaked over and flicked it up with my foot to my grasp, wadded it up, and stuffed it into my Bible.

When I got home, I threw it away.