Papillon: cringing moments

We all have them. We all remember them, unless they were so horrendous we have chosen to block them out. I was reminded of some of mine the other day during a swim. I've blogged before about accosting a man in the swimming pool to ask what his aftershave was (see post of June 14: addictive personalities). On Tuesday there was a heavenly smell wafting from one of the pool attendants. I had to ask him the name, giving as an excuse my partner's pending birthday. The attendant willingly told me - Optimistic by Paul Smith, and I swam off happily, memorising the perfume.

Then I remembered that several months before I'd asked the same question of another pool attendant, again saying it was my husband's pending birthday. The embarrassment arrived when it occurred to me that these two staff members might compare notes. They could then assume one of two things: that I belonged to a mysterious cult where women are allowed more than one husband. Or that I was partnered to some freak of nature who had been born twice in the same year.

Tumpty, tum...

We hear people talking about embarrassing things happening to them. A former colleague told me she once walked into a room for a meeting and her skirt fell off.

My most blushworthy moment, I think, was many years ago when I'd just left a rather stuffy girls boarding school. I went on to a further education college to attain more highers. Having had little experience of the opposite sex, I was incredibly shy, to such an extent that for the first year there, I refused to remove my black PVC coat, of course provoking much speculation about what I was wearing - if anything - underneath.

Of course I was: a demure, high necked dress.

Anyway, and I'm approaching the extremely embarrassing moment, I was walking along a street in town when I spotted a guy from college. Overcome with horror at the prospect of having to stop and talk to him, I started running. To my consternation, my slingback shoe fell off, skimmed along the pavement and landed at his feet. Gallant chap that he was, he bent down, picked it up and placed it on my trembling foot. Unlikely I know, but true.

Then there was the time when I'd fallen out with my boyfriend. Hours later, desperate to make up with him, I went to the medical residence and, it being late in the evening, tapped on the window, hoping he was there and would invite me in. Seconds later, a pale female face - obviously roused from sleep - appeared at said window and I realised I'd got the wrong room. There was a happy ending, though.

Other moments of mortification include colliding with a guy on the ski slopes and tumbling down the snow in each other's arms. Doubtless he was even more traumatised than I was. Then there was the time - again on the ski slopes- when I fell down a bank of snow which had been shovelled out to allow access to a hut. The guy digging lifted me out but when he plonked me down on the top of the snow, I fell into the hole again. His expression suggested he thought I'd done it on purpose. Well, really...