Scarlet

What is the most embarrassing thing that has happened to you?  Did you ever leave a public bathroom with your dress tucked into your knickers?  Ever look down to see a three foot length of toilet tissue stuck to your shoe as you walked across the crowded pub floor?   

Who amongst us walked across that same pub floor with our top open to our waist and were not aware of it?  How about walking down a busy street in Dublin wondering why you were getting funny looks, then realising that you weren’t thinking to yourself but talking out loud. 

Pretty cringe worthy stuff, right?  But I bet they are all affectionate anecdotes now that you’ve clocked up proper redners as a parent.

Morto moments like bursting into tears in a busy shopping centre because you had just purchased your first pair of maternity jeans and thought they made you look fat?  I bet you would give your firstborn to have that five months pregnant figure of yesteryear when you are not pregnant today but still wearing that pair of maternity jeans. 

Have you ever gotten stuck between two tables having misjudged both the size of the gap and your pregnant belly?  Whose firstborn son wore vests with pretty little fairies and unicorns on them because they were white and you neglected to check out what was printed on the front?

Did you ever walk out of a shop and leave the buggy behind, only to have the alarmed and practically shrieking sales assistant come racing after you? 

Anyone out there ever put Veet on the kids’ toothbrushes instead of the strawberry toothpaste?  Dry shampoo instead of anti-perspirant anyone? I bet no-one went to a car, filled with the same number of rowdy kids as your own, only to discover you were about to drive off with someone else’s brood.  I bet none of you ever screamed bo**ix at the top of your lungs outside the school gate when your son caught the sensitive skin of your neck in the coat zipper.

Then they start talking, and it’s Let’s Embarrass Mummy. Because We Can. 24/7. 

It’s never ending isn’t it, the things our kids do to embarrass us?  I’ve been told by those in the know that it gets worse.  The teenage years are frightful by all accounts. 

Please tell me it works both ways.  Surely we can turn the tables on our offspring and get our own back.

I live in hope that this is true.  In the meantime I will hold up a shining example as a ray of light until that day arrives.

A teenage person tucked a teddy bear into her bed and crept out to the nightclub.  Her ruse didn’t work.  She was frog marched home by her slipper wearing mother complete with bobbly dressing gown in front of hundreds of revellers. 

Revenge definitely is a dish best served cold.      

P.S. Some of the above happened to me and some didn’t. But I’m not telling which.