I’ve thought about this a good bit as I’ve known folks who should have been embarrassed and weren’t and persons who were embarrassed when there was no earthly reason for them to be.

For me to be embarrassed, I must realize that I’ve done something stupid, intentionally or not, and others have been in my presence who have observed my snafu. Let me review for you a few of my embarrassing moments:

I am a freshman at Cumberland College and am attending vespers. For you who are uninformed, it’s a prayer-and-song service. This service was held at Cumberland after supper each evening in a Roburn Hall parlor. The room was always crowded, and we sat on the floor.

I looked up at the doorway and saw one of my boyfriends from Toledo standing there, handsome, tanned, well dressed, a big smile on his face. I was not going to wait for the conclusion of the service to greet him, so I got up and started navigating the masses of people in the room. I had on a straight, very tight skirt. Before I had traversed three yards, I fell on the back of one of the male worshippers.

In that same year, I am back in Toledo for the Christmas holidays and am telling my brother Bill, 15, what a wonderful semester I have experienced at Cumberland. The problem was that we were riding a city bus, and I was speaking loudly. This is something we tend to do in the south, unlike in the north where people seem to talk in a whisper. Additionally, I doubt that anyone on that bus in that section of town had ever been to college. He shushed me, and I blushed profusely.

Fast forward. That 17-year-old Cumberland College freshman is now a faculty member at Urbana College in Ohio. Pregnant with my second son and with no intention of wearing maternity clothes for my teaching role, I had taken a green print skirt and attached a rubber band to the button and the buttonhole so I could still fit into it. While I was standing at the chalkboard, the rubber band broke, and my skirt slid down to my ankles. I still hear someone in the class mimicking stripper music.

Now I’m the new president of Southeast Community College and am at a conference in Chicago. I had a new dress and the chancellor of the community colleges, Dr. Stanley Wall, was introducing me to one person and another. I was happy with my new job and pleased to meet so many national leaders. When I returned to the hotel that night and took off the dress, I saw the price tag hanging in the arm of the dress. I was Minnie Pearl all day, and no one bothered to tell me.

Move through the decades and I am scheduled to attend the wedding of my husband’s nephew in a Cleveland cathedral. I knew it was to be big and fancy followed by a reception at a country club, so I bought a beautiful black dress with silver metallic threads. When I put it on at the hotel where we were staying, I decided that it needed shoulder pads, so we located a Walmart close to the cathedral. With no time to spare, I hurried to the domestics and said to a clerk, “I’m on my way to a wedding that starts in 20 minutes, and I need shoulder pads for this dress.” Her response was, “They’re two aisles over, but shoulder pads are the least of your problems. You have a big slit in your dress in the middle of your rear end.” “Where’s the needle and thread?” as I put my hand on my rear end. She led me to what I needed; I grabbed the supplies and headed for the dressing room where a young girl and her mother were quarreling. I couldn’t get the needle threaded and kept waiting for the fracas to stop so I could seek help. Finally, I said, “I hate to interrupt, but I’m late for a wedding, have a hole in the seat of my dress and can’t get this needle threaded.” The mom helped me. I stitched the dress, paid for the supplies, and ran to the car. During the Catholic ceremony with all the standing and sitting, I was happy the clerk has told me about my dress, otherwise a VW bug could have driven through that slit by the time the wedding was over. As I waited in the car for all the family photos to be made (Obviously, wives come and go in that family and I had been married a short time, so I was not invited to be in the photos), I looked in a mirror to check my makeup and found black specks from the dress all over my throat and shoulders. Later, at the reception I looked down at my legs and noted that the silver threads in the dress had shredded my hose, big time. When I got back to the hotel, I called the dress shop, relayed the disasters, and told them I’d be returning the dress for a full refund. The clerk agreed.

Just how old do I need to be before these embarrassing moments end? Tell me about yours at vbblevins@woh.rr.com.