Monday, November 14, 2011

How to Make People Remember You at the Mall

Did anyone catch Melissa McCarthy recount a hilarious story about her experience with Spanx the other day on Ellen?

Not only was it laugh-out-loud funny but it was a perfect example of how an experience can be so colossally embarrassing that, in a strange way, it becomes not embarrassing at all. It just cancels itself out.

Take a moment to enjoy it:
It happened, it cannot be undone. It's the just-get-on-with-your-life type of embarrassment. Has it ever happened to you?

Here is just such a story, totally true but the names have been changed to protect the innocent from her angry and humiliated children...

Once upon a time there was a young mother who breastfed her babies but was very self-conscious about it.

She had friends who were totally comfortable about whipping out their "equipment" willy nilly in any and all public places but were sufficiently adept and coordinated to strategically drape both themselves and their babies under receiving blankets so that nothing was ever seen by unwelcome eyes.
Youch!

The heroine of our story, due to her extreme self-consciousness, used to procure what the baby needed with an electrical torture device (try that at Gitmo, boys--they'll beg to be water boarded) and brought bottles with her when not at home.

One day, however, she left the bottles behind on the kitchen counter and found herself at a distant and fancy shmancy mall in New Jersey with a hungry baby who was too young for a Snapple and a hot dog.

With true fear, she realized that she was going to have to feed the baby in public.

Having no idea where the damn bathrooms were in this enormous mall and since the baby's howls were now reaching epic volume, the young mother sat down on a bench in a quiet corner and layered up with so many receiving blankets that she feared the baby might suffocate.

But she was confident that no one would see her "personal lactation accessories" and proceeded to do what needed to be done.

After a successful feeding -- her first out of the sheltering privacy of her home -- she sat on the bench and beamed with joy at the world.
This Madonna...

She had not only proven to herself that she, too, could discreetly feed a baby in public but now felt like a total earth mother, a sacred fountain of life, a peaceful madonna who sat basking in the glow of her maternal ingenuity.

Life was good.

So, the young mother undid the tangle of protective bunting, folded the sweet little blankies and snapping herself back up, settled the now content baby back into the cozy nest of his stroller. 

Mission accomplished, she stood up to continue her travels around the fancy shmancy mall.
...not this one.

As the young mother strolled about, she noticed that everyone was staring at her with expressions of total shock, but, still a-glow after her recent success, misinterpreted this as public support and acknowledgement of her fabulous mothering and maternal serenity.

We never said this woman was not somewhat delusional.

So, the young mother smiled beatifically back at the wide-eyed, stupified starers and gapers not realizing that she had neglected to conceal one boob and it was totally displayed for the entire universe to see.

It wasn't until the young mother felt an unusual cool breeze on her skin that she looked down and beheld THE HORROR.

It was so awful, so mind-blowingly unbelievable, so cosmically mortifying, so beyond everything and anything that the young mother had two choices but since she had a baby to nurture into the charming thug he eventually became, suicide was not an option.

So, our heroine did the only thing she could do. She simply snapped herself back up and, with head held high, continued onward.

This mother now found this funny and laughed to herself for the remainder of her trip--thus completing the image of total insanity: first appearing indecently exposed at the fancy shmancy New Jersey mall and now, apparently, laughing at nothing.

All in all, it was a perfect day.

12 comments:

  1. LOLOLOLOLOLOLOLOL! Oh my God!

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  2. I'm wiping tears from my eyes.Something like thisd happened to me once a tthe park when my daughter was an infant. Loved this!

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  3. OMG what a riot! Personal lactation accessories and Spanx all in one post. Fabulous!

    BTW- If you like funny stories about Spanx check out Wanda Sykes HBO special, I'ma be me. Her bit about Spanx and Jay Leno is great.

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  4. Hilarious!
    But, boy am I glad I only have cats :-)

    Men have it so easy - they have NO idea... or perhaps they do... now! :-)

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  5. Funny and horrible at the same time. No, I mean it.

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  6. Thanks Santo and Mrs. Raj.I am thrilled you enjoyed the post!

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  7. Michele,this story is not exaggerated at all. I will chek out Wanda, too!

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  8. Men do have it easy, Janet...and cats do, too--if they belong to us, that is.

    Glad you enjoyed the post!

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  9. Don't I know it, Sharona. Don't I know it.

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  10. This made me laugh out loud. "THE HORROR!"

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  11. I did actually catch the Ellen show and this story was the highlight, way better than the bike ride at the end. I have thankfully never left a breast out, but only because I constantly have nightmares about it.

    Scott
    http://itsmynd.blogspot.com

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  12. Oh, God, you just gave me a good laugh, Scott. Thank you!

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