As you age your capacity for embarrassment thankfully declines. I learned that lesson yesterday when the door to my port-a-potty was flung wide open for the world to see.... ME!
Embarrassment shows up between ages three and five, according to Erik Erikson's theory of stages of psychosocial development. Then it follows you through life, fading as you age. Erikson didn't say that. I am saying that. Personal experience. Mary's theory of embarrassment. The more you experience embarrassment, the less you can be embarrassed. More is less.
Think about universally shared embarrassing moments. Tripping in front of others. Bodily noises. Your parents during your teen years. Being picked last for a team. Spilling a drink on yourself in a restaurant. Zipper down. Food in teeth. Food on face.
In Mary's theory we get over ourselves as we age. Zipper down? That's funny now. Tripping? Check first for injury. It's so much harder to be embarrassed because of the gigantic number of embarrassing situations we already have survived. Even situations that are not so universally shared, such as what happened to me yesterday.
I was minding to my own business in a port-a-potty when the door opened, exposing me to the woman who opened the door and a few poor souls waiting in line at a park in Fort Worth. The woman and I screamed at the same time. A couple of seconds of public exposure at most. First there's the frozen I can't believe what I am seeing moment, then immediate action. Shut the door!
My daughter investigated the situation and reported that the port-a-potty door latch malfunctioned. She explained that it needed to be jammed hard into lock position. Otherwise, it gave the appearance inside of being locked while it showed unlocked on the outside. Setting up the perfect storm. Really, what could be more embarrassing than pants down sitting on the pot for all to see?
So why am I not embarrassed? Why do I think it's funny? Because it is. Simple as that. I just hope that poor woman who opened the door thinks so too. In time, she will.
2 comments:
I'm looking forward to the days when I can use a public restroom without a three-year-old sharing the stall with me. I'm sure you know the scenarios: three-year-old looking under the stall at the person next to us, three-year-old opening and closing the door of our own stall before I'm finished, etc. etc. Luckily, I'm getting older, so, as you say, it's not as embarrassing as it might have been earlier in my life. I think part of this, too, is that the experience of giving birth and raising children can be such a parade of indignities that you learn after awhile to not take yourself too seriously. :)
so true!
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