Clothing Mishaps

This morning my middle school son did something that got him into trouble. I, at first, was going to take away his TV privileges (for a week), and then decided on a better plan – he had to go with me as I went clothing shopping!  My son said that he’d rather lose the TV. (Grin)  At one clothing store, he was so close to me as I was looking at shirts, that I thought he was trying to bug me enough for me to regret the punishment I had handed out. I had a solution for that – I headed towards the bra section! Ha. He found somewhere else to go. Ten minutes later he was back at my side and asked if I was getting more clothes to try on than normal in order to really punish him. No….this was normal. :)

I have been slowly losing weight and loving it! I have lost 45 pounds this past year. Hooray! That does mean that as the cold weather is approaching I find myself with not much to wear that doesn’t hang too loosely. In fact, while on crutches I have had problems with shirts that dip too low or fall off one of my shoulders. (And then I almost fall as I try to hold onto the crutches and fix my outfit at the same time!) This is why I have been clothes shopping lately. Doing this, though, does remind me of some of my past clothing misadventures. Of course I’m going to tell you all about a few of them!

Do you ever have those “oh my word, I don’t have all my clothes on” dreams?? I’m told they are anxiety dreams. Definitely! I admit that I have had those dreams, but only my bottom half is bare. In my dreams, once I realize my mistake in dressing, I finish the rest of the dream trying to pull my shirt down as far as it can go….which never works as well as it should! I wake up and wonder WHY I have these dreams. Then I worry that maybe sometime in my life this really happened and it is just recurring while I try to sleep! Hmmm. I guess a couple times it has happened to a small degree. I’m told (I do not remember this) that when I was a toddler my family was at a Christian retreat, and I had to go the bathroom. My mom had to attend to my baby sister only to find me running through the men’s section back to her with my pants down at my ankles! Ooops. I do remember a time in high school. We had just finished a basketball game and our male coach was in the locker room having the post-game discussion with us. Without thinking, I started getting undressed while he was still talking with us – pants first! Uh… When I realized what I had just done, my knees hit the floor as I pulled my shirt down to meet the floor! Oh dear! So maybe those dreams of mine are justified!

Those aren’t the only times I have had “almost bare” moments. I’m here to tell you that if I can live through these, so can you! In fact, not much clothing-wise embarrasses me anymore. To start, I have advice for some of you young gals – if your mother allows you to have her old bikini underwear…Don’t! Old underwear can have a problem – sometimes that elastic gives out. Add that to doing a lay-up during summer basketball practice while the football team is on break and watching….well, it’s kind of embarrassing! I ran out the far doors and didn’t come back! (I had no underwear to wear for the rest of practice…)

My clumsiness has gotten me in trouble a few times. I remember the end of one ob/gyn appointment. The doctor had left, and I was to get dressed and go to the front desk. I was wearing a dress with a belt that day. I got dressed, gathered my things, and walked out of the private room towards the busy front foyer. Thankfully I found my error in dressing before being in front of tons of other patients. Unfortunately, I didn’t figure it out before passing the doctor. What happened? The whole back of my dress was tucked in my belt. How I didn’t feel the breeze back there, I don’t know. When the doctor cleared his throat, I realized what had happened. I released the back of my dress and kept moving. That poor doctor probably had a laugh after I left and a small story to take home with him that day. :)

Back in the early 1990s, I went on several off-roading and camping trips with some friends. I had another embarrassing moment then. One of the couples with us had a five-year old boy. At one of our stops, he was facing backwards in the jeep in front of me. He had a small frown on his face, so I went to wave hello to him. (I was standing outside in front of my truck.) As I lifted my hand to wave, my thumb got caught on my shirt. Before I realized what was happening, my hand was waving above my head with the bottom of my shirt still attached to it. Oh my goodness! I quickly slammed my shirt down against my body in hopes that no one else saw what happened. In my chatter of disbelief of what I had just done, I had to explain to the boy’s father that I had just flashed his son. Of course, during the rest of the trip, the boy kept looking back at me to see what else I would do!

I am not the only one in my family that has had “issues” with clothing. When my son was 3 ½, he went to the dentist for his very first time. (By the way, he might shoot me for telling this story….grin) While he was playing in the corner of the waiting area, his dad remembered a forgotten item and shared the info with me, “Oh yeah, your son is not wearing any underwear today.” Oh great, I thought! “You mean my son is going ‘Commando’ for his very first Dentist Appointment?” Well, though kind of funny, not a big deal, right? Wrong. The dentist appointment went well, and we were very proud of our son. (They had him go back on his own, and he was not scared to do that.) The next morning, my son got out of bed before we did, and he decided to dress himself in the same outfit he had on the day before (the same outfit he had on at the Dentist’s office). He came into our room and jumped in bed between us. We talked and played around until I saw something curious. I stopped my son and looked between the legs of his pants. Right in the middle of the crotch was a big hole…with something peering out! OH NO!! First thought that went through my mind was this: Were his pants like that yesterday at the Dentist office?? We’ll never know (thank goodness). How embarrassing (at least to Mom). Another doctor with another story maybe!

So, are our “clothing optional” dreams due to anxiety for the future or embarrassment from the past? Possibly both! Either way, if you can keep your chin up when the clothing misadventures happen, you’ll someday have a fun story to share with your family and friends!


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