Does Embarrassment Kill?

I wouldn't think it too much to ask, that my children knock politely before barging into a bedroom or, especially, a bathroom, but apparently this simple request is way over their heads. Moving hasn't improved the situation as the girls have barged, pushed and practically knocked down doors, locked or not, to let me know if they a hang nail, a commercial came on during a favorite TV show or that the sky is falling - with autumn leaves.

Try as I might to explain to my darlings (cough cough) that knocking is important. (I've tried stressing as well the importance of letting mommy or daddy know when someone is knocking on the front door before they throw it open.) I've yet to receive any positive results.

Case in point, Saturday morning, not only did the apples-of-my-eye fail to knock before entering while I was in the bathroom taking a shower but doubled such bad manners by throwing open a side door to someone knocking outside the house. Seperately it might not have been such a big deal, but the two openings together, in close proximity to one another, proved disasterous.

What transpired was the poor soul knocking outside got quite an eyeful of yours truly inside. Me, right out of the shower, hands in the air, trying vainly to discern why the girls were in such an uproar.

By the time I put two and two together, well, make that three; the girls barging into the bathroom, the reason for the side door to be wide open and the girls drooling like Pavlov dogs, it was too late to do anything but blush from tiptop to tiptoe.

Believe me, I tried persuading myself that things weren't as they appeared. That neither the outside door or the bathroom door had been left that wide open, or someone standing outside couldn't see very well inside or that my bath towel had grown to the size of Carnegie Hall and had been wrapped perfectly about me.

Perhaps if I were British, single and as gorgeous as Renee Zellweger the whole situation would have been very "Bridget Jones-y" but after getting dressed and trying to busy myself with weekend chores the humiliation would not die. A few outloud guffaws while sweeping and a quick call to the hub explaining that I think I flashed one of his family members didn't help. I tried more reasoning, that perhaps I was completely wrong over what had happened, but how else to explain the exposed family member driving madly off in their car before I had a chance to get to the well opened door? That it was simply the fact no one had answered the door or that they been scarred for life?

After chores were done I did a lot of pacing, more explaining to the munchkins of the importance of knocking on closed doors and checking with mommy before opening outside doors to anyone, including family, but knew full well my words were falling on deaf ears.

There are no records of someone dying from embarrassment but I may be the first and if I do manage to survive I can promise my daughters one thing. A day will come, when they are older and the situation can be appreciated, that I'll be dropping them off at school, right outside the double front doors, in sight of all their friends, wearing the largest set of pink curlers in my hair.

Originally published in the Daily Advocate 2007.

Bethany J. Royer-DeLong is currently entrenched at home fighting the good war against the gimmes and the I-don't-wannas. She blogs recklessly, as all mothers of children under the age of six should, and has been working on that "supposed" great American novel, times a dozen. You can visit her at motherofthemunchkins.blogspot.com and email her at broyerdelong@yahoo.com