Ha! I Laugh in the Face of Humiliation

Today I came downstairs to make breakfast and found the following chicken-scratched note sitting on the island, written by my husband: 

Dear Noah (our 7 year-old son),

This is YOUR lunch today (the note was on top of my husband's red thermal lunch bag).  I am allowing you to take this to school today because your Lightning McQueen lunch bag has come up missing AGAIN.  It is a little embarrassing that I have to take MY lunch in the Green Lantern lunch bag, so please take care of daddy's lunch bag today and bring it home, hopefully with your own bag. If you want to discuss this further, feel free to call me at 1-800-Humiliated.

Now, this note was intended to get the point across sarcastically and it certainly did that. Noah's clear blue eyes were as huge as saucers as I read this note ever-so-dramatically at 7:05 a.m. this morning... leading to a fit of infectious giggles for both of us thinking about daddy carrying that bag into work. I adored my dear husband's ingenuity in teaching our son a lesson when I would have just yelled, in spite of the load of crap he was going to get from the guys at work with that Green Lantern lunch sack. See, my husband works in the construction business. So that's like taking your little sister's pink Hello Kitty lunch bag to Little League practice. What a sweet dad he is. Luckily, he's a big guy, so no one is going to tease him too much, but he's still going to blush.

I so admire my husband's ability to not care what others think or say and make fun of himself. I, too, have that self-deprecating and sarcastic sensibility. But, I absolutely find myself worrying about what others think and say about me. I am a human female. Many of us do that incessantly and kick ourselves for it, then do it some more!

As I get older and wiser become more of a wise ass, I realize that I am starting to crackle. That first transparent layer of ridiculous paranoia about what people think and say is peeling away. Maybe it's because I've experienced a lot of wonderful things and a lot of thorny things and have come out stronger for them. And, I could benefit from taking myself a little less seriously. LIFE. IS. TOO. SHORT. Now, don't get me wrong, this is not a Dr. Phil or Oprah "Aha-moment, it's just that I have discovered that there's usually a hysterical little nugget in my daily life lessons and it feels better to share them than to be down on myself for being imperfect mom, forgetful friend, clumsy running partner, bossy wife, etc... I am cracking up at myself more and finding the humor and irony in things that 10 years ago would have sent me reeling, stressed, blushing and feeling awkward... and ultimately clamoring for more caffeine and chocolate.

Take for instance, my recent conundrum with my workout regimen. I had it down, I had a system, it was humming along and wham. Life - there it goes again. What now? We type-A's don't take kindly to change. We've been busy, our little family. Your busy is not my busy and vice versa, but let's put it this way: dishes sit for more than one evening (fellow OCD and type-A friends, don't gasp... that's why we meet at your place!) and at any given time, one of us cannot find clean socks or underwear. (Sorry, Grandma!) I mean, it's there, it's clean, it's just not easily accessible and probably dwelling in the bottom of a laundry basket somewhere. That's our busy... when there is no time for me to do things that I find fairly essential as a mother and wife and I know it, but I choose sleep instead.

The busy has pushed my workout schedule out of whack. Free time was starting later and later for me, and it was getting toward too late and too tired to go at all. My current gym is only open until 10 p.m. and I was finding an open slot around 9:15. It was just not happening.

So, my husband says, 'you're over on the other side of town three nights a week for appointments, why don't you join the new big modern high-tech gym?' No way, says me: I've seen the billboards, it is some great marketing they are doing, luring other suckers in... but you cannot drag me in there! I could just see it: 0% body fat 20-somethings, Real Housewife-worthy women in full make-up and grunting muscle heads. This imagined scenario was enough to keep me away but the convenience factor was winning out so I decided to take a trip over there and check it out. Chatting with my sister on the phone when I pulled in, I told her that they lost points for no close parking, but I was looking for excuses. I asked her to wish me luck and I headed in.

Sizing up the layout, decor and amount of available fitness equipment, I waited my turn at the check-in desk. As I tapped my foot to Flo-Rida pumping through the ambient speakers, gave them two silent points for the 'cafe' and  I noticed one of their signature branding signs: "This is a No-Judging Environment" or something like that, which made me laugh under my breath because the shear massiveness of the facility is intimidating, their colors are intimidating, the gaggle of people working out in unison was intimidating, and then at the same time, it was pretty impressive. I sighed. Okay, fine! These people look pretty normal. Average Joes and Janes. No one was over-the-top in designer matchy-matchy outfits and no overly-tanned Rock impersonator greeted me at the door. I was starting to let my guard down a bit.

When it was my turn, the young gentleman waiting on me, let's call him Brandon - the Assistant Non-Judgemental Membership Manager, quickly showed me the two seemingly hidden fee-free membership options available. I asked Brandon if I could go ahead with the $19.99 per month deal. Unfortunately you needed your bank's routing number and I do not have those digits committed to memory, so I sifted through my bag and wallet for a check. I told Brandon that I didn't have that information and he was more than psyched to tell me that I could sign up on line. Like using the Internet was novel to me or something. That's really cool, Brandon! My inner-voice mocked... we used to call it the world wide web in the 1990s, you know when Jackass was still on MTV?

Great! I said and as I looked back down at the counter to pick up my membership fliers, and there, in plain sight was a light pink feminine hygiene product that had apparently jumped Alaskan Salmon-style out of my T. J. Maxinista steal of a Michael Kors bag and planted itself on the check-in counter in front of Brandon, on display for all 150 treamillers and the two rather sweaty older gentleman at the cafe to see. I glanced up at mega-gym's 'Judgement-Free' mantra sign, smiled at Brandon, picked up the little pink envelope, dropped it nonchalantly into my bag and told him that I'd see him on Wednesday.

I think I've found my new gym and my newly revealed resistance to humiliation. At least I didn't have to bring my lunch in a Green Lantern sack today. Now that would have been embarrassing. Love you, honey. (Who doesn't read my blog btw...)