Most Embarrassing Moments

I am sure that my children are mentally storing tales from their childhood to share with their children. They often re-live their most embarrassing moments caused by being one of my children. This embarrassment is not isolated to my children. I have had to ability to mortify my grandson, who in turn has made me blush with his recounting of family tales. Last year we made one of the annual Birthday Dinner Trips to Red Lobster that we initiated when my children were young. They could each go and have lobster on their birthday; it was a big deal then. We make it a big deal now. My grandson was the honored guest. We were sitting around the table laughing about things that had happened in our family. We got around to our most embarrassing moments. I was retelling the story of how I mistook my daughter’s former baby sitter for the mother-in-law of a friend while grocery shopping. When the baby sitter walked away my daughter said, “I thought that was Miss Louise”. My mind was immediately jolted into the right gear; we then hid behind the fresh vegetables at Kroger and laughed. When the waitress came to our table to check on us, the entire restaurant had one of those dead quiet moments. My grandson spoke up in a very loud voice “Oh no, I thought it was when you farted in front of the scout master at Boy Scout camp.” He still can not understand how eating pork and beans three times a day for a week can cause your gut to become a gas factory. The waitress did not miss a beat as she said; “Now this is your most embarrassing moment”.

My adult children are still complaining about how embarrassed they were by me making them wear dog-tags I had purchased with their name, my name, address, and telephone number. I was obsessed with something happening to them when they were too young or too busy to carry identification. How would anyone know who they were if they were in an accident while alone or traveling with non-family members? I when my son joined the Army I told him that I was having a Medic-Alert Bracelet made for him. He questioned this being he had no medical history that would require an alert. I told him it was going to say, “IN CASE OF INTOXICATION, DO NOT TATTOO OR PIERCE THIS BODY”. I am still convinced this bracelet would be a big seller to parents of young service men.

So, here many of us are with aging parents who might benefit from the “dog tag” idea. I have suggested this to my patients who have family members with Alzheimer’s. Monday I had an elderly patient who was in no physical condition to drive, drive himself to my office. His health had declined immensely since I last saw him. I sat him down for a case history review in which I had to pull information from him. What medications are you taking? Morphine. Oh Lord. Are you under another doctor’s care ? “Yes, I just had a flabbergaster installed.” A flabbergaster, are you talking about a defibulator? Here is a perfect candidate for a medic alert bracelet, not to mention a family member accompanying him to his doctor’s visit. His decreased reaction time was discussed along with the idea he should not drive. My guess, he snuck off.

See what I am saying? Our parents are acting like teenagers. Remember when our children were teenagers? It takes a village to raise them. Good luck on your journey.