...you wish the floor would open up and swallow you whole??? You know - when your embarrassment is so complete that you can hardly remain alive???? Your face is flaming with heat, it's as red as a fire and it scarily feels like your cheeks actually have their own heartbeat??? It takes a whopper of an 'incident' to get to this point. But it does happen. I promise. It happened to me last weekend. But I'll get to that.
I'm one of those people that has so many embarrassing 'incidents' that it's hard to pick out any single one that is worse than the rest. Time is definitely a healer and it has turned most of the historic embarrassments into funny stories, rather than the torture they were at the time of happening. So I've never been good at the whole "too cool for school" caper. It just never worked for me, even when I tried hard at it.
Let's take, for example, the time when I was a 17 year old office junior, taking my lunch break and feeling oh-so-important walking down the street with two of the senior office managers either side of me. They were going out to buy a sandwich and normally ignored little old me but, for some reason, this time invited me along. So how come, though I was walking in the middle, I was the only one who fell down the manhole???? How the hell does that happen? And there was absolutely no point in the world trying to gather my 'coolness' back while I still required physical assistance to extract both legs out of the said manhole, and ended up emerging with shredded pantyhose and dirty, smelly, brown, muddy ....shit....all over my legs and shoes!! No point whatsoever!!! The ever-caring managers just about fell over themselves with trying to pull me out but I would honestly and truly have preferred to have been swallowed up whole by the earth than have to deal with this situation. The memory now makes me laugh...with a few little prickles of embarrassment still present.
Anyhow, on to the present. So last weekend I headed to Darwin for my posing-session with a trainer called Karlene. Except I wasn't actually greeted by Karlene when I arrived at the gym, but by her partner/boyfriend, Hector. Now Hector has enough muscle on him to feed a small African tribe for a year, and he's fully South American, and as funny as all heck! That is, when I can understand him. He speaks fast and I find myself lip-reading a fair bit. But I forgave him as time went on because he's good, really good! He is a ripping example of a body-builder and teaches beautifully.
Nope, the intro to Hector has nothing to do with the 'incident'. It involves some of the attire worn by a female body builder. Now, it's prudent to point out that the female of this species wears extremely little attire when competing. So what is worn needs to do it's job extremely well least all hell break loose. Get to the point.
A few months ago, my gorgeous friend, Kylie, loaned me her proper little bodybuilding high-heels that she wore to a show a few years back. They are a typical style for a competition, consisting of an approx 1cm platform, and a 5.5cm very narrow high heel. The top of the shoe is a clear plastic strip with a thin strap around the heel. Quite unremarkable really. But very important.
So I produced these shoes for Hector's judgemental eye and, in a thick South American accent he said something like, "These shoes are shit. They are falling apart. I think you should tape them up before you walk in them". I peered closer and saw the smallest of small little lifts in the top part of the shoe where it met with the towering high heel. "Oh .... it'll be just fine thank you very much" I cockily retorted, thinking he was being a bit over-the-top (and mildly offensive!) about my little heels!
So we got started with our session and I started learning about Side Chest, and Front Biceps, and Side Left Tricep poses. I practised and practised and practised until my brain literally ached with the effort of remembering the moves. It turned into a blur of commands like, "squeeze your glutes" "never stop smiling" "thighs! Flex your thighs!" "Glutes again!!!" "Feet in, butt out, legs together, lats spread, and DON'T STOP SMILING!!!" It was overwhelming but challenging and exciting all in one.
And then the moment came. "Time for shoes on. Are you sure you don't want to tape them up before we start" he said with a cheeky little smile. "It would be a shame to roll your heel after all of the hard work you've done"
Me...cheerily..."No thanks! They'll be fine. But thanks for caring"
Him..."Ok. (why won't he stop smiling!!) "Walk on that stage, drop two poses, kiss the air and show us how it's done. Wait....I'll give you a quick intro......(after years of participating in police training sessions, Hector has no idea just how much I hate role-plays!! any form of them!!! but I'll play the game!!!) and here we have Kirsten from Katherine!!!!!!!!!!!"
Then I'm strutting out like a contestant on Next Top Model. I've got the jaunty little walk, hand on hip, cheeky smile. And I'm workin it baby!!!
Then it happened. Without warning. At precisely, and I mean precisely, the same millisecond, both bottoms of both shoes disengaged themselves from...well from the whole bloody shoe!! I immediately went from a towering 5ft9inches to 5ft6inches....well shorter actually if you count the height I lost in pure embarrassment! And I find myself trotting along with my feet strapped in clear plastic to a dirty white sole/sock thingie!!! And I can hear both heels clattering around behind me, like a pair of those dancing false teeth party tricks.
EMBARRASSMENT was total. My face burned and I just about died right there and then. Worse of all, I couldn't escape my predicament due to my feet being tightly strapped in to the soles! Meanwhile, Hector the trainer is just about falling off his chair with laughter. In between laughs he's pointing out how stubborn women are when it comes to taking instruction. I'm laughing with him but my pride has taken the ultimate tumble and I'm hurtin!!! Oh God - please swallow me...NOW!!!!
He didn't. And I didn't die. I just felt like I would. They say that pride does go before a fall, which means I must have had an awful lot of pride somewhere along the way.
But I must say that, all in all, it was a brilliant training session. Hector was fantastic, and I'm all on track. Just gotta remember, nothing is ever that serious, and laughter is a great way to start and end the day.
On that. I really hope you're smiling Kylie!! Though I tried resusitation, the shoes are deceased! I owe you one! ....two actually!
X
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