The Tale of the Door and the Dress.

It's Embarrassing Stories Thursday! (Last week's installment can be found here.)

So, rewind to the summer of 2008. The boys were 3 and pre-one, and the day in question was a total festival of heat and humidity. We were off to a playdate, and in deference to it being a million degrees out, I'd started the car and blasted the air conditioning for a few minutes before loading them up into their car seats.

Once the car was tolerable, I hustled them out there, waving to the 6 or 7 roofers working on the house across the street* (*they become somewhat important later), latched the kids in, and headed back to the house to do one last sweep for forgotten diaper bag items, etc. Then I lock the door, swiftly and smartly latch it behind me, and attempt to take a step toward the car. What's this? I can't move? WELL, it would appear that I've locked a good portion of my dress in the door. The next step, I think, not panicking yet, is to simply unlock the door. Let me just grab my keys out of my... oh shit. I hear the car running. I see the keys glinting in the ignition. I gauge the 20 foot dash between me and the driver's side door. I HEAR AND SEE THE ROOFERS ACROSS THE STREET.

So I stand for a while, locked in my door, looking around at my options. It swirls around and I finally come up with these:

1) Wait for a walker to come by. Hope said walker won't steal my car and children when I ask them for help. Picture myself running down the street mostly naked, screaming at the retreating car.

2) Remove dress, streak to keys all by myself, roofers be damned.

It takes me about 30 seconds to settle on #2. I was still firmly in Crazytown after the birth, where I worried about zombies so much that I perused survivalist websites and talked about MREs and the merits of various tents with Andy (who nodded amenably, and also purchased bulk water every time we went to Costco and only ONCE suggested that I see a doctor, bless him) and the potential baby stealing aspect of #1 was enough to make me choose the definitely naked option. In my beautiful and not at all horrifying underpants (I believe they may have been maternity underpants, and about as appealing as that sounds) and nursing tank, I booked it across the driveway, opened the car, ("What are you doing, Mama?"), snatched the keys and sprinted back to the house again.

There was no applause from across the street. There was, however, stunned silence. No hammers, no chatter, just, I assume, the shocked audio output of AWE. I freed my dress and whatever scraps were left of my dignity, ducked into the cool of the kitchen, and pulled it all over my head. Then, calmly, I walked back to the car as if nothing happened, started 'er up, and drove off. Never let them see that you know that they saw your ass, they say.