My Sweet Embarrassable You

Embarrassment comes in many shapes and sizes – but what we all find particularly interesting are other people’s “most embarrassing moments.” I’m going to tell you mine – but first, some peripheral observations. Such stories usually seem to involve unexpected revelations of things we normally try to keep “private” – particularly if they have to do with bodily functions. Depending on circumstances, a wide range of items, from private diaries to toilet paper and condoms, can be the source of intense embarrassment.

Our word “embarrassment” comes from the French, meaning “an awkward experience,” and has given us that strange idiom “an embarrassment of riches,” (meaning “too much of a good thing”). Simon Schama used this expression as the title of his book about the Dutch Republic in its “Golden Age” in the 17th century. It truly was remarkable that a small nation with so little in the way of natural resources, beset by divisions of religion and language, and fighting a long war for independence from Europe’s great superpower, Spain (to say nothing of constantly battling the encroaching waters of the North Sea), should nevertheless have been able to thrive economically and culturally, and even to develop its own world empire. Richly embarrassing indeed!

But we still enjoy the more vulgar types of embarrassment, which may be why, in one of my own favorite fantasies at school in England, all the teachers I disliked – and especially the headmaster – would be standing on stage in Assembly, and suddenly become naked – or, perhaps even more titillating, be seen in their underwear.

But now, to my own most embarrassing moment: It happened on July 22, 1992, in Ligonier, a small town in southwest Pennsylvania, near Greensburg. I’d never been there before.

My only reason for being in that area at all was to visit the offices of the local newspaper, the Greensburg Tribune, which had already been carrying my syndicated Pot-Shots feature for several years. Being published regularly in this way tends to make the author a sort of minor celebrity in that particular locality. 

Since I was also in the business of taking orders for my books, of which seven were already in print, I utilized occasions like this by calling on likely retailers, particularly bookstores, in the vicinity. So, having completed my dealings in Greensburg, and heading east for other locales, I was passing through this totally unfamiliar Ligonier area. I had left my car some distance away and was walking about, still wearing my best “business” clothes, and carrying a briefcase containing my sales material and sample books.

Then rather suddenly, I was overcome by an intense need to urinate. It happens to the best of us, I suppose. I was in strange surroundings, and it was beginning to get dark. There was no time to seek a suitable location, or find somebody to ask for help. Just barely visible from the road, I could see a clump of bushes. That seemed my best bet, so I made my way toward it, across a grassy area. I’d just reached the bushes, where I felt I would at least be properly concealed, and was about to relieve myself, when a man’s angry voice asked what I was doing on his property.

It turned out that I had just walked across his front lawn and was in the shrubbery at the rear of a house, which I somehow hadn’t even been aware of. This man and his wife had both seen me, and could only assume I was some kind of prowler or other person up to no good. 

In an attempt to mitigate my plight, I could only admit what I had come there to do – but assure this irate householder that I had not yet even had time to do it. Meanwhile, his wife was shrieking from the house about calling the police.

What made it all even worse was the thought that these people probably subscribed to the Greensburg paper, where quite possibly they read my work every day. Had I come all the way to Ligonier, they might wonder, just to pee in their bushes? If they did call the police, and my identity were revealed, the Greensburg Tribune would have something scandalous to report about this hitherto beloved and respected cartoonist.

Mercifully, that did not happen, and I was able to make my escape with my tail (so to speak) between my legs. But I still cringe at the memory of that whole ghastly incident.