Embarrassment

How can it be that I'm having such a hard time remembering... remembering the adrenal rush of embarrassment as the ~whoosh~ sounds through your head and your brain is rendered frozen as deer eyes looked toward the headlights?

I spent my childhood being embarrassed about almost everything. This is not an overstatement as a deodorant commercial starting up on the TV in mixed company would make me sweat. Any sort of attention would turn my freckled face such a shade of red that my friends in college would refer to me as Cherry Tomato. So why can't I get there; to that monumental embarrassment? When you're constantly cringing, it's just your way of life... although...

The bat hang. I went with my friends to the air force base's officer club specifically to see the fearless fighter pilots hang upside down from the rafters and drink a beer. Really. My good friend was interested in one of these egomaniacs, so there was also the incentive to give support to one of my girls.

We had just arrived and were standing at the bar waiting for our first round of much needed courage to deal with the crowd of strangers. Everyone was seated at long tables and the bar was just off the dance floor, so in a way it looked like an empty stage with a couple of civilians (us) waiting off to the side for their cocktails. All the people of the bar, or the audience, if you will, began catcalling and yelling. Pumping of fists occurred as well, and for the life of me I didn't know what was going on. Sure, they had a head start on this evening of par-taying, but what the hell was going on? It was obvious the Bat Hang had not begun, but why the reaction?

Out of the corner of my eye I spy 'Lt. Gonna Fly My Ass Off and Bomb You', who just happened to be the best friend of my friend's crush. He's crouched down, off to my side, and he's looking up my skirt. We're talking late Eighties, so I was sportin' the mini and there he was, peeking to the maxi.



His insulting act was embarrassing enough, but what really got me shell shocked (and before I was even served my first drink- how rude!) was that the entire bar was witness as I was totally unaware until the worst had already passed. Horror.

I'd like to say I left straight away, but my friend begged me to stay and somehow join the party and just try to let it pass, and I did. I stayed. I took one for the team and joined a table of strangers just until I felt something brush my legs. There was the same asshole on his hands and knees, under the table, and with his face between my knees. A few choice words and I was out of there; f- you, fly boy.