Embarrassing moment

I went to Church today and sat down. Two rows ahead of me was sitting a middle-aged lady. I noticed that she had put her pull-over shirt on inside out. The tag was hanging out. Now, I know that is the “cool” thing for kids to do. My kids used to do it all of the time…partly to be cool and mostly to bug me. But I’m pretty certain that this wasn’t the case for this lady. She was scheduled to teach Gospel Doctrine next and I wanted to save her the embarrassment of when she finally found out what she had done.

Therein lied my dilemma — how to convey to her that her tag was hanging out. I motioned for Sister Megs or Bird to go up and tell her. They were mortified and motioned for me to leave it alone…and so I did. If it didn’t bother her (in her ignorance) then why should it bother me.

I've run into that dilemma on more than one occasion. One was way back when I was going to BYU Summer school. I was walking clear across campus, heading south to where I had parked my car on the lower 40 acres beyond the campus police. Ahead of me about a 100 feet was a BYU co-ed. She was wearing one of those wrap-a-round skirts and had apparently just gone to the restroom. When she had gotten done she didn’t quite get the skirt wrapped all the way back around and the back half was neatly tucked into her panty hose for all the world to see. What was I to do? Holler out, “Oh miss, oh miss, you’re flapping in the wind.” But that wouldn’t have been true, because it was Summer and there was no breeze. That is when I came upon the philosophy that I would save us both the embarrassment and let it go.

Another instance. I was dressed up in my suit waiting on people that were waiting for their temple recommends. I was walking back and forth from the clerk’s office to the copy room and so forth chatting with the people. When I got home to take off my suit, I realized that I didn’t need to unzip my pants because I hadn’t zipped them up in the first place. I figured, “Oh well, nobody must have noticed or they would have told me.”

And, so I’m figuring that is how it will be today for the middle-aged lady when she takes off her pull-over shirt — Nobody must have noticed or they would have told me.