Story Time

When I first moved back to my hometown, I had to move in with my parents until I could get on my feet.  I tried to busy myself with activities that both the kids and I could enjoy. This mostly involved walks in the fresh air and trips to the beach, but occasionally I would take the boys to the local public library where there was a children's hour on Wednesdays in the middle of the morning. There, I would situate myself with the nannies and other mothers who weren’t currently working outside their homes. Children’s story hour was always a great way for me to gauge my children’s normalcy and intelligence as well as social skills and patience. We would sit and listen to the librarian tell a story, then sing silly songs and do goofy dances. It was a great time! 

After story hour, we were encouraged to linger in the kids section, socialize with other mothers, rent puppets and borrow books. I was gossiping with my friend when I noticed something in the middle of the children’s book section. It looked like a pair of adult thong underwear…wait a minute, I thought, "that is a pair of MY adult thong underwear." In the middle of the children’s book section. On the floor. For everyone to see. I said to my friend in a hushed tone, “I think those are my underwear in the middle of the children’s book section!” Understandably, she was confused. “Why is your underwear on the floor in the middle of the children’s book section?” she asked. That was a very good question, but more importantly, I had to get those things out of sight before some kid grabs them and starts using them as a slingshot or something. 

I very slyly walked over to the underwear, placed my foot on top of them and nonchalantly dragged my foot back to wear my friend was standing. I bent down to pick them up and shove them in my jacket pocket while I tried to piece together in my head WHY my thong was outside of my pants. 

Clearly, what had happened was this: Because I was too big to fit into any of my pre-baby clothes, I only had one pair of jeans that fit me. I wore said jeans the day before, took them off (along with my underwear) and threw them on the bedroom floor. THEN, the next day, in an effort to get to children’s story hour in enough time to get prime seating, I rushed back into my only-pair-of-fitting jeans with new underwear on. But yesterday’s underwear was still harbored in the pant leg. So I went walking through the library and my day-old underwear slowly shimmied its way down my pant leg and out the foot hole, plopping itself directly on the floor in the middle of the children’s book section at the library. Go me.