Friday, November 19, 2004

Embarrassment

My boss visited this afternoon to discuss my current working practices, i.e. working- afternoons only - from home. We also talked about plans for me to return to working from the office - something that he's keen to see happen as soon as possible. One thing holding me back, I guess, is my wariness of public transport - hobbling on and off trains, low seats, all that stuff.

He asked if my reluctance in this area was caused by embarrassment. This nearly provoked a full-blown rant - he seems to forget that I spent twenty weeks in hospital. Twenty weeks of being poked and prodded, having objects inserted into every imaginable orifice, pissing either through a tube or into a bottle, shitting into (or on a couple of regrettable occasions, not quite into) bedpans, being in traction and out of action, and at one point being unable to shit at all. For three weeks.

So what's left to be embarrassed about?

End of rant. I actually feel better for getting that out*.

*A bit like the time when I couldn't shit for three weeks. Did I mention that already?

2 comments:

liz said...

Something I probably shouldn't post on the Internet is the way I was cured of my own embarrassment: when I was considerably younger, one of my many jobs was as a model for art classes at a local university. That's right, nude, because that's how it's done. (For the most part it was okay, since the environment is not like working at a strip club. Anyway.) Since I was working three jobs at the time, and of course not eating enough as usual, one morning I fainted while modeling.

Since then, I've found that not too many things compare, embarrassment-wise, to passing out cold, naked, in front of a room full of staring strangers.

Big Al said...

You're right, that *would* be hard to top.

But, urr, thanks for sharing!