Time for Round Two! I got another donation-- thank you!!
I could go chronologically in order. But I've decided not to. Let me take you back to the childhood days of Rachel Clark. This story is called Panties in the Pool.
It's short but hopefully the level of embarrassment is worth it.
For all of my childhood and adolescence, we belonged to this small, semi-private pool called the Teacher's Pool. It was kept alive by some fancy family fund and it was designed to provide a pool for, you guessed it, teachers in the community. I loved the Teacher's Pool. It was not usually super crowded, and I was scared of the big pool where anyone and everyone went, so it made sense that I relished in the relative emptiness and quietness of the Teacher's Pool.
To the embarrassing part.
The Teacher's Pool had two small bathrooms so sometimes we would just take our swim suits with us and change once we got there. I honestly don't know how old I was this particular time, I'm going to say somewhere around 10. Whatever age I was, I know I was far too old for what happened to have actually happened. I went to the girls bathroom, changed into my swim suit, ran back out, tossed my swim bag onto one of those folding lounge chairs and went to get in the water with my sister.
Because I was young, I don't have a stellar memory for all the details. However, I do remember that I was slowly inching my way in to the deep end via the ladder. I got in up to my shins. Then my knees. Then my thighs. Then my stomach. And suddenly, I was like.....something feels weird. It kind of felt like I was wearing a diaper.
That's right, I had accidentally forgotten to take my underwear off. In all of my hurry to change and get in the pool, I had put my swim suit on right on top of my underwear. How on earth I had left it on and not immediately realized it, I seriously do not know. Once I realized I was wearing it, I noticed that it definitely felt like I had multiple layers on. I'm unfortunately guessing that my swim suit didn't even cover all of it. So I had probably run out of the bathroom with underwear visibly underneath my suit. Whether anyone saw, I'll never know.
I honestly don't know if I was obvious enough about it that my sister or my dad realized what had happened but I'm guessing I turned bright red and ran back to the bathroom. I'll have to ask Abby if she knows this story.
I had no other option at that point than to deal with my soaking wet underwear. I think I considered throwing it away. Instead I tried to hide it in my hand as I sprinted to our chairs. I rolled it up in my towel and shoved it in my bag. I don't remember this part but I have a feeling I also had difficulty later when I had to actually use that towel to dry off after swimming and I didn't want to have to explain to anyone why my underwear had been soaking wet.
Whether this is a semi-normal mistake for 8 or 10 year olds, I have no idea. But I must have been really embarrassed, to remember it clearly to this day. The best part I think is that I didn't just start to put on my swim suit and realize I was still wearing something (although that has happened many times), but I actually went through the whole process and even got in the pool. Yeesh.
I remember my 8 or 10 year old brain thinking, "I will never ever ever tell anyone about this." Well, thanks to that donation-- the cat's out of the bag ;)
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