Button it!

We've all had it happen to us, right? We go about our day, interacting with people, maybe even engaging in some kind of large public event at which we may or may not be a focal person, only later to discover to our horror that we've been parading around with some small yet infinitely embarrassing physical gaff. Your fly is unzipped. There's a prominent booger boogying out of a nostril. The front of your hair is doing some sort of levitating trick (this applies mostly to me and my fellow cowlick-infected BFF). Something like that. Something that, once you've stepped in front of the mirror, makes you feel like never going in public again.
Good Lord, how many people noticed THAT?Was that there when I was talking with______________?(fill in the blank with appropriately important personage whom you really, really thought you'd impressed today).

Yeah. Yesterday was my turn.

I wore a very cute shirt-dress with leggings. Very outside my normal lazy-housewife-uniform of a t-shirt and possibly clean capri jeans with flip-flops, but I was feeling sassy. And I'd had to work that morning at my ever-so-demanding one hour per week job as a story-lady at an largish bookstore. They frown on my wearing something that might or might not have been purchased at Costco, so I dressed up a little.

Feeling ever so stylish and kicky, I left the outfit on even after having returned home from the exhausting hour of reading books to small people and making them color. I had a few hours before picking up The Girl from school, so I put on the good old iPod (which is never not on my body) and may or may not have attempted to clean something. Or fold things. I dunno, housework is all one big blur to me.
Anywho, for the safety of My Precious, I dropped it down the front of my shirt and threaded it through an opening between the buttons of my shirt-dress so it could rest comfortably in my pocket with the cord tucked away while I did those housewifey-type things. (Too many times has My Precious been ripped from my ears and person by the crafty cord-grabbings of drawer corners and vacuum handles. It's a dangerous game for the iPod, this cleaning gig).

When it was time to get The Girl, I jumped in my car, unthreaded the cord from my garments and went on my merry way. The earbud jack kind of caught on one of my buttons, but I was late as usual, so I yanked and drove on. I then talked to three of my daughter's classmates. Chatted with her teacher. Discussed the camping trip with my friend Lisa. Took The Girl to flute lesson and sat on the teacher's sofa brimming with pride at my budding musical prodigy. Went to see the flute teacher's new parrot, which was downstairs with the teacher's husband and three kids. Stopped at the pet store on the way home. BS'ed with the neighbor about the power outage. Went in to powder my nose and upon washing my hands glanced in the mirror to see:

My bra. And my belly button.

And came to the sinking realization that they had been having their world premiere for about the last 3 hours.

My first reaction: humiliation. Might as well go ahead with the big L tattoo on the forehead that I've been contemplating for the last few years. No wonder the pet store guy wouldn't make eye contact. I just thought he was one of those weird lizard people who disdain us bunny-food-buying folk. No, no: he was trying not to look at the blue lace and the mole I should have checked.

Sigh.

Then: indignation. What the Fuck?! Why didn't anyone SAY ANYTHING? A discreet "Hey, V, you're giving the kids a show" from someone in the hall at school? "Um, your button has come undone" from the flute teacher? Something? ANYFUCKINGTHING? No! These people let me wander around all day looking like either I'd lost the plot, or that I'd finally gone completely round the cougar bend to one of those desperate-to-still-be-sexy middle aged women who resort to getting their jollies by exposing their aging saggy boobs to any hapless passersby. (Ohhhh...is that what people think? Then that makes sense). See? THIS is why I live in t-shirts. Long enough to cover my zipper, no less.

Then I thought about the girl I'd seen in the largish bookstore earlier that day. She was with her big hunky boyfriend, buying coffee. She had pretty hair. Straight and layered and styled...except for the frizzy fuck-bump on the back of her head that she'd neglected to smooth after their afternoon delight. I could have said something to her, right? Whispered in her ear, smoothed it myself while pretending to bump into her, something. Save her from the whole of humanity knowing that she had gotten freaky with her man just moments ago.

Or the fellow housewife in Costco's parking lot last week who had the foot-long plastic size sticker still attached to her pants. Could have walked over and discreetly yanked it for her. I've been on the other side of that exact scenario and am endlessly thankful to the kind stranger who saved me. But I had not the courage to be her hero.

Why not? Why is it so hard sometimes for us to help someone save themselves from looking like more of a moron? Well, we're afraid we'll embarrass them, right? Even if we know that embarrassing them for a moment has got to be better than letting them be an embarrassment to their children and/or friends or possibly breaking some decency laws, it's just too awkward to intervene sometimes.

Well, not anymore, not for me. From now on I will point out every booger. I will XYZ every old man. I will yank tags and desticker cargo pants. I will smooth flyaway tresses (yes, my dear Sara, I mean you too). I will giggle at toupees. Can't help it.

But mostly, I will always, ALWAYS double check my buttons. Always.