Happy Canada Day and happy Fourth of July! North America is kicking off summer with two national holidays; after a long and arduous winter in many of these parts, everyone is quite eager to get outside and soak up the rays.
And so, although many of our contributing authors are from the southern hemisphere and in the middle of winter, the tenth “Ask an Author” feature is a very, very silly one, in honor of something very, very silly one of our authors has confessed to doing one summer long gone: What is the most embarrassing thing that happened to you on the beach, by the pool, or at any other summer related activity?
Sahar, you can read about my most embarrassing moment in my chick-lit novel A Dash of Reality because Mel’s silky-harem-pant-wardrobe-malfunction is plucked from my own experience. In real life the incident occurred on a summer evening in January, on a service station forecourt, while I juggled a bunch of flowers, a box of chocolates and a cup of coffee. When I finally got my pants retied—yes, tied and retied, with one of those doubly double granny knots—I turned to see four men, each sitting in their vehicles, laughing their heads off at the sight of my thonged bottom! And there was no dashing Jack to step in and save Lee’s dignity. Instead, my husband, who was waiting for me in the car, was darling enough to point out that the service station forecourt was bound to have a surveillance camera, and thus, my bottom was likely to be plastered all over Youtube within the hour—I haven’t found any evidence of it yet, but if anyone does, please let me know! In any case, rather than empathising, my husband found the whole incident hilarious. So there it is, my most embarrassing moment.
Well, I do recall going to the Atlantic Ocean to swim when the waves were a bit rough. It managed to pull at my swimsuit in ways that were somewhat revealing and I was wearing a one-piece. I was grateful I wasn’t in a bikini! A quick dunk down and a bit of rearranging put things back in order without being seen, but I soon gave up on swimming for the day. So note to those of you thinking of swimming in the ocean: Have a care, those waves can have a very powerful pull even when they look fairly mild.
I remember once, when I was a kid, jumping into the crowded public swimming pool and landing on someone’s head. Smack to the cement bottom. Rather than finding out if this kid was all right or saying I’m sorry, I just hurried off in a flurry of splashing water.
Several years ago, my husband, son, mother, step-dad and I were heading down to Invercargill (New Zealand) for the Burt Munro weekend – a big motorcycle convention. As it is at the opposite end of the Island from where we lived, we decided to break up the trip with several stops on the way down.
We stopped at a motel in Christchurch which had a covered swimming pool, which was heated. We decided that it looked like fun, so I purchased some swimming togs, a couple of towels, and my son and I went for a swim. The pool also had a small hydroslide, which didn’t look too long, or disastrous, so I decided to have ago.
The first time down wasn’t too bad, in fact it was lots of fun. Took my son down, but he wasn’t too fussed about it. My third time down, I don’t know what happened, but somehow I got my long legs all crossed up and ended up heading over the side of the slide and into the pool in a very undignified manner… to make matters worse, several people had come in to have a look at the pool and test the waters and had witnessed my glorious mistake.
I spluttered my way to the surface, coughing up heavily chlorinated water, only to realise that the top part of my swimmers had somehow come down during my disgraceful dismount. Fortunately I discovered that before I got out of the pool. Needless to say, I didn’t stay in the pool for much longer, and I didn’t go down the slide again.
My first time here, and I’m supposed to bare all with something embarrassing. Summer is the time of swimming tog malfunctions, but really this is the twenty-first century, so the time I discovered my swimsuit wasn’t quite as opaque as I’d thought really shouldn’t count. Which leaves the summer I was paddling a kayak and a stingray slid through the water below. Now the important thing to note here is that I don’t scream. I never scream. Yet, in no danger whatsoever, I might have yelled – a little bit. And while you could interpret that as a scream, I’d like to point out that my unreasoned hate of stingrays seems a little bit more justified now (not much, but a little bit) than it did back then.
So much for embarrassing, I’d rather remember one of the funniest summer moment ever – watching my little brother slowly sink a borrowed P-class yacht in the very same bay. Only the yacht was in any danger as it went round and round, wallowing lower and lower in the placid waters until someone waded out to rescue him and the boat.