To Mail a Letter

I've been asked, and when I say asked what I mean is forcefully ordered to tell this story. It pains me. It is the most embarrassing story of my life, and I am not joking.

I'm not an overly sensitive person. I can usually laugh at myself and take a fair bit of ribbing. But one day events had conspired against me and comments were made until, finally, I had had it. I decided to talk to Mike about it during the ride we were about to take to mail a letter in the post office box in front of the grocery store near our house.

"You've been pretty sarcastic today," I told Mike as I climbed into his oversized construction truck.
"Have I hurt your feelings?" he asked, surprised.
"Yeah. I know you were just joking, but after about a hundred comments, it just doesn't feel funny anymore."
"Wow. I am really sorry. I had no idea any of that would hurt your feelings." He pulled up in front of the grocery store, and put the truck in park.
"I know. I usually don't get upset about this sort of thing, but it has just gone on long enough for today. Do you think you can just stop making sarcastic comments for the rest of today?"
"Absolutely. I'm really sorry that I hurt you, and I will only say nice things for the rest of today. You don't need to worry about a thing."

I smiled at him and opened the passenger door so I could slide out and quickly slip the letter in the mailbox. However, as I slid down the leather seat, my shorts got caught on the lever that controls the seat. Since I am a short person, my feet did not touch the ground, and I was dangling from the seat lever by my shorts. I tried to wiggle and release my shorts, but that caused the seat to move backward and forward in a lurchy fashion.

I considered all my options in a split second, and decided upon wrenching my body back and forth angrily. Instead of solving my problem and gently releasing my shorts, this decision caused the seat, and my body with it, to lurch back and forth as if possessed.

As I dangled, with my one side of my shorts hiked up to my hip bone, being tossed violently back and forth, the irony struck me. I thought about the conversation I had just had with Mike and thought about what he must be seeing at the moment and his promise to only say nice things the rest of the day, and I began to laugh. Hysterically.

At that moment my shorts ripped and I was dropped unceremoniously to the concrete. I was laughing hard. I hit the ground hard. I had gone through labor four times. It happened. I wet my ripped pants.

Remember, this was all happening just a few steps from the front door of the grocery store near my house. The store I shop at on a regular basis. The store where the employees know me by name. I imagined what they would think, and I imagined it would look like I became possessed, threw herself to the ground, released my bladder and mooned the world.

I was laughing too hard to say anything, but I managed to worm my way back into the truck, letter still in hand, and motion to drive forward.

"Sometimes the things you ask of me are impossible," Mike said as he bit his lips together and drove away.