It’s funny how having a baby can raise your shame levels to new heights.
After flashing my bits to a complete stranger during childbirth and exposing my naked breasts while breastfeeding in the fruit and veg section of the local supermarket, it takes a lot to make me cringe nowadays.
But there is still something that never fails to turn my cheeks deep crimson. And now, because I’m a woman of my word, I will share the whole thing with you.
A week ago, I found out I’d been shortlisted for a MAD Blog Award – I’m a finalist in the Best Baby Blog category. Once I’d stopped running around the room in excitement, it slowly dawned on me that I’d have to share a little story with you. I made a promise, you see. I said that if I was nominated for a MAD Blog Award, I would tell you about the time I got into a spot of bother with a few firemen. Nakedness was involved in the story, as was water.
Oh dear.
So let’s go back. Back to my pre-Frog days in 2008, when I worked on the Breakfast show of a radio station in Berkshire. My job involved getting up extremely early (4am kind of early) and reading the news. There were lots of other things involved too, but that’s irrelevent really.
Anyway, after a couple of months in my new job I was flagging one afternoon. I was at home, in my top floor flat and decided to have a bath. Ah, those pre-baby days where Neighbours followed by a long, leisurely bath were the norm. Lovely.
Except it didn’t go quite according to plan.
After turning on the taps and filling the bath with all manner of potions and bubbles, I decided to wait in my bedroom for the water to get nice and deep. With strains of Take That on the stereo and an engrossing book in my hand, I stripped off and wrapped myself in a towel before lounging on my bed.
And then I fell asleep. For three hours.
I was woken by a fireman standing at my bedroom door. By this time I had rolled off my towel and was stark naked. Bare as the day I was born, but with hairy legs and a bikini line to rival the Amazon Forest. Not really the way I like to greet visitors.
As I scrambled to find something to cover me, three more firemen popped their heads around the door.
Slowly, I made sense of the situation. After falling asleep my bath had overflowed, flooding my top floor flat and pouring down the walls of my neighbour’s flat below. Turns out ten minutes of his banging on the door wasn’t enough to rouse me, so he called 999. Not only did the firemen have to put a ladder up to my living room window and make an emergency entrance, the police and an ambulance were also called.
Embarrassed isn’t even the word.
And it gets worse. The next morning, still reeling from my stupidity, I came into work to find one of the firemen had left a message on the answerphone at work. So the “incident” was played out across the whole of Berkshire and North Hampshire on the radio. Which meant the papers got hold of the story, so decided to prolong my shame even further. Just in case anyone missed my humiliation, they printed the whole thing in black and white. You can read it here if you don’t believe me.
And now, three years on from the whole sorry episode, I’ve shot myself in the foot and brought it all to life yet again.
Brilliant.
I still need your votes in the MAD Blog Awards. Just follow this link and vote for Mother’s Always Right to win Best Baby Blog. *shameless plug over*
This is bloody hilarious if a tad mortifying. I had a phase where I was a bit of a streaker in my youth but I never managed to get on tv or anything!
You were a streaker by choice?! Was alcohol involved? Sounds like you’d be popular with the firemen round my way…
That is one of the funniest stories I’ve heard in a long time. Hope you’ve now gotten control over your amazon rain forest!
It’s been tough but I’m pleased to say I got there in the end.
I hope your fireman looked like Elvis from Fireman Sam. Hot (?) in a lost puppy sort of way!!
…. yes, I must get a life.
Gone are the days of eyeing up the likes of Brad Pitt. When you become a mum it’s all about the Fireman Sam characters! Really? Really?!
Bloody brilliant…oh the shame and humiliation….and just when you think it can’t get any worse…it does! No wonder it takes a lot to embarrass you :-))) Love it! Thank you for ‘sharing’ do you also recite the Serenity Prayer?
I don’t but maybe I should from now on – may help me put the whole “incident” behind me! x
That is hilarious. I do fancy fireman too, but I sure as hell wouldn’t want them seeing me in the nick. Incidentally, I’ve had my own on air humiliation if it helps. http://homeofficemum.blogspot.com/2010/02/heady-heights-of-celebrity.html
littered with errors, heavy even…
That’s a cracking story and one you will never live down! I take you are a heabvy sleeper?! pre frog at least…You can rest assured those fireman will never forget you. I wonder if one of them got a snap? he he 🙂
Oh goodness, I hope not. For their sake. I wouldn’t want to subject anyone to the sight of me naked, pre-baby or not!
? You are simply HILARIOUS. Never fail to leave me like this 😀 <—— me! haha! At least it was firemen 😉 😉 ??? x ??? x ???
You’re back! I wondered where you’d gone for a while? Glad I made you laugh. I wasn’t laughing at the time, but looking back I can grudgingly admit it was rather funny.
You are an absolute star to have posted this! I’ve been laughing for half an hour: “Bare as the day I was born, but with hairy legs and a bikini line to rival the Amazon Forest. Not really the way I like to greet visitors.” I totally needed that, thanks!
I do my best – happy to know my humiliation wasn’t completely pointless! x
OMG I feel your pain!! 🙂
This story on its own was worth nominating you for!
I think I’ll be up for Embarrassing Mum of the Year award next year! x
Oh that’s a goody. I’m going to go shave my legs and then run a bath right now…with any luck…
You need a top floor flat and an irrate neighbour to be sure of a fireman visit. Or you could just get Mr Fancy to pretend?
Ahh Mol, it wasn’t even the first time either. What about the time you slept through the fire alarm and subsequent evacuation of House C only to be found by the fire marshal passed out on top of your bed wearing only a thong?
AAAAAAAAGH! One shameful story at a time please. I’d forgotten all about that one.
I don’t think I’d want to awaken to a bunch of firemen standing over me (unless I’d invited them over prior to sleeping, ahem!), but I wouldn’t mind being able to sleep that deeply. 😀
It’s an unfortunate trait I once had that went out of the window once the baby was born!
sorry but i think that is so funny, look at the positive side of things.. Firemen.. they can’t of been all that bad.. A great story to tell your grandchildren …
I can just see them cringing now…
ho ho ho. Brilliant indeed. Did you marry any of them?!
Now, must dash, need to switch taps on then fall into deep sleep and await arrival of hunky fireman…. oh sorry, was fairytale day today at nursery, got a bit carried away…. 😉
I certainly wouldn’t recommend it – I was far too deep in my own shame to notice if any of them were hunky or not! x