Flashing

At the start of September, Boy Seymour had an appointment at his new college. He had to show up, sign up and step up to his new role as sixth form student.

Boy has been taking the whole thing in his stride – even though I know he is nervous – and he seemed happy and somewhat excited at the prospect of new learning, in spite of his claims that he “doesn’t like change”.

It happened that his enrolment fell on a day that I wasn’t working – which was actually very handy – as it meant that I could accompany Boy on his first journey to The Big Smoke, as I shall call it. It’s not the city as such, but it is a VERY LARGE TOWN, and as Boy is a bumpkin, I was a little concerned he might stand out or get lost. Or get stabbed.

And as the other Little Seymours, well, most of them, were at a loose end that day, we had a small family outing. Number Two drove us, and she negotiated the multi-storey car park remarkably well given that she hadn’t done it before and wasn’t driving a car that was familiar to her. The car we were in (my tiny run-about, red with green wheels and really, really embarrassing apparently) was made all the more embarrassing by the fact that, for a small car, it has the longest aerial in the world, which hit the ceiling of the car park every three seconds as we rumbled under the concrete beams.

We parked. The mall in The Big Smoke is enormous, and the car park is too, and the choice of parking was plentiful. I am aware, from my previous forays there, that one has to remember where one has parked or it can be awkward – I told Number Two this, but she looked at me as if I was mad. She already knew where we were. Obvs.

Mission One was shopping – but as none of us have spare money currently, the “shopping” amounted to buying a pack of allergy face wipes in Boots to account for the free sprays of fine fragrance I acquired when I was in there. And thence to Primark where, budget or not, one can always find something one “needs”.

As we were having a LOVELY DAY OUT and budget be buggered, we had lunch, which was the highlight, but it also gave me the opportunity to coach my son. “Look over there”, I said, as I gazed out of the window of the first floor, multiple choice eatery. “That is the landmark you need to identify because under there, my son, sits the BUS STATION you will need to get off at when you embark on this journey alone.” He looked at me as if I was mad. He already knew where it was. Obvs.

Lunch done, and it was time to leave the girls to mooch and set off on the trek from the mall to THE COLLEGE. I sort of knew where it was, but this was a recce mission to make sure. Hence we left the mall in plenty of time to get to Boy’s enrolment appointment.

We located THE BUS STATION. Tick. Then we started to  follow Apple Maps like tourists. I’m sure I had been given conflicting advice by ChatGPT about just how far from the mall the college was, and Boy seemed to know this. He walked a distance from me, following his nose, leaving the tourist impersonation solely to his mother. I tried to surreptitiously tell him not to stare at people, and to walk normally – I don’t want him to upset anyone or stand out. Which may have been counter-productive, but very soon, phew! We had reached the gates of college and were following signs up, up up to the top floor to get him signed in.

It was a militarily smooth operation up on the top floor, as young people from all over the county waited to start this next phase of their lives. Some looked nervous, others – excited. Some seemed reluctant to be there. There were parents too, I was glad to see, as I already felt like maybe I was mollycoddling my son. But it soon became clear that my presence was useful when, at the ID station, I had to remind Boy Seymour of his postcode or some such small detail he was clueless about.

ID station done, and passport still present and correct, we moved along to the desk where we showed proof of Boy’s GCSE results. This was the first moment when I realised how miraculously well he had done. He was able to show proof of his intelligence (if not necessarily evidence of his academic ethics) and so we moved along,  to course registration.

Five minutes later, Boy Seymour had already been fast-tracked onto Year Two of his course owing to his GCSE passes in the core subjects, which was a massive BONUS and gave us both an enormous  fillip (how I love that word) and then he went on to be measured for a college t-shirt. We were riding high! Or I was.

And that’s when I lost all perspective…

Next, we came to the desk where my son had to get his photo taken. Simple enough, you would think. But no. The desk at which the lady sat had two very large monitor screens upon it, and she seemed to be struggling to take a clear image of my son through a camera. I for one couldn’t hear a word she was saying owing to the large screens that made comms really tricky, so I sat there, revelling in the knowledge that my son had actually done really well in his exams, and how lucky he and I were that he would not need to re-take anything. I drifted off a bit.

The lady continued to say words I couldn’t hear, though. And I realised that Boy was rocking back on his chair, not really aware of what he was supposed to be doing. I guess he couldn’t hear her either. Pictures were taken, but from my limited lip-reading skills, I was under the impression they were not of sufficient quality, and so I started to think like a photographer. The issue apparently was that my son had arms and legs sticking out of his head, owing to the men at the t-shirt station behind him. Now, this was poor preparation from a logistics point of view, but I was working with what I had, I was problem-solving. Trying to help…

After two failed attempts at a photo grab, the lady was about to try again when I saw what needed to happen. A background was what was required! A plain one! I have taken enough passport pics in my time to know this. And in my efforts to avoid rocking up to this momentous occasion in my usual scraggy garden wear, I was wearing a beige linen blazer. It was plain! It was large! IT could be a backdrop!

I leapt into action, approaching Boy and sidling in behind him. Realising quickly that the back of the blazer would offer the greatest span of beige, I spun, extended my arms out (I was still wearing the blazer) and then in a superhuman effort to create as much of a neutral screen as possible I arched my back, raised myself up to my full height and held that pose whilst (I hoped) the desk lady was snapping away.

So. Arms outstretched, back arched, full-height… it was only as I stood there I saw that the t-shirt men, aka the mechanics lecturers, were inches from my prostrate bosom, and rather surprised by what could only be described as me flashing them my cleavage.

I realised too late what I had done, and how it looked, and was suitably mortified. The whole room seemed to have witnessed my faux-pas too. I am usually so very aware how I might be coming cross to other people that this moment of sheer impulse (not an impulse to flash the very manly car maintenance lecturers, but an implulse to assist with getting my son a decent headshot) hugely backfired.

As soon as I understood what I had done, I shrunk back into my enormous blazer, and retreated to my seat, hoping the floor would eat me up. Boy was incredulous, sniggers rent the room and the man I had just flashed my cleavage to finally found the words to utter that it wasn’t even his birthday.

We left shortly after that, complete with Boy’s ID card on which his face is lit up with an embarrassed smile, and a bout of hysterics that lasted for a full fifteen minutes.

The hilarity continued, and my inhibitions were momentarily released through pure relief at being out of that embarrassing situation. We found a shortcut through the mall, perused and spent too much money in Sostrene Grene, and then gave up waiting for the lift and walked up the down escalators to get to the floor where Little Seymour Number Two knew that the car was parked. This provided even more hilarity when I, the geriatric of the group, could not quite manage the concept of moving stairs and wrong directions and had images of disasters in my head as I just about made it to the top without dying. All while being filmed by my darling son who obviously suspected I would fail at this challenge. This brought me back to Earth with a bang. Almost literally.

And as we rumbled and scraped our way out of the car park with Number Two driving, I listened as Boy regaled his sisters with what his embarrassing mother had just done, and I glanced down at his ID card, freshly printed, in my hand. And do you know what? All my efforts were wasted, as there is still an arm sticking out of the side of his head. Quite a nice, muscular, mechanic-type arm, but an arm nevertheless.  I guess my blazer-as-a-backdrop idea was just a bit sh!t after all. Obvs.

#oldembarrassingmotherera