Privacy is a personal matter

I'm constantly fascinated by how private some people are. This could be because, for almost 17 years, I've earned my living dishing about other people's lives and my own.

Like this guy at work -- he regards me suspiciously when I ask about his weekend plans. He gives me kind of a "what's it to you" look, then coughs up enough general information to make me move on to someone else. Geez, it's just a question you ask when you're stuck by the copy machine or something.

Meanwhile, I tell it all. My friend Nancy was always yelling, "TMI! TMI!" at me, until I convinced her that expression was SO five minutes ago (Come to think of it, "so five minutes ago" is probably out of vogue, too).

One of my favorite movie scenes is from "In & Out," when a wedding has just been ruined by the groom coming out of the closet. His mother and her elderly friends are sitting in the middle of a vast, quiet reception hall when one asks what's so wrong with telling the truth about ourselves. Then she confesses to stealing a dead woman's recipe for Rice Krispies treats.

So, in that spirit, I made an honest inquiry of a sales clerk the other day. I was in one of my favorite stores for plus-sized ladies and noticed a display of cheeky panties -- that's actually what the store was calling them -- which look like something Jennifer Lopez might wear to the Grammys. They're basically skin-tight shorts with leg holes that come up way too high in the back.

I've never been smaller than a size 12, and that was for about 10 minutes when I went through my semi-anorexic phase in high school, so I'm not sure how sexy underwear feels on thin women. Maybe they're just as comfortable as they can be. But, in my experience, the slinky stuff sold in plus-sized stores is better in theory than in practice.

When I got to the register, there was a message on the cash register display: "ASK ME ABOUT SEXY SECRETS."

"Hey," I asked the clerk. "Have you tried those new cheeky panties? Because they look really uncomfortable." She looked like she wanted to die. "Uh, NO!" she blurted out, definitely signaling the end of the conversation.

Fine. But when your employer invites customers to ask you about sexy secrets, you'd better be ready to answer, sister!

Admittedly, there are rare occasions when even I'm tempted to fudge answers to personal questions. The most recent one was at my new dentist's office, where an assistant was making a bite plate for my TMJ disorder. (Ugh, what a yuppie disease. We're all so very stressed.)

She was young and pretty, like so many dental assistants nowadays. "How is your gag reflex?" she asked.

Wow ... that's pretty personal. Truth is, I gag when brushing my back teeth if it's early in the morning, but I wasn't going to share that with little miss thing.

"Oh, it's about average," I said.

With that, she shoved some horseshoe-sized metal contraption full of goo into my mouth. I started gagging uncontrollably. My eyes were watering. I couldn't breathe. I was almost coming out of the chair, trying to yell, "Take it out! Take it out!" but instead yelling, "UUUUUHHHH! (gag) UUUUHHHHHH!"

She finally got the thing out and starting picking the rubbery mass off the roof of my mouth. Finally able to speak again, I said, "I'd like revise my earlier statement about my gag reflex."

She gave absolutely no response.

Man, some people have NO sense of humor.

Heidi Hall is a former managing editor of the Southeast Missourian who now lives in St. Petersburg, Fla.