Was it chivalry, or a stunt?

Dear readers: I apologize in advance for the length of this column, a practice that I do not regularly encourage. But sometimes a good story takes a little longer to tell.

I do a lot of silly things. Most of them are not on purpose.

As a matter of fact, I do so many silly things that I ought to be embarrassed to go out in public. But I realized years ago that my lot in life was to do plenty of silly things, so I might just as well get over it.

Good thing.

Otherwise I would be perpetually mortified.

Thanks to the kindnesses of my loved ones and colleagues, the full extent of the silliness of the things I do is seldom felt. By me.

My co-workers, for example, will patiently say things like: "Uh, Joe, did you really mean to put that sweater on backwards?"

I appreciate this, because they are kind enough not to point out that the sweater is also inside out and because my co-workers just as easily could gather in a corner and snicker about how the old man has gone bonkers again -- and look, he's got his sweater on inside out. Har-de-har-har.

Heck, for all I know, these folks may be, on the one hand, kind to me in the sweater-wearing department and still gathering somewhere -- probably where there's a tap or nonfreezing beverages served with ice cubes -- and laughing their heads off.

That's OK. It wouldn't embarrass me.

Nosiree. I got over being embarrassed a long time ago. I figured going around with a red face didn't pay in the long run.

When I was a child, I was easily mortified. I began at an early age to weigh every action on the basis of its potential embarrassment.

If I ran, would I fall down?

If I rode my bike, would I run into something?

If I played ball, would I get hit in the face by a line drive?

(The answer to that last one, by the way, is yes. Lots of times.)

If someone asked me a question, would I give a stupid answer?

If I went to a friend's house for dinner, would I spill mashed potatoes and gravy down the front of my T-shirt?

(Which, as it happens, is exactly why I learned to wear my shirts -- and sweaters -- turned inside out.)

The cure for all of this worry about being embarrassed came when I was a junior in high school. It was the day of The Most Embarrassing Moment in My Life.

Over the years, I've often wanted to be the guest on some TV show where the host cheerfully turns the conversation to life's most embarrassing moments. I have pined for the day when, in front of a national TV audience (worldwide, perhaps, if the program got syndicated in reruns), the genial host would look my way and ask, "Say, Joe, can you tell us the most embarrassing experience you've ever had?"

Why, yes, I can.

I've been ready for this question for more than 40 years. Glad you finally asked.

Here's how it happened:

My high school organized a Beta Club. I was asked to be one of the charter members. I was honored.

To kick off the club with all the fanfare it deserved, a school assembly was scheduled in the gym. Members of an established Beta Club from a nearby town were invited to come to the assembly to initiate the members of our new club.

We were told this was to be a formal event, which meant girls were expected to wear their best dresses and hose and high heels and boys were expected to wear ties, comb their hair and spit out their chewing gum.

At the appointed time for the assembly, the sponsor of our club decided it would be appropriate for the boys to escort the girls to the reserved seating area at the front of the gym. This was probably the closest any of us would ever get to a cotillion promenade, so we made the most of it.

I was assigned to escort a girl from the visiting club. We watched all the other couples march to their seats with no notable incidents. As my partner and I walked across the shiny hardwood of the basketball court, everyone in the assembly started laughing.

No, they were guffawing.

Out of the corner of my eye, I saw why. The poor girl's hose -- panty hose hadn't yet been invented -- had come loose from her girdle and was slithering toward her white high heels.

Suddenly, the basketball court looked to be about 10 miles long. But it was even farther back to the safety of the entry hall.

At that moment, I realized I could live the rest of my life as the kid who escorted the girl whose hose fell down. Or I could do something so outrageous that I would never be embarrassed again.

In moments like these, you have to make a life-altering decision in a split second. So without missing a step, I unbuckled my belt and felt my slacks start to slip off my hips.

Now the crowd was roaring. But it was a roar of approval that accompanies an act so inappropriate that you have to admire the chutzpah of the perpetrator.

All I know is that the people inside the gym that day were no longer thinking about the girl with the runaway hose. They were looking at a couple of high school kids who had obviously decided to pull a stunt that would be remembered for a long, long time.

Am I glad I did it? Today, I still marvel at the nerve of what I did. But thinking about it only makes me smile. I am not embarrassed. I have rarely been embarrassed since then.

After the ceremony, I was summoned by Mrs. Coder, the Beta Club sponsor. I was anticipating a well-deserved tongue-lashing. Or worse.

I wouldn't even look her in the eye.

"That was an awful thing you did out there," she said.

I couldn't argue.

But when I looked up, I saw a smile on Mrs. Coder's face. I'd like to think she appreciated -- just a little bit -- that a truly crushing situation for a young girl who was a guest in our school had been narrowly avoided.

That's my story, and I'm sticking to it.

For my mother's sake -- who, as far as I know, has never heard the straight skinny of this story unless Mrs. Coder said something at church the next Sunday: Yes, I was wearing clean underwear. No, it was not inside out.

R. Joe Sullivan is the editor of the Southeast Missourian.