Embarrassing can be funny

Nights are hard, but we'll get over it. Sorry for my moment of weakness last night. To make up for it, I have a funny story.

Megan is still nursing. Probably my least favorite thing about the whole adventure is pumping at school. What a pain. Twice a day, I have to get everything set up, pump, and clean up in fifteen minutes or less. This is a picture of the style of pump I use.


I'm obviously paranoid about someone potentially walking in on me while I'm pumping...can you blame me? I check and check again that the classroom door is locked, the blinds are down and the curtains are also closed. And as an extra measure, I have a towel I use to cover with as well, just to be on the safe side. Yesterday, that proved to be a prudent measure.

It is not terribly uncommon that someone will try to come in while I'm pumping. I'll hear someone fiddling with the outside door (my portable has two doors with a breezeway in-between), and I'll wait for a moment. Usually they go away, or if they really need something, they'll continue knocking. If that is the case, I'll stop pumping and go open the door. Well, yesterday I heard the outside door. I waited for a second to see what would happen, then I suddenly realized that the inside door was opening. I quickly turned off the pump, but I didn't have time to do anything else.

Picture this. I'm sitting at my desk, in a small corner next to the window, with a towel covering me. Nothing is showing, but I'm not exactly fully clothed either...and the janitor walked in.

Panic.

He walked over to me and started talking about getting my broken window fixed. He said he wanted to see what was really wrong with it before calling district maintenance. He didn't make any sign that something might be unusual about how I looked or was acting, but I promise, I was fairly mortified. But since he hadn't had any kind of reaction, I decided I wouldn't bring it up if he hadn't noticed.

So he's coming to look at the window, right? Remember how I said my desk is in the corner by the window? Well, checking the window required walking behind my desk--about a foot from where I was sitting--and opening the blinds. Yes, I'm sitting next to the window, still attached to a breastpump, with the janitor standing directly behind me and the window wide open.

Panic.

I pretended to be typing on my computer, even though I didn't actually have anything to do there, while he talked to me and checked the window. He finally said that he was ready to make his call. "Thank goodness," I'm thinking, "he's going to leave." He walked away from my desk, leaving the blinds up. I was less excited about that, but we could deal with it once he was gone. Turns out, he didn't actually leave. He stood in the middle of the room, pulled out his cell phone, and proceeded to call the district.

Panic.

I was thinking at this point that I must have not locked the door. I mean, I lock or unlock that door at least eight times a day. It's understandable that I could have messed up this time, right? Well, the janitor was on hold. He leaned over to me and said, "By the way, did you know that your door was locked?"

Oh geez. Yes, yes I did.

He stayed for almost fifteen minutes. The entire time, I was only thinking "go away, go away, go away, just please go away" while trying to maintain a very polite, somehow normal demeanor.

Don't get me wrong. The janitor is one of my all-time favorite people at school. He would do anything for anyone. He is an extremely nice, caring man. But there are still some things that I just don't want to share, regardless of how nice you are.

Eventually, he did close the blinds and leave, and he even relocked the door on his way out. And he never noticed anything out of the ordinary. Or he is just an amazing actor...