Exclusive Membership

You met your parents for lunch at McAlister’s soon after telling them of the divorce. You wish they could have treated it as a more solemn moment, but your mother instead dropped the idea of you paying for your own car insurance, because that’s what you needed to think about in the middle of mentally processing a divorce.

You helped catch them up on a few things. Since moving to the new house a few months earlier, you still hadn’t gotten around to replacing the garbage can your ex-husband accidentally thought you were leaving behind. The two of you made due with a smaller can for way too long. They offered to swing by a couple stores, see if you could find a new one. You remembered a Wal-Mart gift card your mother had given you around Christmas the year before, not as a gift but simply because she had it on hand and figured you could use it.

While fishing out the gift card, you decided to see what else might have been forgotten in the dark corners of your wallet. There was this strange blue card tucked away, solely marked with an “SW” on the front and a vague description of membership on the back. You pulled it out in confusion, having no recollection of what it could be. Your parents noticed your confusion and asked to see.

You handed it over, figuring it might not even be yours. SW? Sam’s Wub? What could it possibly be?

And then it hit you. Oh golly, did it hit you.

You ever so subtly asked for the card back. “I’ll figure it out,” you assured your parents as you swiftly hid it away. “Don’t even think about it.”

As you finished your meal, you couldn’t even make eye contact without having to hold back laughter. It was one of the most distinctly embarrassing moments of your life, despite the fact no one else was aware what had happened. Yet the more visibly embarrassed you got, the clearer it would become that something happened.

Thank god you managed to keep a relatively straight face.

As soon as lunch was over, you dashed outside. Looking back and catching your parents lagging behind, you tossed the card into the trash. You were straight blushing by the time your step-father was outside, but you wrote it off as remembering something funny. By that point, the membership card had likely been long forgotten on their part. You were free.

Next time, please don’t show off the membership card of the gay bathhouse you visited the previous summer during lunch with family. You’re lucky you got out of there with no one knowing what happened. It’s rare something so embarrassing can simply be walked off. Count yourself blessed that no one knows.

No one knows, right?