Recently I was in a “body balance” class at the gym. It’s a combination of yoga, pilates and tai chai and it always makes me feel good. It’s one of those classes where the lights are dim and candles are lit. It’s relaxing. And it’s very, very quiet. After our first pose, the tanned, tiny, perfectly coiffed and dressed 50-something next to me took a huge gulp of water. And then she belched. It was a barroom belch, a belch worthy of any frat boy in a beer chugging competition. It echoed off the walls of the quiet room. And it was rather amazing to realize that belch had come out of this rather perfect looking woman.
I laughed. I could not help it. I felt bad, so I coughed to cover it up and act like I had not actually laughed. No one else laughed. No one even turned around. I was sort of impressed that everyone else managed to keep their composures. But then during the first seconds of the next pose, I swear that every single person in the entire class casually looked around to see who the heck had just done that huge belch. And somehow, that reaction felt so very Swedish to me.
{ 4 comments }
ok, this made ME laugh. i would have been right there with you. and worse – it could easily have been me as the perpetrator (minus the perfect coif and physique). but i promise you, if it HAD been me doing the belching no one would have been laughing harder at me than myself. i agree, the oddity is in that everyone just pretends like it never happened. Über svenskt.
OK Susan, the image you painted of yourself there just made me laugh out loud. Thanks for that and for letting me know that you would have done the same. I somehow don’t feel quite so bad about it now.
I would have laughed, too. In fact I would have found it hard to stop and would probably have had to leave the room! Which is what happened when my mother-in-law let her guard slip once…
Ha, thanks for confessing along with me Jane!
Comments on this entry are closed.