Embarrassment of the Week: The Rats at Petco

So, I’m starting a new feature — Embarrassment of the Week — which I’ll publish each Friday.

Anyone who has little kids knows that embarrassing stuff happens all the time. Especially when they are rapidly learning, but still unaware of the appropriate places and times to share their wealth of information.

For example, while you’re at the grocery store, a toddler may point and holler: “Mom, that’s a MAN! Men have penises! Women do not have penises! Women do have boobies, though!”

“Right, that’s true,” you whisper, as you speed-walk away from the 75-year-old man with a penis, who is now boring a hole in your face with his intense stare.

Other times, littles ask stuff that is totally awkward to answer, so you’ve gotta stall for a minute until you can figure out what to say.

But as ungraceful as these situations can be, they’re also pretty funny. Parents have to find a way to laugh, or else they would be drunk all the time.

So anyway, I figured other people could relate to stories like this. Here’s my Embarrassment of the Week:

Me and my superhero, 5, went to Trader Joe’s to pick up every, single pumpkin flavored offering a few items.

Have you had these things? I’m a crack head for them.

Afterward, he was like, “Can we go look at the fish in Petco?”

On our way back to the swimmers, we passed by the little furry creatures section. Ferrets were laying on their backs snoozing, so we moved on to the rats and mice.

For obvious reasons, I’ve never spent much time in the pet store rodent section. But let me tell you something I recently discovered: Male rats have huge testicles. Like, gargantuan. I feel bad for them. I don’t even know how the little dudes can walk around.

If you don’t believe me, Google it. But I can’t bear to post such a graphic picture here.

Don’t these guys have enough of an image problem? Mother Nature could have cut them some slack, man.

Anyway, my son and I walked up to their container and one of them was chillin’ backward, with his gigantic man parts smashed right up against the glass. Two hairy grapes, right at eye level with my son.

My son looked at the rat, and pointed right at him. I braced myself for a question that would make me blush or giggle or stammer before answering.

“Mom?,” he said, “why isn’t that rat running on his wheel?”

I breathed a sigh of relief. Such an innocent question from my sweet, sweet boy.

So, instead of the first answer that popped into my head (“Maybe because he’s dragging around two extra pounds back there.”), I said, “Maybe he ran a lot earlier and now he’s taking a breather.”

My son seemed satisfied with that. He looked up at me with his big brown eyes and said, “Do you want to go look at the fish now?”

“Yes, bud. I have never wanted to look at fish more than I do right now.”

On this day, the embarrassment was contained within my own head. And that’s a parenting win in my book.

What embarrassing moments (public or private) have you suffered as a parent? Do tell.