Barriers of Shame

I've got to get the inside of my car cleaned, the thing is absolutely filthy and I might have to transport some females this week for this Ecology class I'm taking.  The problem is, the car is so dirty that even after clearing it out (one large trash-bag-full), I'm still ashamed to take it to the car wash to have the inside cleaned.  I don't want to be standing there at Octopus, trying to memorize the sounds coming out of the workers' mouths, so I can go home later and fail to translate their insults.  In my mind, I'm going to imagine they're saying stuff like, "this car is too dirty to take to a car wash, what a stupid faggot"; in reality, they'll probably be saying "why is that idiot frowning at me, what a stupid faggot."

 It's too bad they merely employ immigrants, rather than actual octopi.  I appreciate the pseudo-privacy afforded by the language and cultural divides, but I'd prefer that the work be done by something without any actual capacity to judge.  This is part of the appeal of internet porn vs live strippers.

I used to have a similar problem with clothes shopping, where I'd feel like my wardrobe was so shitty that I couldn't go into a department store.  Even if I wore my best clothes, I would still feel self-conscious, surrounded by all those well-appointed mannequins and multi-angled mirrors.  Some say these stores are designed to make you feel bad about yourself so that you'll spend more money to get yourself up to snuff, but a lot of the time it just repels me from ever entering the store in the first place. 


The "barriers of shame" phenomenon applies in many circumstances, including being too scrawny to go to a gym, being too fat to take up running, being too pale to take your shirt off outside, being too shitty at pool to learn how to play, and being too shitty at dancing to learn how to dance.  Of course, the solution is to find some way to get yourself up to the minimum standard in private, so maybe I should just vacuum the fucking car at a gas station before taking it to the car wash.  But what if the guys at the car wash notice that I'd vacuumed the car just minutes earlier, what might they say about me?

For some reason, I didn't used to apply a similar sense of shame towards my philosophy of going to the dentist.  I went through a brief phase where I thought that brushing your teeth right before an appointment was dishonest, that you were presenting a falsely rosy picture of yourself.  I thought I was being a real man of integrity by eating a meal right before walking in for a teeth cleaning.

This didn't go over so well.  The dentist seemed, not just disappointed, but actually appalled; he was literally throwing his hands up in disgust.  This forced me to reevaluate my interpretation of integrity, and if I ever go back to the dentist, I'll be sure to brush beforehand.  The thing is, I haven't been to the dentist in so long, I'm sort of afraid of what they might find, so it might be a while before I go back.  The problem has sort of gotten out of hand.