Thursday, April 15, 2010

Confessions of an Embarrassing Kind

When at conference they read the names of prominent members of the church who had recently passed away, one name stood out to me much more than the others.

Robert J. Matthews.

Brother Matthews was a scholar, author, former dean of the college of Religious Instruction at BYU, first president of the Mt. Timpanogos Temple, the church's foremost authority on the Joseph Smith Translation of the Bible, and . . . my former boss.



And being my boss is where the the embarrassing moment comes in.



Many years ago, when I was a young girl in college, I worked in the dean's office. One day I had to go into the storage closet to get some paper for the copy machine. The storage closet was fairly wide, but boxes had piled up so thick on each side, that at one point there was only enough room for one person to walk at a time.



As I entered, I saw there was a young man, also an employee, who had been restocking the shelves at the back of the closet and was now ready to leave. Just to tease him, I walked forward and stood in the narrow area, blocking his exit. When I refused to move, he reached out and placed his hands on my waist in an effort to physically move me out of his way.



Just then Brother Matthews entered the closet. And what he thought he saw, was me standing in the closet in an embrace with a fellow employee!



Immediately he apologized for the intrusion and quickly left, closing the door behind him.



While the young man, who worked in the basement and far away from Brother Matthews, was rolled over with laughter, I prayed for a hole to open up in the floor to swallow me.



It didn't happen. And so I timidly went back to my desk--in his office--where I tried to be very inconspicuous for the rest of the afternoon.



I never explained the situation to him. I was too embarrassed to even bring it up. I just prayed he had short term memory loss--especially when years later he became good friends with my father.

10 comments:

MissKris said...

I've never heard that story before! That's so funny!

Joy For Your Journey said...

Yea, well you just had better stay out of storage closets at your office!! You have all those MBA guys. :-)

Rebecca Irvine said...

How hilarious! Thanks for making me smile today :-).

the Eggett's said...

Ahhh! Great story Lori!

Neil and Meredith Larson said...

Now I see where your girls get their sassy-ness!! Watch out world!

rad6 said...

oh wow. I love Brother Matthews. I do not know him personally, never met him, but I listen to him regularly and love his insights and spirit. I am so grateful for the availability of all the round table discussions these great people who devote their lives to educating the rest of us. i take notes when I listen and I find myself often writing down what he has said. i also have noticed how mush the other scholars quote him. I was sad when I had heard that he passed away.
Great story.

Dave and Camille said...

I'm sorry to hear that he passed... but I'm sure he and grandpa enjoyed that story often! ;)

Jenny-Jenny said...

Oh thank you for a good laugh. I can almost (almost)feel your pain. good story.

Small House said...

OH MY WORD...what a funny story, and experience. Well..funny now, not then. Still chuckling!
Have a great day.

Marilyn said...

Funny! I didn't realize Bro. Matthews had passed away. I felt sad because I had seen him many times on BYUTV and loved hearing him teach.