Techno-flagrante

Children can slip into contraeceptive mode in inadvertent moments of comic genius.

One friend told of the time she stood waiting in the queue at the checkout. Flourescent lighting, chewing gum and trolleys. Her little girl, fed up with oggling the forbidden sweets, instead turned her attention to the man behind them.

'Look Mummy.'

Mummy turned.

'That man has a front-bottom on his face,' her voice, loud and clear.

Mummy turned red.

The bearded man looked pointedly down at his bananas in his trolley.

Another friend was being served by an efficient bank teller as her little girl tugged insistently on her skirt. 'Mummy, mummy...'

Mummy looked down.

'The lady looks like a monkey.'

Mummy's eyes narrowed briefly then brightened quickly, 'She's going through one of those phases.' Her eyes returning to the teller. 'She says everyone and everything looks like an animal at the zoo... that's where we went today,' she added.

'No I don't,' said the little voice. 'No we didn't.'

Mummy smiled tightly.

The little girl was not finished.

'The lady has a nice face,' she said. 'A nice monkey face.'

Mummy smiled apologetically as her toes curled in her Birkenstocks. She crossed her fingers, hoping that the teller wasn't vengeful towards small children and was now channelling all her funds into an account to help the Chimpanzees' Charity for Cosmetic Surgery.

With the progression of technology, the scope for embarrassment has widened considerably.

In one case, thanks to a small gadget attached to another one, a whole can of cyber worms was spewed forth to an unsuspecting recipient. One who'd have happily left the can opener in the drawer.

Munching on a crumpet, my friend sat pillowed on her bed, as the morning sun streamed through the window. The unexpected pleasure of a Saturday morning still in bed.

Tinkering away on her laptop, she decided to Skype a young relative as she noticed he was on-line.

He quickly came into focus. He noted that her hair looked interesting and she commented that he was wearing quite a bit of his breakfast on his pyjamas.

Then she noticed the background start to move and the boy's head bobble. The camera was obviously attached to a laptop at the other end of the line and was on the move.

The camera followed the boy's journey down a dim hallway, and stopped focussing on a door. The door opened, obviously pushed open with a good thwump.

'Arghghghghhgh!'

Two bare bottoms presented themselves full screen. Then a face, peered out from behind the cheeks wearing a look of abject horror. The face had been caught inflagrante by her son. Bad. Then realisation that their bare skin was being aired live in someone else's bedroom. Very bad. Boy, very, very bad!

A face froze on screen, the mouth a full circle of horrible realisation. My friend took a moment or two to realise what was happening in her laptop.

'No!!!!'

Faced with four unexpected cheeks, she fell out of bed, flinging her laptop to the floor.

The first thing she did when she regained her composure and rescued her crumpet was remove the camera from her own laptop. She'd pop it on the one in the lounge... later.