I still can't even say the word "suppository" without feeling embarrassed. I think the origin of this goes all the way back to when I was a small child and I suffered that "humiliation beyond imagination" that you talked about. I have posted this account before but it really fits the category here!
The whole family, including our maid, were on vacation in a rented house by the sea. I was four years old and by that time the slippery little cylinders had become the bane of my life. One day my mom informed me that she was sending our maid to the local pharmacy to buy more glycerin suppositories for me because she had run out of them ..... and that I was going to accompany her because the walk would be good for my ‘constipation ’. Well naturally, the anxiety that I felt as I held our maid's hand as we walked to that pharmacy, was awful because we both knew why we were going there, but it was nothing compared to what then took place!
There was an extremely attractive lady in a sort of white nylon nurse’s uniform serving behind the counter and I remember sheepishly looking up at the lady as our maid stood at the counter and asked her for a box of glycerin suppositories. The lady asked her if she needed adult or child size suppositories to which she replied, in front of everyone ... "child size". What embarrassment I felt because it was obvious to every stranger in that pharmacy that they were for me! The lady smiled, walked over to a shelf and came back with the familiar flat white box and put it on the counter. As the lady told our maid the price and waited as she searched for coins in her purse, she looked down at me, still smiling! I was totally devastated since even this lady, a complete stranger, knew exactly what was going to happen to me and probably found it extremely amusing imagining me crying and squirming around in a futile attempt to avoid having one of those suppositories shoved up my butt! I will never forget the following conversation. I really don’t know what possessed me, but probably from feeling so intensely embarrassed and trying to save face, I looked up at the lady and said, very defiantly, "I'm not having one you know!" Well, to my horror, she looked down at me and, with a big grin on her face, she said “Oh yes you are!". “Oh no, I’m not!” I retorted, to which she again replied, with an even bigger grin on her face, “Oh yes you are!” As our maid prepared to me out of the pharmacy all I could do to try and save face was to keep repeating "I'm not having one you know!" but every single time I said it, the lady looked down at me, with the same big grin on her face, saying "Oh yes you are!" She was obviously really enjoying teasing me due to my defiant reaction. I had never ever felt so utterly embarrassed, humiliated and frustrated since she had the last word and I was totally powerless to do anything about it. As we walked back to the house all I could think about was the terrible indignity which I had suffered at the hands of that lady, who obviously must have found it extremely amusing imagining what was going to happen to me once we got back to the house.