The Duchess of Cornwall was left chuckling after she narrowly missed walking into a glass door before a speech in Washington.
Camilla had been posing for the cameras when US Surgeon General Richard Carmona mistakenly tried to lead her through a glass window into a building.
But the duchess's nose was not put out of joint and she managed to see the funny side of the gaffe.
She just pointed to her nose, gesturing that she could have done some damage.
And the Prince of Wales also found the incident funny - collapsing in laughter at his wife's near mistake.
Camilla had been at the institute to give a speech raising awareness on the bone disease, osteoporosis, in her capacity as president of the National Osteoporosis Society.
She said she first became involved with the disease after both her mother and grandmother died as a result of osteoporosis.
"Then, only 11 years ago, little was known in Britain about osteoporosis, it was seldom discussed, rarely diagnosed and usually attributed to old women with so-called 'dowager's humps'."
Women, like her mother and grandmother, she said were simply told it was something that came with old age.
The disease was now known to affect every other woman over 50 in Britain and one in five men.
Huge strides in fighting the disease were being made in the US and in Britain, she said.
And it was essential this work continued, she added.