Bathroom Stuff

If you have ever engaged in any sort of remodeling of your home there are some words that you probably don’t want to hear. They include “oops,” “uh oh,” “that is going to hurt,” “you might as well” and “as long as.”

These are the saddest of possible words:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Trio of bear cubs, and fleeter than birds,
Tinker and Evers and Chance.
Ruthlessly pricking our gonfalon bubble,
Making a Giant hit into a double-
Words that are heavy with nothing but trouble:
“Tinker to Evers to Chance.”
Franklin Pierce Adams

If I had the wherewithal I’d come up with something similar using the words “as long as” to construct a sad ditty about how those three simple words are among the most expensive you will ever hear.

The reason being that they come with a price tag. “As long as you are working in this room you probably should do the two rooms that are connected to it,” “As long as you are going to redo this bathroom you should do the other because the house just won’t look right etc.”

These are the things you find yourself saying because as long as you are doing the work in one part of your house you might as well try and do the rest or so you convince yourself.

You have already signed onto a indefinite amount of chaos, dust and upheaval in your home. You have already hired someone to come and do this work so why shouldn’t you have him fix that little doohickey in the closet and properly patch that hole in the ceiling or fix the paint that is peeling.

And though you know that you didn’t want to spend that much cash you begin to justify these extras because you knew in advance that there would be some unforeseen circumstances that force you to spend a little bit more.

The crazy thing is that it makes perfect sense. It is your home, your castle, your own Fortress of Solitude so why wouldn’t you do everything you could to improve it and make it nicer. Improve your quality of living and your entire life improves.

Just think, if you are happier at home you end up being happier everywhere, including the office. In fact you are so happy you become twice as productive at the office and your boss gives you a raise and a promotion. What a deal.

But the problem is that after taxes the raise works out to be enough to cover one third of the additional cost of your construction and now you find that the improved quality of life is diminished because you are still struggling financially.

And how did all of this come to be? Well it started way back when you bitched at your spouse about how you didn’t have time to spend every weekend on the house and they suggested that you consider hiring a contractor because you might as well do it right. And as long as you were going to do this you ought to do that one other thing.

Oy, I think that I might as well take a vacation because as long as I have this construction going on around me I am going to need it.

I don’t find Kathy Griffin or Tim Meadows to be funny, but that is ok they don’t find me funny either.

The Tiananmen Square video just hits me. The courage of the guy that blocked the tank. Can you imagine. Do you have it in you. Are you willing to die for your beliefs. Are you willing to be the voice that cries out in the night. Will you fight for what you believe.

A day or two after 911 a couple of guys at the office and I were talking about what had happened, or should I say just processing it all. One of them looked at me and said, “Jack, I know that you would have fought back.” My ego was pleased. If I go off of my gut I tend to agree with that. I don’t usually sit idly by. But who knows. Better to never find out.

My son and I are having a field day watching superhero cartoons together. He loves to ask me about their powers and wants to know how to get some of his own. Tonight he watched a bit of Superman with me and then wanted to know which superhero was real.

He told me that he knows that most of them are fake, but he thinks that at least one or two are real. So I asked him who he thought might be real and he said Batman. I asked him why and he said because he knew that he was just a man in a costume.

I told him that Batman wasn’t real and explained why. I was pleased. He knew enough to understand that people don’t have all of the superpowers that they show on the cartoon.

My daughter sometimes cries when I leave the room. During the past few nights she has had nightmares and called out for me. I picked her up and held her. Her little body pressed against mine and her head on my shoulder. Together we patrolled the house. In the quiet of the evening I listened to her gently snore in my ear and I promised to be there forever.

I am working on a post called My Uncle, My Teacher- I Still Miss you. I am having trouble with it. The flow is not there, the cadence is a bit clipped and I haven’t found the right words. I have written about him before. I blogged about telling my father that his brother had died and the pain I felt telling my grandfather that his son was gone.

The memory of the look on my grandfather’s face haunts me still. I made him cry. I know that I didn’t make him cry. I understand why he cried. For that matter as a parent I understand it better than I did then and in some ways it makes it worse. It is worse because a parent has no greater fear than losing a child and I understand how I helped bring that nightmare home for him.

At the same time in some ways I think that there was no better person to break the news.

It wasn’t the first time that I had to pass along the news of someone’s death and it wasn’t the last. The day that my friend died I made the calls to the rest of the members of our gang. And I remember the screams and the shouts. I was a pallbearer at the funeral and I made sure that we, his friends buried him.

It was the middle of summer and it was hot. In a black suit it got to be much hotter and even in the midst of my grief I made a point to look around me. Why? That is a story for a different time. What I will say is that as hard as it was to bury him engaging in the act was cathartic.

Enough of the morbid stuff and on to other issues. I need to return to a more disciplined state of mind. I need to bear down and focus on a number of things, not the least of which is getting myself into better shape.

While I may still be young I am noticing little aches and pains. They make themselves known with increasing frequency and they stay longer than they used to. Uninvited guests that exhibit horrible manners with nary a care.

I have slowly begun to lift weights again. It is something that I enjoy doing and was quite involved in. I first started lifting at 15 and was devoted and disciplined through the majority of my 20s. During the past seven years I have had a bit of a love-hate relationship with the dumb bells, but it is time for me to get serious again. Or maybe I’ll take up yoga and swimming.

Dreams are important, a critical component of life. At least I think so. In my world the moment you stop dreaming you die. I can’t conceive of life without dreams to follow. Even in my happiest moments I have always had my dreams. That doesn’t mean that I wasn’t present, that I didn’t live in the moment, you can do both.

Checked my stats and found that a bunch of people had spent time checking out these three posts:

The Talking Penis- A New Bathroom Adventure
Excuse me, There is Toilet Paper Stuck To Your Tuchus
I Don’t Let Go & I Don’t Give Up

The second post is an audioblog. The sound quality isn’t good, but the story just makes me laugh hysterically. I have to share it, oh what the heck I’ll make it a separate post.

I wrote a post called the The First Pregnant Man in which I mentioned that I went mad with desire for food. I put on an eating exhibition the likes of which hadn’t been seen in quite some time.

If you are sensitive to bathroom humor or similar items you might want to skip the rest of this post because this is going to fall in the too much information for some of you.

The problem with eating like that is not just the caloric intake, but the radioactive fall out that comes along with it. My body just won’t put up with it any more and after a while it decides that the best thing to do is to punish me for my iniquities.

This is one of the reasons why I don’t eat spicy food all that often anymore. I still very much enjoy it but the result is most unpleasant.

There was a point in time when I had a lot of trouble accepting that I couldn’t do the things I used to do anymore and like so many other people I engaged in a bad case of denial and tried to maintain my old habits.

For a while it had mixed results and then came the night of the Chicken Vindaloo.

I was out with friends at a new Indian restaurant. I’d provide the name but if they knew that I was still alive they might come after me with pitchforks and I’d rather not go through that again.

It started out innocently enough. I ordered a plain water, medium dry and hold the ice. As the waiter went around the table asking for our order I asked for a recommendation and he recommended the Chicken Vindaloo.

That sounded good to me so I asked him to bring me a plate. He smiled and asked if I wanted the spicy version. I smiled back and asked him how spicy it was.

“I can make it so spicy you’ll have problems tomorrow morning,” he said with that same Cheshire cat grin.

That was enough of a challenge to me to accept and so I did. If only I had considered my situation more carefully. You see I was in a small restaurant that offered a single restroom for all of the patrons.

I hate places like that. They make me uncomfortable and I tend to avoid them like the plague, but not that night. Nope, I was feeling bulletproof, invincible and nothing anyone said or did was going to stop me from enjoying my evening.

A short time later the waiter returned with our order and I began to enjoy my Chicken Vindaloo. It was great, just fabulous. I was quite pleased with my decision and dug into my meal with great relish and enthusiasm.

It was a mistake.

I hadn’t been eating for more than ten minutes or so when I heard/felt a familiar rumble emanate from my belly. Apparently it was loud enough that the others at the table heard it too. Concerned looks were pointed in my direction but I smiled and waved them off. No need to be worried, this was nothing.

Seconds later I realized it was more than nothing and I flew out of my seat, vaulted over two tables and spun around two waiters. I needed that bathroom and I needed it NOW! Fortune smiled upon me, it was empty.

I jumped inside locked the door and fumbled for my belt like a newlywed on his wedding night. For a moment my fingers lost all coordination and I hopped up and down begging for a second longer. Finally I flipped it off and jumped onto the toilet.

Splash! For the first time in my life I cursed a man for leaving the toilet seat up, but that was the least of my worries. My entire rear end felt like it was on fire and I was most unhappy.

Simultaneously there was a knock on the door and a voice asking me if I was ok. It was the last thing I wanted to hear and I responded accordingly. In my best pirate voice I growled:

“There do be flames shooting out of my ass. It is a good thing that there do be water in the toilet. Arrgh!”

This must have made a great impact upon them as I heard/felt them step backwards and fall down on the floor.

For an undetermined amount of time I unhappily savaged the porcelain goddess and cried out to the heavens begging for relief. It was like a scene from one of those Lifetime for women movies. I alternately laughed and cried.

Finally the storm ended and I gingerly stood up and readied myself to exit the door. With great trepidation I reached out for the handle and turned it to the right. A soft push on the door and I was blessed with cool fresh air and the sweet savory scent of freedom.

I must have been quite a sight because as I shuffled back to the table a path opened for me. People moved out of the way as if I was Moses parting the Red Sea. When I got there I found a white take out box that had been used to collect the remnants of my Chicken Vindaloo.

It took great effort and care to pick that box up. I knew that the initial bout with the storm was over and that it would be dangerous to do anything that would upset the delicate ecosystem that had been established in my gut.

Outside in the cool night air a homless man approached and asked me for some help. In response I gave him my Chicken Vindaloo and wished him well. I don’t know what happened to that guy. I don’t know if he had better luck or if I was the only lucky one.

All I know is that the car ride home was fraught with suspense. I had to make many stops, but I don’t think that I care to relive those or to share anymore of the story of the night I had the Chicken Vindaloo.

You’ll have to excuse me now, my stomach is starting to hurt.

Hi folks,

I received a couple of requests for more tales from the toilet. So here you go with a blast from the past called Urine For a Story. Originally posted here.

Sorry for the bad pun, but within the last 30 days or so I have read three different entries about bathroom habits and decided to list my own commentary.

For those of you who like to play along allow me to begin by citing the entries that led to the flow of consciousness that resulted in this piece.

On the 23rd anniversary of my Bar Mitzvah Monsieur Bogner recited a tale of woe regarding the lack of bathroom etiquette at his office.

At the time I must have placed my brain on autopilot because if I had thought about it I could have provided him with some useful tools to assist him in solving this problem. You see back in April B2 at Toner Mishap did a fine job of illustrating the art of urinal selection. And when I say a fine job allow me to share some of the graphics he developed to go alongside his work.

As I mentioned, at the time I was reading the Treppenwitz post I should have mentioned the Toner Mishap post, but it slipped my mind.

A short time later the next post in this series appeared in which we learned of the challenges presented when technology fails to serve it’s purpose. And that leads me to the next section of this rambling, ambling tale of secretions and excretions.

At some point last year I wrote about a gentleman I know and his bathroom habits. I am not sure what he eats, but I suspect that he may be a cannibal or someone who consumes rotting flesh because the only way that you can enter the men’s room after he has been in there is in a hazmat suit. There is nuclear waste coming out of him that causes you to choke and gag.

A short time ago I was forced to respond to nature’s call in spite of the stench that permeated the stalls. As I exited my own and prepared to wash my hands a man began to enter and immediately began coughing. Prior to his quick departure he shot a look of disgust at me and I knew that he now considers me the cause of the olfactory offensive. It has since been confirmed because when he sees me approach the bathroom he makes an effort not to go in. Oh the shame to be seen in his eyes as if I am Pumba.

But returning to the topic of urine and urinals allow me to share a couple more observations and comments. I find it odd when:

1. men put their beer/coke/lunch on the corner of the urinal. I find it more odd to see them keep drinking while they are engaged in their business. It is as if they are concerned with replacing the fluid that they lose as fast as they lose it.
2. I hate standing next to a guy whose hands are behind his head or anywhere in my line of sight. I am looking straight ahead, if your waving catches my eye there is a problem.
3. I don’t like men who lean their heads against the bathroom wall while they are engaged in such business.
4. And I especially dislike being misted by the guy next to me. Yes, I admit to having had that happen. The force is so great that it sprays off of his urinal and onto me. This is one reason why I like to have space between myself and the guy next to me.

I think that this should do it for now, but you never know when tales of the potty may return.