When my teenage daughter woke up and discovered that we had no power she wasn't very concerned and went straight to her wi-fi enabled i-pod Touch.
This was our conversation:
Daughter: "What's wrong with my stupid i-pod?"
Me : "Because the power is off the wi-fi doesn't work."
Daughter : "What does that have to do with my i-pod? I don't have it plugged in."
Me : "The modem and router need power for you to connect your wireless devices with the internet. No power, no wi-fi."
Daughter : "Uuuuugh! Now what are we gonna do?"
Me : "We could talk, or play a board game, or read a book, or, hey, where are you going?"
Daughter : "I'm gonna call my friends," she said picking up the cordless phone.
Me : "That won't work either."
Daughter : "But, it's not plugged in!"
Me : "The base needs power for the cordless to work."
Daughter : "Then I'll use your cellphone."
Me : 'Sorry, the battery's almost depleted. We need to conserve it for emergency."
Daughter : "This is an emergency. Without that phone I'll have to talk with you!"
And that clearly defines a parents relationship with today's modern teenager.
High Water by Shawn Raymond
Let me just say right now that I am well known among friends and family to have an eclectic amusement threshold. It is an affliction that my wife would sincerely like me to be cured of, but since I am 47 and still maintain the humor of a 7 year old, that seems quite unlikely to happen any time soon. I’m amused by anything from babies laughing to toilet humor. So, consider that a warning and take time now to consider your options.
Option 1: Continue to read and risk the depths of odd humor being even deeper than you think you’re prepared for.
Option 2: Discontinue reading and forever wonder about the resulting hole in your life that may never be filled should you not continue.
Option 3: Cure cancer.
Yes, these are your only options. Certainly the third option is by far the most desirable, yet I find myself doubting that if you’re still reading this you’re actually smart enough to pull it off. No offense, but, really, think about it.
Modern society gives us many reasons to be frightened; nuclear holocaust, flesh-eating bacteria, terrorism, and being stuck in an elevator with a flatulent fat man. Still, I recently encountered an event that may well rank far ahead of these on the list of worst case scenarios.
Last week I stepped into a public restroom and right about now you’re beginning to wonder if, perhaps, choosing option 1 might not have been such a good idea. Anyway, as I entered to do ‘my business’ I found a row of urinals closest to the door followed by a row of stalls further on that spread out to the far wall which had dark brownish smudges on it. This concerned me as I could not tell if it was feces (there was a baby changing table very close by and from my own experience with my children understand that just about anything can explode from the inside of a baby in the microseconds either after you open the dirty diaper for replacement or just prior to covering the danger zone), dried blood from a murder that the clean-up crew ‘accidentally’ missed(which made me consider exactly how many blind murder scene clean-up technicians are employed by the county), or perhaps fudge. As a defense mechanism my mind always ascribes to the tastiest interpretation and so I chose to believe that it was fudge smudge.
In a public restroom the choice of which urinal to use is basically a no brainer if no one is standing at one already. It’s your playground so feel free. If someone is there it then becomes far more complicated and every man should learn the algorithm used to make a correct choice. The number of urinals available and the location of the urinal being used are just two components to consider. For example, if there are 6 urinals you simply choose the furthest one not being used. Even if urinal number three is being used you can still manage to maintain a 2 urinal distance from the next guy. If urinal three and five are occupied you can neatly step into number one and still maintain a one urinal cushion which is, as public bathroom etiquette dictates, the minimum allowable distance. You never want to step up to a urinal immediately adjacent to one currently being used for reasons that shouldn’t need to be discussed here, especially if there are six urinals and five are unoccupied. That’s just creepy. If there are two urinals, wait. Yes, I know that this defeats the purpose of having a second urinal but I simply consider the second one a back-up in case of mechanical failure, like a generator, or a kitten (in case an older cat dies, which is inevitable, and you won’t be left with that empty nest syndrome and drown in depression).
I, however, had another choice to make because I had to do that which causes a man to sit without the need for a remote control or a sandwich. I was faced with four stalls, all of whose doors were ajar which allowed me to easily identify the cleanest available seat because when it comes to this business cleanest is best and it trumps any spacing etiquette. There’s a wall separating each toilet so a side-by-side is not entirely inappropriate as long as you keep your stance narrow.
Stall four had seen heavy use. Clearly, a circus elephant had used that stall as the toilet was full and the contents looked more solid than liquid. No single human being could possibly produce that much waste in a single sitting unless, perhaps, they were on their way to a colonoscopy. Suddenly I realized that it was not likely fudge smudge on the wall.
Stall three had a cracked seat. Here’s something I learned as a child in rural Pennsylvania on my great aunt’s farm: never sit on a cracked toilet seat. She had no running water in her house so you did your business in an outhouse. Hers had a cracked seat and I can still feel the sting of the pinch on my left leg as I sat down and scooched my bony little butt back into the proper position, my body weight causing the seat to shift. I was deathly frightened of the outhouse with its bees and spiders and my uncle’s jokes about the woodchuck living under the outhouse, so I leaped off the seat and flew out the door while still pulling my underwear and pants over my knees certain that I had been stung, or bitten by that woodchuck, or perhaps even by a rattle snake.
Stall two was acceptable, but it had the disadvantage of being right next to the toilet with the broken seat and the still painful childhood memories (mine, not the toilet’s).
Stall one was just right.
My Theory of Public Restroom Stall Choice is this: most people will hold it until they get home or until their intestines reach critical mass and rupture is imminent. Only the desperate will actually use a public restroom, such as criminals on the run, the violently ill, or, evidently, circus elephants.
Still, if public restrooms are utilized it is an unexplainable phenomenon that draws us to the seat in the back, just like when going to church. Perhaps it is the evolutionary holdover of protecting the clan by moving everyone to the back of the cave when Krulk, the clan idiot, tried to bell the saber tooth cat. So, with stall number one looking okay, I ventured in.
It is an amazing fact that some normally intelligent people will become brain dead after entering a public restroom. They leave their wallets on the sink, or drop their cell phones or fire crackers in the toilet, stand on a toilet to evade police pursuit and break their ankle when they fall in, etc., etc… While I was sitting there, desperately trying to accomplish my business, someone entered and ran to stall four banging the door open. I had a sneaking suspicion that I was in trouble.
Whoever it was that entered must have had no synaptic brain activity because he attempted to flush the toilet in stall four. Almost immediately I heard the sound of water hitting the floor. The guy cursed and ran out. I silently hoped that his intestines ruptured before he found another working toilet.
I bent over and could see the water collecting behind the toilets along the wall and it was rising. I had visions of wet, smelly pants and shoes and having to pass people on my way out. I think I was more concerned with the idea that people would think I was responsible for this fiasco instead of being a victim of it than I was with getting wet. Maybe there was a surveillance camera and a forensics CSI team would track me down at work and embarrass me in front of my co-workers. Names such as ‘Flood Zone’ and ‘Saggy Baggy Wet Pants’ would circulate faster than Snooki at a frat party. I almost wished that the situation was different such as a criminal breaking into my stall to hide from the police instead of the horror of being trapped by rising fecal water. Suddenly, I became the La Maz coach that I should have been for my wife when she delivered our children. Unfortunately, no amount of breathing and pushing was going to get it done in time. The wet slapping sound of circus elephant feces hitting the floor filled me with urgency.
Fortunately, stall number one was on high ground and the water pooled around me while completely covering the floor under the other stalls leaving me high and dry and highly relieved. I escaped unscathed. My fear of public restrooms, however, has exponentially increased and I will never, ever, enter one when the circus is in town.
