The Karmamobile

Jenne posted tonight on Karma. Her post was about changes. It was about life, learning and menopause. When she was a teenager and her mom was going through it, she didn't get it. She didn't think it was THAT big a deal. She couldn't sympathize. Not really. Not then. Now that she's going through it early - thanks to chemo, she's feelin' the karma. She now knows what it's like. Sorry Jenne!

Well, the karma train stopped at our house tonight. But not really a train. No, upon reflecting for thirty minutes since I wrote that (I had to get the baby ready for bed and make some finger puppets for the girls to take to school tomorrow) a train seems too big. More like... a karma scooter.

While Mary and I sat in bed watching TV and making finger puppets, the babe alerted us that she needed changing. It was my turn to do it.

So, undoing the diaper I got the all clear sign. No poops. Ha! This was my luck. Mary's at home all day, running errands, picking up the girls from school and changing diapers all the time, most of them poopy. What do I get for the one diaper change I've had today? Nothin. Nada. Zip. Zero. Nothin' but a wet diaper...and that's a good thing.

And then...

"Mary! Help! Quick! I need help!"

I think I even said "stat"! It's always good to throw in "stat" to emphasize the need for immediate help. Mary used to watch ER and now watches Grey's Anatomy. Heck, she's doc herself, so you think "stat" would have some meaning to her. Nope. She just sat there making finger puppets. I shot her an incredulous glare.

"Mary! What are you doing? I said I need help. She's pooping and it's getting all over everything. It's coming out like a water through a fire hose! I cannot control this!"

While my left hand held the baby's legs up in the air, much like you might hold a chicken while on the way home from the market (and didn't have any bag to carry it in and if you lived a long time ago when you could buy chickens from the store with their feet still on and you just did this because somehow I have in my head that that is how people carried chickens way back when, though I grew up in the suburbs and my only time on the farm was on school trips, but somehow I still have this idea that this is how you would carry a chicken), my right hand was occupied keeping stuff off my side of the bed. I didn't have a third hand to grab more wipes. And yes, I know, I should have thought twice about changing the baby on the bed. I know. Bad move to begin with.

And Mary just sat there.

"Why aren't you helping me? It's now all over my hand and it feels gross!" I was a big baby.

She answered "It's not that big a deal. I change diapers all day long and it get on my hand too sometimes. When it does I deal with it. You can too."

"Yeah, but it's on MY hand right now! And it's going to get on MY side of the bed!"

And that's when it hit me. She changes diapers all day, gets spit up on far more often than I do and really deserves a break. The karma scooter delivered a little something to me today to remind me that I shouldn't complain.

But still... I think I said "stat"!

The Karmamobile

Infatuated?

Earlier today Aaron accused me of being infatuated with bathrooms. Seriously? How could he think such a thing? I've only posted about bathrooms and related issues a few times here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here, here and here. Okay and here too.

Hmmmmm... Maybe he's on to something here. Maybe.

I did a little research and I think I know where this might be coming from and why. If you have a copy check out Uncle John's Bathroom Reader #8, page 64.

Infatuated?

Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

This morning as I was walking from the bedroom to the kitchen I passed by the hall bathroom and saw this sign:



I heard Hannah in the kitchen and called for her to come join me over by the bathroom door. She complied quickly.

"What's up?" She said.

"Not much. What's this sign all about?" I inquired.

"That? That's for Gracie. It's a sign I made."

"Can you tell me what it says?"

"Sure. Well, first of all that is a potty. I put the letter 'P' on it so you could tell. And those are hair clippies and bows. At the top is an arrow pointing down toward the potty. And that is a red line going diagonally across everything. That means no putting hair clippies or bows in the toilet. And that is meant for Grace."

"Right. Got it. No clippies or bows in the toilet. That's a good sign. I'll make sure that one stays up. Now scoot on back to the kitchen table and finish your breakfast."

What cracked me up most about that exchange is that "The Crumpler" made the sign about not clogging the toilet. I guess you could always dissolve toilet paper with some industrial strength Drano. Clippies and bows might be a bit trickier.

Sign, Sign, Everywhere A Sign

Bathroom Tip Of the Day #5

Always bring a writing utensil with you to the bathroom. The bathroom is where some of the greatest ideas are born. You're kidding yourself if you think you can remember those great ideas without writing them down. Heck, that's how I remembered the idea I had for BTOTD!

Bathroom Tip Of the Day #5

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #4

If you do not see matches or a candle in the bathroom you MUST courtesy flush. Your family, friends, guests... next person in line, will thank you.

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #4

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #3

If you want privacy you must lock the door. Telling a toddler you want privacy is like asking them to grow three feet taller in one day. It ain't gonna happen.

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #3

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #2 (tee hee)

If you have a choice of stalls and one has the seat flipped up...pick that one.

Bathroom Tip Of The Day #2 (tee hee)

Bathroom Tip Of The Day

The toilets in our house have been clogged three times in the past week and this last one was a doozy. I arrive home this evening after picking up Hannah from school only to walk into the house, make a made dash to the nearest bathroom to hear Mary call out "No, no, no! Don't use that one. It's clogged!" Aarrrgh!

Now, since we've had three clogged toilets recently and I know who clogged the other two, out of pure curiosity I asked Mary who the responsible party was this time. She did not know, or at least feigned a lack of knowledge. I think she's protecting the guilty party. They are only six, four and three weeks old after all. What a good mom.

It really didn't matter who did it. I was the one who had to unclog it. And while doing so I began pondering bathroom etiquette. Bathrooms are really a great place for thinking and brainstorming you know. And what I came up with was this: If Anu Garg could build a huge following with A Word A Day otherwise referred to as AWAD, then why not do something similar with bathroom tips? And thus "Bathroom Tip Of The Day" was born.

Here's how it works, or at least how it will be tested out here. I will be posting a BTOTD (Bathroom Tip Of The Day) here each day until I run out of them or you tell me to stop. If it gains momentum we'll create an entry for it on Wikipedia, build a website for it to live, sit back and watch while millions start posting their own bathroom tips to share with everyone and then within a year sell it to Google for 1.4 billion. Sound good?

Here's the first BTOTD based on our recent clogging experiences:

BTOTD #1: "Crumplers clog while folders flow".

Learn it. Live it. Love it!

Bathroom Tip Of The Day

We Should Tell The Priest

Prior to moving to our new parish we had been members of St. Agnes Church. It is a very small, but beautiful church. If you arrive late you most likely will have to spend mass back in the vestibule with all the other late comers. Seats in the main part of the church are hard to come by unless you arrive right on time. As parents of a two year old and 3 month old we rarely made it to mass on time. Thus we often spent mass in the back with the other late comers. Most of them had little children too.

On one particular Sunday Hannah had to go potty during the Homily. Mary stayed with Grace while I took Hannah to find the bathroom.

The bathrooms at St. Agnes are located downstairs just off the big common room where we get the donuts after mass. Since she was still little I took her to the men's bathroom. What is the cut off age for girls to stop going to men's rooms and boys to stop going to the ladies room with their parents? Anyway, the men's room is very small. It has one urinal and one toilet.

Someone was using the toilet at the time, so we waited.

And waited.

Finally he opened the stall door. He skipped washing his hands and headed to the bathroom door to leave and head back upstairs to mass. Just as he was exiting the bathroom Hannah burst out "Daddy! Look! Why did that man use sooo much toilet paper?!?!?"

I tried to hush her, in order not to have a confrontation with the excessive toilet paper using, non-handwashing, fellow church goer. But she was right. That man had used far too much paper and clogged the toilet. And he didn't even try to flush! Apparently he either did not hear her or chose to ignore her comments - much like he chose not to wash his hands.

Hannah was complaining that she really needed to go badly so I had no choice but to take her to the ladies room. There was no way I was going to set her down on that toilet and that nasty mess.

While she sat on the impeccably clean potty in the ladies room she started grilling me on why that man had behaved he way he did. She was clearly fascinated by this and would not let it go. Why did that man use so much toilet paper? Why did he clog the toilet? Why didn't he flush and why didn't he wash his hands? I told her I didn't know why. Maybe his mommy and daddy never taught him proper bathroom etiquette when he was a little boy.

When we got back upstairs we joined Mary and Grace in the back of the church. Hannah immediately began to relay her latest bathroom experience to Mary. She said, in a voice that at the time I was sure everyone within twenty yards could hear, "Mommy, there was a man who used way too much toilet paper and clogged the potty! He didn't even wash his hands!"

And then she saw him. He was in the back of chuch with his family. Hannah pointed right at him and said "Mommy! Daddy! There he is! Do you think we should tell the priest!?!?!" I was mortified.

Thankfully, I do not think he heard her. Or maybe, again, he chose not to hear her. Either way now that we are at a new church we have a new rule. Everyone goes potty before leaving for mass.

We Should Tell The Priest

Yellow Wallpaper

Yellow wallpaper is all you need to think about to be able to pee in public. I know it works. I can prove it too.

During my last year at Syracuse I lived in a house off-campus with five other guys. There was Andy, Collin, Mark, Dan, Chris and me. Chris was also called "“Duff" because his last name was Duffus and I guess it was easier to call him Duff than Duffus. So, yes there were two guys called Duff living in the same house. There were also two guys named Dan. It caused plenty of confusion trying to figure out whom anyone was talking about at a given time. Were the phone calls for "Dan"” for Dan Powers or Dan Duff? When conversations or stories involved "Duff"” was it Chris Duffus or Dan Duff that they were referring to? Confused? So was I. All the time. But I digress...now back to advice on how to pee in public...…

Anyway, one night we went to Chuck'’s, aka Hungry Charlies for a few pitchers of beer and general carousing with our fellow students. Somehow, someone mentioned that they had "“stage fright"” whenever they had to pee in public. You know, the inability to pee when other people were either waiting in line behind you or at the next urinal?

Mark shared with us that he no longer had that problem. Turns out that Duff had a bathroom at his home which had yellow wallpaper. Whenever he had to pee in a public bathroom, he would just think about the yellow wallpaper back at the bathroom at his family's house and he instantly was transported to a place of comfort where he never experienced "stage fright". Mark had heard about this from Duff and one time had a chance to travel to visit the Duffus household and see the yellow wallpaper for himself.

Mark wasn't sure if someone else's visual cue could help him or not until he was out at a bar and encoutered "“stage fright"”. He tested it out. He visualized the yellow wallpaper at Duff'’s house and the seal/dam/floodgates were broken. Peeing in public was never again a problem for Mark. So while it wasn'’t a memory of his own bathroom at home, he was able to adopt it for himself once he had seen the actual wallpaper.

When Mark shared this remarkable story with me I thought I'd try it myself. It was Duff'’s visualization of his own family'’s bathroom so that made sense that it worked for him. Mark had seen it and was able to adopt it as his own. So knowing that it worked for these two I decided to test it out for myself. Now I had never seen the bathroom, the shade, color or pattern of the wallpaper. But that didn't really matter, right? I knew that this worked for Duff and Mark, so all I had to do was imagine what the yellow wallpaper looked like and I could use this as my own escape tactic to avoid not being able to void.

Let me tell you it works. Every time. Like a charm.

I still have never seen the bathroom that helps me out. That's why I know this can help anyone. If you ever feel a bout of "“stage fright"” coming on while you are using one of the public troughs at a sports stadium, just think about yellow wallpaper. Any shade or pattern will do. Just know that it worked for Duff who grew up using that bathroom. It worked for Mark who saw it once, and it worked for me because I believed in its power.

How'’s that for free advice?

Yellow Wallpaper

Feeling Flushed

It's amazing how we can miss the obvious just because we fail to ask the right questions. Sometimes our preconceived notions and perceptions of other cultures blind us to the obvious.

When Mary and I were dating, we planned to go backpacking throughout Europe as soon as I was done with my tour of duty with the Wienermobile. In the summer of '95 we spent eight weeks backpacking around Europe. As part of our planning efforts we read up on our destinations with the aid of several tour books. One that proved particularly helpful was Rick Steve's Europe Through The Backdoor. This book was filled with great cultural insight and cheap suggestions on meals, tours and accommodations.

I remember reading a section on the various bathroom options available throughout Europe and found some very humorous and others downright amazing. The book included photos of toilets from different countries with explanations on how to use them. Some required money to use while others stood out because they had different ways to flush. One that struck me as particularly odd was a photo of a hole in the floor with two raised areas for your feet to rest on. There was nothing to sit on at all. I laughed out loud when I saw this, but soon realized that this was good information and would help me be prepared in case I ever encountered such a situation.

About four weeks into our travels we visited the Italian hillside town of Perugia. At this point I had already seen several examples of the toilets described in Mr. Steve’s book. At the train station in Nice, France I even encountered the one with the raised foot areas and hole in the floor. I passed on using it.

Well, nature called as soon as we arrived at our youth hostel in Perugia. The bathroom seemed ordinary at first. This one in particular had private stalls with doors and a bowl which closely resembled the type of toilet we would normally encoutner back in the states. The difference was that this appeared to be a slightly different version with no flip up lid. And no, this was not a bidet, it was a toilet.

I really needed to use the toilet and did not have too much time to ponder my situation. I needed to go quickly. If I were at home in the U.S. I would have approached this task sitting down. Seeing as there was no seat and remembering the various toilets I had read about in the book, I thought that I had encountered a new variety of European toilet. I figured that I was about to have a new potty experience.

So I did what I had to do. (to be continued...)

Feeling Flushed

Feeling Flushed (Part Deux)

Continued from previous post...

So I did what I had to do. I pressed both hands against the sides of the stall, stood half hunched over while doing what could not wait and needed to be done. After what seemed an eternity I finished my business. I was dripping with sweat and my hands and arms were trembling with exhaustion. How in the world do these people wipe themselves?!?!?! I almost fell over when I had one hand on the stall wall and the other fumbling with the toilet paper roll. This was, without a doubt, the most awkward, physical feat I had ever encountered.

After washing up I proceeded to head back to the dormitory room. But before I actually left the bathroom my curiosity got the better of me. I don't know why but I decided to take a look at one of the other stalls. I suppose I just wanted to make sure that I had no option with going through the ordeal that I had just been experienced. But somehow, somewhere in the back of my mind up crept an idea that this really couldn't be the way that Perugian's go potty. No way. Nuh uh. All the toilets had to be like that one... the same - without seats.

To my great dismay I discovered that the other toilets did have seats. I used one that was broken. I am an American Idiot.

The lesson I learned? I now know what it is like to be blinded by preconceived notions and miss the obvious. Had I not read up on European toilets before my trip I may have asked myself "what is wrong here?" and realized that the toilet seat had been removed.

Moral of the story? Don't stress yourself out over what you don't understand. Take a step back and ask yourself what really makes sense. And choose another stall.

###

You are probably asking yourself "was this really a day, time, or experience that made Dan feel the most special?” No. Not really. What this day does remind me of is all the experiences that I have had that make me laugh and help me learn more about myself. I find joy in the journey. It is the lessons learned from the events and experiences in my life that make them special. They are special experiences to me if they help me grow in my understanding of who I am. That is what I enjoy.

That plus I enjoy bathroom humor.

Feeling Flushed (Part Deux)