I was a Boy Scout a long time ago and I think that the Boy
Scouts are a good organization for people who have fewer friends than I do and
enjoy being eaten by bugs. I
learned a great deal in the Boy Scouts and about ninety-five percent of what I
learned can be categorized in “information I will never need,” and, “things I
learned from my father. The other
five percent of things I learned are what makes me such a neurotic mess today. I try to blame my parents like any
decent Christian, but it ends up being the fault of the Boy Scouts.
One of the neurotic little habits I picked up was the need,
or attempt, to be prepared for every eventuality imaginable. This has caused me to the object of
scorn and taunting people who have traveled with me before – most notably the
things I toted all over Rome the time we went while at University. James and I – another Boy Scout - made
everyone get anoraks that folded up into tiny pouches, and carried around an
Italian phrase book, deck of cards, baby wipes, and a first aid kit. Kristy had a good laugh at this, and
refused to get an anorak, this was all very comical, until it rained on and off
the entire time we were there, and we wore the anoraks every day and had to use
the first aid kit, baby wipes, and deck of cards on Kristy. James lent her his anorak because
he is a scholar and a gentleman.
Despite this preparedness, we left one of our suitcases in the van in
Nebraska.
On Saturday night I was to go to see Mac Beth with a group from church that I like to call,
“random members of my family and Linda.”
I had to go there from work so I packed a small bag of clothes to change
into before the play. The play was
going to be in Central Park, Louisville, which has all of the seediness and
none of the charm of Central Park in Manhattan. I needed some shorts and a lighter shirt than I wear to
work, not to mention appropriate shoes for being in a bad neighborhood. In an example of history repeating
itself: I left all of this at home.
Now, I am sure you are sniggering at my preparedness: he
packed a bag and left it at home.
I would like to draw your attention to always having a Plan B and a Plan
C. My backup plan includes always
having something at Target that I like, and am going to get eventually, picked
out and on sale. This is always
available to me in case I need something appropriate to wear at the last
minute. This always works out so I
left work on Saturday night and headed to Target where my plan came to
fruition. I will grant that at
this point Plan A seems a lot better and economically more sensible.
On the way to the dressing room I realized that I had to use
the restroom. I hate using public
restrooms but there was no way I’d last through Mac Beth and be able to use the restroom at home. I dropped what I wanted off at the
dressing rooms and went to the bathrooms and was glad that I was going to be in
there alone. I think that using a
public restroom is a tawdry and unhygienic; I would hate to have been seen
doing it.
Being seen doing it wasn’t going to be an issue, it was
perhaps the most foul smelling thing I have ever done. I normally wouldn’t share this
information with anyone but the comedy ensues when I had to use all the toilet
paper and then discover I picked the toilet that didn’t flush. I am guessing that if I were a regular
patron of public restrooms I’d have known some sort of sign that I had picked
the defective toilet. Instead, I
had to fill the broken toilet with the most noxious thing to come out of
anyone’s body ever.
I’d feel bad for the person who found it and had to rectify
that situation, because it was truly gruesome. I do not feel bad because I pay a great deal of money in
taxes so that we can provide every child in the Republic with a free education
and it isn’t my fault they didn’t take full advantage of that. You can lead a horse to water, you can
hold their head under it, but you cannot make them drink. While I am heartily
embarrassed of my actions I feel no remorse for the poor soul who had to clean
it up.
While this plan wasn’t economically preferable to the first
plan I am lucky that I used the bathroom because that would have been much
worse in Central Park. I can’t
imagine, if they have a bathroom, that it would have been much better. I’d rather blow up a Target’s bathroom
and leave than do that in Central Park and have to sit through the rest of Mac
Beth with everyone knowing – at least in my
neurotic head – what I had done.
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