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December 20, 2004
Twice in One Day
Last night I went out looking for a Mexican dive - a burrito sort of place with a jukebox full of mariachi and maybe a couple albums by los Bukis. My usual place - the one with $2.50 chorizo burritos cooked with care by Juan the "cheff" with a tattooed hand that greets me as his "amigo" every time I go in - was closed because it was a little late. So I headed farther down Eastern Ave toward Fells Point. There's a block there with at least 4 Latin restaurants. I thought there were 4 Mexican restaurants, but it turns out one of them is a fancy Ecuadorian restaurant.
It's a bit of a shock to walk into a fancy, cloth napkin, place setting and wine glasses on the table kind of place when you're expecting a place where you're supposed to order at the counter. But the waiter had a hand full of tattoos and that made me feel a little more comfortable.
Later on I went to the PITS and was thrown off a bit when someone bought a round for the entire bar. I thought that stuff only happened in the movies: "Hey I just defeated the evil space race by deflecting their phasers with (Renoyld's Wrap brand!) aluminum foil. Give everyone a drink on me!"
But it really happened, and we could all get whatever drink we wanted, on the old guy with the glasses - whoever he was. Rachel, Emma and I upgraded from Natty Bohs to margaritas in goofy cactus stemmed glasses. When the drinks were no longer free we returned to Natty Bohs. Then we (Daniel too, as long as I'm naming names) all went back to my house and put a small dent in my 30 pack of PBR.
Sipping on PBRs we discussed the perils of drinking. More specifically we discussed the peril of drinking so much that you lose control of bladder. "Don't you have to put a diaper on your brother after you guys go out drinking?"
"I just have to make sure he gets into it, I don't actually have to put it on him."
That reminded me of a time I went motorcycle shopping with my cousin.
We were looking for a used motorcycle one day when we were both out visiting my grandparents. We found out about a couple bikes in the newspaper and were driving out to see them. It was summer so we ended up seeing some on the side of the road too.
"There's one! Let's take a look at it."
We were on a small country road. There was a lone house on one side of the road with a motorcycle parked in a driveway. I had passed the house by just a bit and pulled over to the side of the road. We went across the street to look at the bike.
"This bike sucks."
"Yeah, I guess. Let's go then."
"Oh, check this out." He went farther down the driveway to look at something. "They've got a -- I shit my pants."
"They've got a what?"
"I just shit my pants."
"You what? How could you shit you pants?"
"I thought it was just a fart. Get me something to clean up with."
"I'll get some paper or something from the car." There is always paper in the car. Whatever car it is, there is always paper in it. At least that's what I thought because of the amount of paper stuff in my car. I went over to the car, a rental, to get some paper.
Nothing. No map, nothing. Nothing except a small cash register receipt. I brought it back to the spot. He stood there with his pants around his ankles cleaning himself off.
"All I could find was this receipt."
"I'm pretty much cleaned up already."
"I'll stop in the next place so you can use the bathroom."
A couple days before he bought a couple liters of grape must (Mashed wine grapes removed from fermentation vats; it's rather thick and pulpy like raw unpastuerized apple cider with many of the side effects of prune juice) and had been drinking it religiously. I think this had a lot to do with the accident. The first night he had it he gave me a drink and then I went out to hang out with a friend that lived nearby.
We hung out for a couple hours. We talked mostly, but we also listened to my stomach growl. It couldn't be helped, my stomach was loud and insistent: "Listen to me. Can't you hear me? Do I need to talk louder?" It rumbled and rumbled at times drowning out our conversation. For some reason it felt compelled to be heard.
When I got out the door with no one around I let loose the gas build up of the previous hours. It sounded like the fart noises I made as a kid - when I'd put the palms of my hands to my mouth and blow. Then giggle.
I never took another drink of the stuff, but he did. Much more than he should have, in my opinion.
After he cleaned up we drove around some more. There were a couple more bikes to see. It got late so we stopped and grabbed some dinner.
"Ahh. My stomach feels a lot better. I can't believe I shit my pants earlier."
"Yeah. You're not old enough to lose control of you bowels."
"No, my stomach is just all messed up for some reason."
"I bet it's that must crap you've been drinking. I had one glass of that stuff and my stomach was going crazy the other night."
"Oh, yeah. It could be that. Or grandma's cooking."
"I'd be all messed up too then. I'm telling you the night I had a drink of that stuff my stomach was rumbling like mad. It was so loud you could hear it over the music, and then I had the worst, loudest gas attack of my life."
"Yeah, it's probably that stuff. I'm just glad my stomach feels better now."
We finished eating and got on the interstate taking the fast way back to my grandparents house. We couldn't have been on the road for more than 10 minutes before he said, "I just shit my pants."
"I know. That was messed up."
"No. I mean I just shit my pants again."
"Again? Like, now? Twice?"
"Yeah."
"What the hell is wrong with you?"
"I don't know."
"I'll pull over at the next gas station."
"Why?"
"So you can clean up. What do you think?"
"Don't bother."
"You don't want to sit in your own shit."
"I've been doing it all day already."
"Well you don't want it leaking into your underwear or anything."
"It has already. I shit my pants."
"Wait. Not like just a little bit. Like a tiny bit slipped out, you mean you shit your pants?"
"Yeah."
"Then I'm definitely pulling over."
"There's no use. Forget it."
"No way. I don't care if youget anything on the seats, it's a rental, but I don't want to smell it. There's one now. I'm stopping and you're going in to clean yourself up."
I let him out and parked. It was one of those highway-side rest stop gas stations. The kind with a picnic area. The place was crawling with teenage kids drinking beer out the back of mini vans and flirting with each other. I sat and watched this for at least 35 minutes. I was starting to worry that one of the kids short on beer money mugged my cousin while he was cleaning up with his pants around his ankles again. I was about to go in and check on him; I had given up on avoiding further embarrassing him and was about to go in. There must have been something wrong, what could possibly take that long?
Just then he emerged from the bathroom with a strange looking smile and a bit of a swagger. I took it to be an embarrassed, yep-I-just-shit-my-pants-twice-today walk, but when he sat back down in the car he said, "I put a tampon in this time."
"A tampon?" I couldn't think of any reason for him to carry a tampon. I couldn't think that he actually inserted a tampon into his -- "A tampon?"
"Well. I took a rool of toilet paper and stuffed the cheeks full. Then I put a plastic bag between all of it and my underwear."
"Oh. That's why you were walking funny? ... For a second I thought you were talking aobut a real tampon."
We tried not to talk about it too much the rest of the way.
"You just shit your pants twice in one day!"
"Shut up! Don't tell anyone!"
"Twice."
"I know, it's a little embarrassing."
"I'd be embarrassed too if I shit my pants twice in one day."
"Not another word."
"About shitting your pants?"
We got back to my grandparents. He changed. Then he went to the kitchen and grabbed another glass of grape must.
Posted by calculatoronfire at December 20, 2004 12:53 PM