Life Goes On!

It is a beautiful Spring Day today, warm, rainy, and a bit blustery. Lots of fun and certainly relaxing. This last winter was fun for the kids, with lots of snow, and a lasting cold that dragged on for me. I live in the Mid-South region of the US, near Memphis in the delta. Think about where John Griffin novels seem to take place.

The weather, much like today, is comfortable more often than not (within reason), with warmer winters and hot, humid summers. The border between Missouri and Arkansas has enough rain that the air is sticky on hot days. Still, the Spring and Autumn seasons are balmy, relaxing, and comfortable — suited for conversations on the porch or veranda with a drink of choice close at hand. Depending on the day, my drink is coffee, but there are days when a beer or my favorite hootch can be involved.

During these porch-side moments, the conversations range from remembering when or a good off-color joke to commenting on the people walking by. I still enjoy watching the ladies, too. The great thing about getting older is that the age range of pretty ladies has expanded over the years. As a youth, it was up to thirty years, later, it grew to include the forty- and fifty-year-olds, and now I can see a senior and appreciate how sexy they are and were. These were the ladies who pioneered the braless look and micro mini skirt after all.

Yes indeed, we had our day, and then some.

You younger bucks will have to wait for nature to catch you up before your eyes are 0pened to such delights. Yes, I know some of you can’t see any way these older ladies might come across as sexy. I can understand your position because I was young like you, too. Y’all forget that part, don’t you?

On the porch, our group is a lively mix; what you may not know is that half the people joining me on the porch and sippin’ the cider are women. Half of the unsavory conversations come from their mouths. We all join in laughter because there isn’t much embarrassment happening. We’ve already lived through times of chagrin and unease. Hell, we talk about anything, politics, booze, and bodily functions (taboo years ago), and laugh at things that happened because we all survived horrible experiences.

One such story from our porch talks came up not too long ago, and, as it happened, it was mine.

It was on a crisp autumn day. I took my son to the dentist’s office and ducked back to my daughter’s house to drop my grandson off with her. Along the way, I felt a lot of rumbling in my stomach.

That familiar, dreaded feeling started up.

By the time I returned to the dentist’s office, I told my son to make it march. I needed to get home, pronto.

Of course, he wanted to get some ice cream. I told him that wasn’t going to happen because I felt a fierce fart or shart brewing and couldn’t tell which. His solution was for me to run back in and use their restroom. That was no option, though, because things had progressed past walking or running, and I wasn’t sure I could make it through all of the people milling about without a forthcoming disaster. The sound alone would have been off-putting to everyone.

I elected to drive as sanely as possible to the house, wrestling with my bottom region for control.

Arriving at the house, I climbed out and tried to walk in as quickly and calmly as possible. But as my foot hit the porch, I set a world record for the most poop streaming through the tightest hole.

OMFG!

Once the flood breached the gateway, it was on. Not only did I fill my drawers, but the levy had busted and overfilled into my jeans.

Now I was in a mode of Get in the bathroom this second! As I opened that door, another round hit at full stream, and I fumbled around trying to drop the pants. Shit was everywhere, and I was fouling the floor, the toilet, and part of the cabinet.

The pants and drawers dropped, I spun around and sat, and when I did, the ongoing shit storm was over. Not even a single encore, dry or moist. There I sat in what smelled worse than an old outhouse in direct sunlight, amid a disastrous paint job that dripped and drizzled everywhere. And it certainly wasn’t whitewash.

I had to send my son to my room for some clean clothes because all the clean clothes I’d put on for the day were now soaked and stained. It took him a while because he had cramps from laughing. Further, it took an hour for me to negotiate the cleanup in the shower, mopping and scrubbing the floor and walls.

Of course, when the story came out on the porch, everyone hooted and hollered because something similar had happened to them. I marked my calendar in remembrance of the Day of the Shitting.

It has become a repeat talking point for all of us.

You can laugh now but just wait. Getting older will happen to you, too!

 

 

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