Ruminations in the Shower, episode II

I'm in the shower this morning performing my normal louf poof ablutions. It's later than normal as I stayed home to watch the kids until Theresa returned from a 7:20 am parent teacher conference with Jack's teacher. Ms. Kimble is a lesbian. I only know that because I ran into her and her shemale husband friend in Target one evening. They were holding hands. It was sort of cute in that you run into two bull dykes in their late fifties holding hands in Target kind of way.

I'm mildly irritated because I had to keep an eye on Tyler and Jocelyn, too, and I'm not particularly fond of them. Or anyone else's kids for that matter. They've interrupted my morning meditation, and I just can't seem to get the thread back. Something about how no matter what people have, they always want something else. Which is probably a good thing, or we'd all still be living in mud huts in darkest Gandwana, - or whatever that mythical continent the National Geographic people made up and claim is the place where man first evolved from fish.

Tyler and Jocelyn are this guy Matt's kids. They strike me as mildly retarded. Tyler is six years old and doesn't speak English yet. Or anything for that matter. He just sort of grunts and gestures.

Monica, — who is all of 17 months old—, ambles up to him and says: "Hi Tywer".

"Eeeeorp patootie woop", he replies.

Jocelyn is a gigantic, plodding, nine year old, and has the dull expression of a jersey cow. She has this unusually deep and unsettling huh huh huh laugh. She weirds me out. I try not to make eye contact as I'm concerned there's some sinister ax murdering plot festering behind those dull, listless orbs seated deeply in her jowly face. I hide sharp objects when she's around, and continually find myself squealing and jumping every time some child bumps into me from behind.

Matt's a single dad trying to raise his kids as best he can. Evidently something happened to his day care lady, so he asked my wife if she could watch the kids from 6:45 in the morning until the bus picks them up at 8:30. My wife can't say no to anyone but me, so we've had these kids as part of our routine for the last few weeks. It was supposed to end a few days after they started showing up, but I get the impression that Matt isn't even looking for someone else to watch them.

I don't like Matt. I think he's a kid-toucher. He's about four and a half feet tall with a shock of red hair that's been ravaged by premature male pattern baldness. Bandy legs, rotund mid section, and gawky arms that he's always gesticulating wildly with like some adolescent goony bird careening towards first flight. It wouldn't surprise me in the least if he got picked up by Webster's finest wearing only a thong and a giant pumpkin mask, dancing a jig in a circle of frolicking preschoolers singing " will you touch the Pumpkin Man, the Pumpkin Man, the Pumpkin Man..." Which probably explains what happened to his last babysitter. She found the Pumpkin costume, and he chopped her up, stuffed in back of a Ford Pinto, lit it on fire, and rolled it off the side of the highway. Which really isn't too much of a shame. The Pinto was such a waste of metal.

However, there have been a few times he's dropped the kids off in the past while I was still home and he didn't know it. The way he so vigorously flirts with my wife gives me hope that maybe he's not a kid-toucher after all. Perhaps he really is just a normal, bandy-legged, little pumpkin man who'd prefer dancing a jig in a circle of frolicking above the age of consent females. And who wouldn't want that?

I'm interrupted by a shriek of "DAAAAAADDDDY!"

"WHAAAT?" I yell over the noise of the shower.

"I HAVE TO GO POOOOTTTTTYYYY!"

"CAN'T YOU WAIT UNTIL I'M DONE, SUSANNA?!?"

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!"

"ALRIGHT, ALRIGHT"

I mutter to myself while pulling the shower curtain as tight to the sides of the tub as it will go. I cower in the corner in all my frail pale nakedness. Freaking kids always wait until you're finally in the middle of something... had all morning to take care of this, but nooooo, I gotta go potty now. NOW! The bathroom door crashes open, and I cower even further into the corner knowing full well what happens to daughters who peak on their naked fathers. The become psychologically unhinged and grow up to be Sylvia Plathe. They write crazy male hating free verse that unfortunate undergraduates are forced to parse by their male hating lesbian literature professors. Then they stick their heads in gas ovens.

"DAAAAAAAAADDDDY!!!"

"WHAT!?!"

"THE TOILETS CLOGGED!"

"GET OUT! I'LL TAKE CARE OF IT! JUST GET OUT!...AND STAY AWAY FROM THE STOVE!"

Black clouds fill my head as I towel off, dress, and head toward the toilet. I expect to find nothing less than an in tact roll of toilet paper stuffed perpendicularly into the pipe at the bottom of the toilet. Daughters, I mutter to myself like Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof. Dear God, I know they are a blessing, but why have You chosen to bless me three times with daughters. Another son, God, You know a male child, - one that does not see fit to stuff half a friggin roll of toilet paper down the shoot every time it needs to pee. I know you only test the ones You love, but perhaps You could love me just a little less...

I plunge the toilet and make my way into the dining room and begin my tirade against the girl cowering in the corner.

"You know what's going to happen? Do you? One day you'll grow up and get married and have a daughter. And that daughter will stuff half a damn roll of toilet paper down the toilet every time she needs to use the bathroom. And you'll have married some guy who isn't nearly as cursed, committed, hard headed, call it what you will as I am. The first time he's up to his armpits cleaning out some shit pipe in the basement, he's going to leave you. And you'll end up on the streets turning tricks on the corner for meth money until you've finally swallowed your pride, and come crawling back to me to raise my own grand kid, and I'll just sit on the porch in my rocking chair and grin and say "I told you so. Ha!"

She looks up at me with dull, listless bovine eyes, and I realize it's Jocelyn. She's chewing paint chips off the wall, or maybe card board. I'm taken aback at first for venting on someone else's spawn, but then realize she'll have no idea what I just said.

I grab a cup of coffee and my hat in one hand and head for the door. Crash. Tyler has hidden himself in a cardboard box in the doorway and I trip over him. " Ooompa doopy yawp!" He cries. Apoplectic, I slam the door behind me, put on my hat, and warm brown liquid seeps slowly down my face and into my collar. The coffee has spilled into my hat.

On the way down 89 I see a car with its blinkers on. I'm feeling rather bad about my little tirade, so I pull to the side of the road intent upon doing my good turn for the day. Perhaps it offset the karmic deficit I've fallen into.

A very attractive, well rounded female thing is seated in her Subaru. She's in tears. She has a flat tire, has forgotten her cell phone, and no one has stopped to help her on this chilly morning. No worries, I tell her. It's just a flat. I'll have it changed in no time.

I change the tire. She does this little yip yip jump into the air happy dance thing and hugs me. I stand there, arms hanging limp at my side, one eyebrow raised, wondering if she makes it a habit of hugging angry weirdos in beat up old trucks on the side of the highway.

She blurts out "I'm Missy," and gives me her card. My eyebrow rises even higher.

"Are you married?" I ask.

"Divorced." Her expression sinks.

"You have a daughter, don't you? About say... six or seven years old?"

"Why yes!" Her eyes wide with astonishment and delight. " How'd you know?"

"You daughter used to stuff massive amounts of toilet paper down the toilet every time she went to the bathroom, didn't she? And your husband... he just couldn't take being arm pit deep in the shit pipe anymore and finally walked out, didn't he?"

Her look of astonished delight is rapidly changing into one of abject horror.

"... and you've been out on the streets turning tricks for meth money because you're just not ready to go crawling back to your dad yet, aren't you? And you think by hugging me and giving me your card that I'll give you money for sexual favors so you can buy more meth? Don't you, you sneaky toilet paper stuffing female thing!"

"You sicko!" She shrieks.

"I knew it! " I cry, as she snatches her card and speeds off.

And as the sun pierced the sky and blazed down on Bow Junction, I leaned against my old Dodge, lit a Marlboro, and basked in the glorious vindication of mental acuity that was mine, and mine alone, at 8:39 this morning.