Alright…so as some of you are aware it’s been a particularly rough few weeks for me (the details of which I’ll leave aside for the sake of this particular post), but as is in most bad things there were some lighter moments (An exceptionally dark-humored, but perfectly timed “One Flew Over the Cuckoo’s Nest” reference with a pillow was my favorite), though one of which has proven to be far lighter for the listener than for the subject (ie, me). Lest my feed turn into some morose sad-fest, I thought it might be appropriate (albeit mildly embarrassing) to share here. For those of you who’ve yet to experience the Joyce-ian hammer of my discourse: I do nothing in small measure, and I’m enjoying what I’ve decided to call a “Sunday drunk”. May the easy bored (or foul-language averse) be forewarned.
So I’m sitting in a quaint post-WWII bungalow in Bartlesville, Oklahoma (just about 40 minutes north of Tulsa, and the home-base of Conoco-Phillips. A town where 40K homes rest nary a block away from three quarter million dollar mansions and racial relations are locked somewhere in the vicinity of 1938) at 1am in the morning tending to my mother with my only biological sibling. My older and sometimes-estranged brother Adam and I have what can only charitably be described as a contentious relationship (Aka: We used to beat the ever-living shit out of one another on a regular basis) and he still likes to bark commands at me like I’m still 10 years old. Ah, brotherly love. Is there any ground so rocky as two very alpha men unable to subdue their instinctive need to prove superiority forced to share a small space for the sake of another for whom they will not at any cost put at unease? I think not.
Anyway….So we are sitting in a small living room actively dancing around the elephant we simultaneously cannot ignore yet cannot possibly bring ourselves to acknowledge, and Adam looks at me and (I cannot emphasize this enough; the man commands, not speaks. I’m sure many will note that it’s a trait that runs in the family.) barks at me: “Go get me a big Dr. Pepper with a lot of ice.”
“There’s Dr. Pepper in the fridge, dickhole. Get it yourself”, I kindly reply, as is my tendency.
“No, I want a fountain one. Big cup. Lots of ice.”
Imagine if you will hearing Japanese spoken for the first time. Harsh consonants in clipped but aggressive tone delivered with the grace of an angry German Shepard. A frustrated and rageful Toshiro Mifune growling at an exasperated Takashi Shimura in “Stray Dog”. That is my brother’s normal tone of voice. Makes for a fantastic federal agent, let me tell you, and he’s taking advantage of the fact that I will not indulge him in a yelling match in this of all places.
Fine. I will get you a drink. After all, it’s already been decided that I will be the one to stay up keeping vigil, and I fully expect to have need of both drink and sweet, sweet, candy; because good green hell, I’m not doing this straight. We’ve a particularly potent batch of Colorado-origin alternative medicine (albeit procured locally and without my brother’s Colorado access nor consent) and I fully intend to partake though it’s been literally a half-a-decade since my last round.
That said I load up Madman Moses in the car (as he’s proven particularly adroit at taking advantage of folks not minding the door) and head off looking for something, ANYTHING open at 1am on a Monday morning in Bartlesville, OK (where the norm is closed-by-9pm even on the weekends). Hooray! The trusty Moto 360 on my wrist tells me there’s a QuikTrip a few miles away. For those of you unfortunate enough to live in a state bereft of such Kubla Khan-esque wonders, a QT is an exceptionally well-run chain of gas/convenience stores known for their cleanliness, roller-bar kept hot dog and taquito delights, and wide selection of nigh anything you might need be it first in the morn or post-last call. Ah, a taste of home in a strange locale. To the QuikTrip I go.
I get my brother his Solomon-esquely massive Dr. Pepper with ice, and myself a few cane-sugar Cokes in those lovely 16oz bottles of my youth (I am if nothing else a sucker for nostalgic sweets) along with the good sirs Mike & Ike’s finest jellied treats in a store that is virtually identical to the one located nearest my home. Sweet, sweet familiarity. The young man tending the counter compliments me on my Tony Gonzalez Chiefs jersey (I’ve been so addled as to have forgotten it was a bye-week), we say our “have a good nights”, and I’m back in the car.
About halfway through my drive, my wrist buzzes at me to notify that I have a call (my phone goes silent when driving), and I answer my brother’s call.
“Did you get me chocolate? I want some chocolate”. Bark. Bark. Bark. Gofuckyourself, Wyatt Earp.
“There’s Nutella in the cupboard and some candy bars in the fridge, Adam.”
“I don’t want those. I want chocolate doughnuts.”
“Goddammit, don’t you think that’s something you could have told me beforehand? I’m already halfway back.”
“Are you in a fucking hurry or something? Get me some fucking chocolate doughnuts.”
God-fucking-dammit. “Fine. I’ll get you some doughnuts, you big fucking baby.”
Digital-click.
Kids will never know the oh-so-satisfying pleasure of slamming a phone unto its cradle. I weep for their loss. But anyway…
So to the QuikTrip I return, but I see the supply truck is parked in front, meaning that someone is there to replenish said convenience wonder of its aforementioned delights. And sure enough, when I go to the seemingly endless doughnut cabinets, there’s a guy there refilling the trays with Monday morning’s assortment. I stand there patiently because, as an ex one commented of me, I have a very British-like aversion to interruption of work, and because fuck Adam…he can wait for his goddamn doughnuts.
To my left I notice younger woman; mid-twenties, dishwater blonde, very (loathe as I am to say it) Bartlesville trashy, holding a young toddler clad in a long shirt in that laundry-basket hip-hold mothers seem to master. She is, like me, waiting for the kid to finish stocking the rows. I politely nod in acknowledgement to a grunt of a reply.
Eventually the stocker finishes his work, and I motion to the woman with a “after you” hand-wave, and she replies, “No, no..you go ahead. You were here first. I wouldn’t feel right.”
I decline to press the point, eager to be home and done with this, and proceed to squat down (Wolverine-style. I cannot over-emphasise John Byrne’s or Paul Smith’s’ depiction of Marvel’s favorite son in how I carry myself physically no matter how far it may be from the reality of my frame) afront of the sliding glass doors to grab a bag from within which my brother’s chocolate bounty will travel. I’ve had a barely-contained baseline level of rage working against me for the last few days and I’m frustrated by the bags’ reluctance to separate. I would just as soon put my fist through the glass display than disentangle this fucking bag from its brothers, but finally I pull a bag free; clumsy fingers trying to find the tip of the bag needed to part it. Okay, done.
As I’m grabbing a random assortment of chocolate-related doughnuts (did he mean a chocolate cake doughnut? A glazed with chocolate coating? Long John? Old-Fashioned? Fuck it. I don’t give a shit. Grab ’em all…) I feel two small hands clasp around my neck, and I turn my head to see that yes…this woman’s toddler has grabbed my neck and has hoisted himself upon my shoulders like one of the cheeky monkeys that cavorted and clamored for treats from in the jungles outside of Puerto Vallarta in my pretend ex-pat days.
While being someone who generally enjoys (and indeed longs for) physical contact with those I know, I abhor, ABHOR physical contact with strangers to say nothing of strange toddlers in a gas station. But I’m a dad as well, and my instinct is to hold onto the kids’ arms so that he doesn’t fall if I stand up. I look over at his mom, currently digging through another display of doughnuts with abandon, and (using my best John Hurt-like growl) say, “Ma’am? Could you get your child from me?” the “NOW” hopefully explicit in my tone. And she responds, as if this toddler were no more than an excited puppy at an open door:
“Oh, he just LOVES people!” Again..like he’s a goddamned DOG, not a child.
“Really, ma’am. I’d greatly appreciate it.”, comes my politeness-trumps-rage reply.
“Just a sec. I’m almost done.”
GOD. FUCKING. DAMMIT.
So I’m squatting in front of the doughnut case, legs letting me know that, nope. You are not Wolverine. You’ve had exactly 3 hours of consecutive sleep in four days, and you are not in that kind of shape. THIS IS NOT COOL, BRO. And I’m holding a bag of Adam’s apparently necessary fucking doughnuts in one hand and holding on to this fucking kids’ python grip hands in the other doing everything I can not to just kill everything ever. Let me tell you: Were I Magneto, shit would go real bad real fast.
Seconds tick by like a fucking extended edition of the Lord of the Rings, and this woman is treating her doughnut selection like she’s picking out the fucking Holy Grail in front of a wary Knight. HURRY THE FUCK UP. IT’S A FUCKING QUIKTRIP DOUGHNUT. THEY ARE EQUALLY AWFUL.
And lo and behold, what do I feel but a warm, wet sensation upon my back. The kid, while still clasped to my neck like a low-rent albatross, has gone seemingly slack and WHAT THE FUCK DID HE JUST DO?
To remind you, dear reader who has braved this not-so-short tale, I’m wearing an NFL jersey. You know, the kind with those weird little holes in the fabric (what are those anyway? Speed holes? Fuck if I know.) and it’s not upon the shirt that I feel this hot, wet sensation, but upon my skin itself. There is not enough Xanax in the world to quell the sheer, animalistic rage boiling up inside me because I very quickly realize that one: Apparently there’s nothing upon that child other than the douchebag Ed Hardy t-shirt, and two: this is not a cute little tinkle I feel upon my back. It’s more solid, more THERE. More….shitty.
Yes. That’s exactly right. I am squatting in front of the doughnut case of a QuikTrip in Bartlesville, Oklahoma at 1:30am in the morning and there is a child literally SHITTING DOWN MY BACK. Thanks a lot, Obama.
“MA’AM!?” I half-yell, half-growl because fuck, it’s just a kid. I don’t want to freak him out and have a bonus round of white trash-toddler piss to go with this horror-show.
The woman looks over and see’s what’s happened. By the quickness of which her face goes pale I know my fears are confirmed: This kid just expelled that not-quite-liquid, not solid but sterno-addled hobo shit that toddlers excel at upon my person. And again, LIKE HE’S A GODDAMN DOG, she says:
“Oh my god! He never does that! I’m so sorry!” Lady, he’s not a puppy that just tinkled on the rug. YOUR CHILD JUST SHIT ON MY BACK.
“Get. Him. Off. Me. NOW.” (Let it be said that I will forever be grateful for my years as an on-air DJ for the ability to project with absolute clarity).
“I’msosorryohmygodsorry. SORRY”.
As she grabs the now-bowel-relieved ragamuffin from my back I’m made keenly aware that, as I am still crouching, said ragamuffin’s fecal expulsion has found it’s way to the gap between my jeans’ edge and my own backside. Hot, liquid toddler shit is now finding its way to mine own port of exit via the wonders of gravity and the concave of my back.
Everything. Needs. To. Die. Right. Now.
With now shit-free toddler in tow, the woman just bolts from the store. BOLTS. She totally just walked out the door with who knows how much in doughnuts. It’s not enough to have your kid shit on a stranger, but you have to steal doughnuts on top of it?
I stand up knowing full well that I will be doing naught but enabling a faster passage into my own nethers, white knuckles grasping this stupid fucking bag of doughnuts that I neither need nor want. The counter-kid looks over at me incredulously and, like I just did a particularly clever magic trick, asks “Did that just really happen?”
“Yes, it just fucking happened.” (I hope that kid thought to check the surveillance tapes, because good lord that’s a YouTube goldmine right there.)
I try to calmly slide-walk over to the counter, unwilling to move any part of my lower half in a way that might ease the passage of toddler shit towards gravitys’ inescapable hold, but all for naught. I can feel it moving to my pant legs, dark evil leaving a line on the back of my thighs. I grab into my front pockets for loose dollars. It’s entirely possible that I grabbed three 10s or 20’s instead of ones, and proceed to throw them towards the register. There is no price I’m unwilling to pay in order for this indignity to end. Because:
GOD. FUCKING. DAMMIT. I AM COVERED IN SHIT.
I stomp out, get in the car fully aware there’s a bathroom not 30 feet from that case, but if I don’t get out of these shit-stained clothes as fast as possible I’m not sure there are enough lawyers in the world to save me from what I’m willing to do at that very moment.
I speed down Bartlesville’s backroads, crouch-hovering above the seat, back kept at keen distance from the seat back. Every second my body is screaming at me to relax, but I will not, must not give myself one more thing to cleanse of this Bartlesville baby-shit because holy fuck I’m so mad I can barely see.
I finally arrive at my mother’s home, trying to suss out how to kill the engine, pull the keys, open the door, and exit with an over-excited 65+ pounds of Husky without spreading this fecal plague upon a car already beset upon by 12 cumulative hours within the last 4 days of dog and twin travel, coated with the road-smells of jerky and chips.
My brother sits upon the porch with my step-dad, all calm and decidedly non-coated in Bartlesville toddler shit, and says, “Did you get my doughnuts?” I all but throw his massive drink and bag of doughnuts at his face, his reflexes quick enough to snatch both before doing the damage I so long to spread about.
“THERE ARE YOUR FUCKING DOUGHNUTS”, I snarl and proceed directly to the bathroom where I spend the next 20 minutes rinsing, scrubbing, and coercing toddler shit off my clothes while scouring myself raw like a post-reveal Stephen Rea sitting shell-shocked in a blistering shower.
And that, my now long-suffering readers, is why Bartlesville, Oklahoma can go fuck itself.