The time I was an 8-year-old

I envy people born on February 29th. I’m not old enough to start lying about my age in the traditional way, but my sense of humor is still in the single digits. I love poop. And farts. And making fart noises. Oh and whoopee cushions too! If I were born on February 29th, I wouldn’t be lying when I said I’ve only had 8 birthdays. I think I must be giving off some sort of smelly, brown aura, because complete strangers like to talk to me about feces. So do my friends, but they already know how well received the subject will be.

I was sitting at my work desk, not actually thinking about butt truffles, when I hear “don’t wipe back to front!” coming from the single-stall bathroom. That was followed by screams of protest and a couple thuds. While my curiosity and concern were battling for my brain’s attention, the younger of the two women emerged. She explained that her dear old mother had dementia and liked saving her dirty toilet paper. Five different soiled clumps of toilet paper had just been removed from various bodily nooks and crannies. My favorite was the armpit. I’m pretty sure that’s the most eventful thing that happened in the bathroom this entire month. That is, until the bathroom door opened again, revealing this pleasantly oblivious mom and her bare ass. Oh, and it turns out she missed a spot, which she announced to the entire waiting room. The bug-eyed, mortified, bright red daughter hastily shooed her mother back into the bathroom. There was silence…and then more yelling. And thuds. When the pair emerged, everyone had all of their clothes on. The daughter explained to the entire room, myself included, that her mother had been throwing a fit because she couldn’t keep her dirty toilet paper wad. “She just wanted a souvenir,” I said. The daughter snorted and relaxed a little bit. In that moment, we were both 8-year-olds.

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The time I didn’t jaywalk

I really like it when naughty words come out of unexpected mouths. If I ever had the deafness required to own a macaw, I would teach it every swear word I know because its funny to hear that Polly wants a fucking cracker. However, There should really be a special place in hell for people who yell insults out car windows. Come to think of it, I don’t want to hear about what some pervert thinks of my ass-ets from a car window either. And no, that’s not an invitation to get out of the car!

It was an unusually sunny Seattle day, deep in the concrete jungle of First Hill, when I was the victim of this damning behavior. As I began crossing the street, I stepped approximately 3.67934 feet outside the white paint of the crosswalk. Apparently this act was so offensive to one Seattle driver that he shattered the ice on his Seattle freeze by yelling, “that’s jaywalking, you bitch!” I was tempted to throw my milkshake on the front of his car, but it was really yummy and I wanted to drink it. Instead, I did the unthinkable. I ignored him. Just flat out pretended my ears were considerably older than the rest of my body. Then I saw an elderly woman ambling towards me in the crosswalk. The indignant look she gave that squawking driver proved her ears were younger than mine were pretending to be. “Stupid fucker,” she mumbled, prompting me to giggle so hard I snorted a teeny bit of my milkshake. “Not you dear,” she assured me, and then kept walking. I wonder if she has a bird.