We went to the pool, and all was well for the first hour or so. Then, Nate told me he had to go potty. Now, Nate is 5 years old, that in-between age where it's kind of awkward to take him into the women's locker room, but he's not quite old enough to navigate the men's room on his own. My solution: have older brother, Ethan, take him into the men's locker room to make sure he gets there okay. No problem. Nate comes back to me a little disheveled, I straighten him up. All is well. Until I see Nate running for the locker room. I wait a bit, and then asked Ethan to go check on Nate. Ethan, ever the supportive big brother, runs up to me laughing and shouting, "Nate has pooped his pants!" Reading my look of horror, Ethan assures me, "yeah, really, he did!"
Okay, this is a problem. I'm a mom, so I don't have a problem with poopy pants. I do have a problem with going into the men's locker room. To add to the stress of the moment, who shows up? My mother. Zoe and Zena, of course, desert Ethan and crawl all over her, begging to go to her house. Seriously, she's like a salt lick to them. Mom acts like she goes into the men's room all the time, and I'm being silly for hesitating.
All right. I'm in. Even though I appreciate the urgency of the matter, I take a moment to look around. I am a pioneer. I'm where few women have ever gone before. While the women's locker room is by no means deluxe, the men's room is positively prison-like. Everything is dingy and gray. The newish sinks seem out of place in light of the huge concrete urinals.
I take a deep breath and locate Nate, crying pathetically in a stall (note: to add to the prison motif the locks on the stalls are all broken. A little impatient during the foot-tapping, are we?) I had a passing thought as to what someone would think seeing my sparkling flip flops along with Nate's little feet under the stall, but as a community we're pretty tolerant, and would probably be pleased that our club has attracted a non-traditional family. Ethan was right, he had definitely pooped his pants.
First: empty the solid mass into the toilet. That's easier said than done. It's a delicate procedure of pulling the shorts down far enough to allow the turd to fall in the toilet, but not so far as to soil the rest of the bowl and seat. I'm only partially successful. Second: remove shorts and wipe bottom. Now, wiping a bottom usually entails just wiping around the rectum (damn near killed 'em) and the surrounding crack. However, in a poopy pants scenario, wiping means serious scrubbing of the hole, crack, cheeks, and back of thighs...using very thin toilet paper. God bless little Nate, he just stood there, clearly humiliated, allowing his Aunt Nazik to clean out his butt. Third: clean the shorts. I had to work quickly...leaving Nate in the stall, I used handsoap to rinse the remaining poo residue down the sink. I'm pretty sure I was violating some serious sanitary guidelines, as well as some state laws, but it couldn't be helped. A couple of small lumps were too big to go down the drain on their own, so I smashed them for easier rinsing. Fourth: put Nate back into his shorts.
Nate ran out ahead of me and jumped back into the water. I walked out, a little worse for wear, but worthy of the respect of women everywhere. Today, I broke through the glass ceiling. A sign on the door could not keep me out. There was a job to do, and I was the woman to do it.
No comments:
Post a Comment