The Pit of Darkness

Before I begin, let me just say that if you’re reading this blog, I can pretty much guarantee that at some point you’re probably going to take exception to something you read here. I’m fine with that. In fact, one of the points of this blog is to talk about all of those things people don’t like talking about, so if you’re looking for something other then my heavily garnished opinions, check out… um…well, crap. This is where I would give a reliable news source, but since I don’t know of one, let’s just say CNN. That way you can see a guy falsely admitting to a decade old murder get top headlines while they gloss over the fact that 61 more people were brutally killed in Iraq with less vigor then they give the weather.

And to think that I have people that find me fucking offensive.

Now that that’s out of the way, let’s get back to some more pointless drivel, shall we?

As I mentioned last week, Jenn and I recently took a trip to KC to visit her family. Jenn’s sister and brother-in-law have a great suburban home, in a nice little maze of other homes that I’m sure are just as lovely. They where nice enough to let us spend the night on the pullout downstairs so we didn’t need to get a hotel. They even got out the inflatable mattress so that we were as comfy as two people could be on a pullout couch. With the exception of my wife throwing a cat-hair covered blanket on my face (I’m quite allergic and proceeded to have my eyes puff out of my head) things were pretty uneventful.

The next morning however, I woke up much earlier than anyone else. Now this is bad for a couple of reasons. First, I’m not very good at doing “nothing”. I get fidgety and start to even annoy myself.

Secondly, Jenn’s an extremely light sleeper. And I mean extremely light sleeper. Ninjas sleep more soundly then Jenn does. She not only hates being woken up, but my sweet little Jennifer turns into an evil dragon in the morning. I’ll admit it… any time before 9 a.m., she scares me.

Lastly—and this really is the very worst part—I had to take a dump.

This provided a dilemma not only personally, but tactically as well. For starters, I hate hate hate using a strange toilet. But there wasn’t much choice since we were 4-5 hours away from a familiar commode.

They have a bathroom downstairs, but it’s a refinished basement and if you turn the bathroom light on, it turns all the lights on in the entire downstairs. With the pullout only feet away, flipping the switch would have surely woken the dragon. Not only that, the bathroom door has a hole in it big enough for a cat to run through. Now, I’m a man who wants a well-ventilated, fully-fanned, three-matches-lit, no-hole-in-the-freakin’-door, bathroom when I’m doing my business.

Upstairs, they have another bathroom, but after a quick recon up the steps, I noticed that the door was open to the master bedroom, which the bathroom sits right next too.

So becoming increasingly more desperate, I thought of another option. Go downstairs, grab my keys, and go drive to the nearest Mc D’s or other public facility. But what kind of note do you leave for that? And worse yet, I mentioned this was a MAZE of houses, right? I had literally NO idea where I was. Just so you know how seriously I considered this option, I went looking for a pen and paper to write said note.

Lacking anything to write my note with, and fearing getting hopelessly lost, I decided to venture into the dark pit of a bathroom without turning on the light. I feared waking the dragon by shear smell alone, but that was a risk I just had to take.

Ever tried to wipe your butt in the pitch dark? It occurred to me that I never had. In the dark, yeah. In a “you can’t see anything except that damn hole in the door” dark? Never. And instead of having their toilet paper hanging on the wall, they have it on a cute little metal stand. Or I’m sure it would be cute if I could’ve seen it. Instead, I just knocked it over with my elbow and had to scurry to keep it from banging against the floor. And in the dark, how many times is enough wiping? I must have used half of that roll of TP just to be safe.

And then, from the darkness, came one of the scariest things I’ve experienced in recent memory. In writing it, you wouldn’t think a cat putting it’s paw on your leg would seem like a scary thing, and trust me, I’d build up the drama if I could. But I swear, when you think you’re sitting alone in the dark and your hearts still racing from knocking over the TP stand, a cold, rough kitty paw on your leg is enough to make you jump out of your skin.

So you may wonder, what’s the point of this stupidity? Absolutely no point. That’s the point. I just thought that the next time your feeling stupid about something, you can think back to my little bathroom dilemma and suddenly not feel quite so foolish.