Proof in the Plumbing

I like to think the foundation of the great relationship I have with my husband is honesty and open communication. I tell the poor guy everything. I tell him about my day, my shortcomings, my feelings, my bloating, my leg hair, and you know what? He even listens at least half of the time. It’s great. I get to vomit up all the things I don’t talk about with other people, and he doesn’t judge me for any of it. That’s why it really surprised me when he thought I took a massive poo on our first date, and when I corrected him — insisting that I would never do such a thing — he thought I was lying!

The most important thing to understand is that our first date was not only serendipitous, it was downright magical, and I would not have soiled such a perfect day; it would have been criminal of me. Let’s back up a couple of decades to really set the stage.

I grew up in Lubbock, Texas. For those of you unfamiliar with the panhandle, it’s shaped kind of like the ocean on a still day only less mobile and with more cotton. There is very little rain, and we get dust storms on a regular basis. You probably learned about the dust bowl sometime back in school. Well, Lubbock is kind of like a miniature, permanent, dust bowl, just with modern irrigation. That’s why Waco was like fairy-land, and that’s where Bob and Gran lived. That’s my mom’s parents. They had so many trees in their backyard I thought it was the outskirts of a forest. We could walk to the lake and feed swans! Also, the faucets in their guest bathroom were shaped like swans, swans that spew out water. It was beautiful, and for the two weeks or so we spent there in the summer I was transformed from an awkward, friendless schoolchild to a fairy princess waiting for something wonderful just around the corner.

One of my favorite memories of Waco, and of Bob, begins like this: I’m sitting in his lap, almost pushed out of it by his Santa-belly which I thought was the result of a swallowed watermelon seed but learned later had more to do with adulting in the ’50, an activity that required heavy drinking and questionable dietary choices. He says something along the lines of:

“Hey shortie, wanna go throw rocks in the lake?”

The answer is always yes. A delighted, enthusiastic, “yes!” We spent hours throwing rocks in Lake Waco. Bob never got irritated if I got dirty, or if I shouted. He never made me feel like I was doing something incorrectly. He was always patient, always kind and he made me feel like the most important person in the room. For a middle child who was very cognizant of the fact that my older brother got all the acclaim for doing things first, and my younger sister got all the sentimentality of doing things last, Bob was special. Bob made me feel special. Throwing rocks in the lake with him is one of those crystallized memories of childhood that you hold onto, a window back to a simpler, more innocent time. Magic.

Now, hop forward about two decades. It was early fall, and I was on my way to meet, for the first time, the man I’d been talking on the phone with for the past couple of weeks. He was funny, smart, and most importantly, he didn’t make me think “not the one.” Not even once. Of course, I was nervous. I was sure he had lied about his personality in phone conversations, or that the one photo I’d seen of him on an ancient flip-phone was not a very accurate representation. I was mostly worried that I’d taken half a day off work to drive forty minutes for a doofus I was going to have to ghost and then I’d have to feel bad about it. And then I’d probably die alone because I’m impossible to please. Or that he’d be perfect, everything I’d built him up to be, and all it would take from me is one lousy lunch conversation and he’d see I was a total neurotic mess and run for the hills. It was going to be one of those two things. Why was I even bothering?

Well, I did bother. We had lunch and he seemed pretty okay. He didn’t get the check immediately. We laughed a little. We even had a weird hug that was definitely awkward, but you know, it wasn’t terrible. And then, you know what? He took me to throw rocks in the lake. We hadn’t talked about Bob, he had no idea I’d ever spent any time in Waco, and it was like he still somehow knew. He spent the whole afternoon teaching me how to skip rocks in the lake, then we sat on a little dock and talked about Star Trek. I would never have ruined a perfect day like that with a terrible, stinky turd in a public gas station bathroom. I had to tell Philip that several times over the next few years because he insisted that he knew I was the one for him when I wasn’t so up-tight that I couldn’t take a dump in the solo, unisex bathroom of a Podunk gas station.

I denied it. Certainly, I denied it because I hadn’t done it. One evening, after sitting with each other over a glass of wine talking fondly of the past, he insisted again that the moment of true love struck for him with the dropping of a trucker worthy deuce. I became incensed. How could he? To prove that I wasn’t lying, that I indeed had not pooped that glorious October day years earlier, I began going over the details of our date.

“I drove to meet you for lunch. I was worried about my breath, but all I had in the car was cough drops so I ate like six of them. I was wearing that orange sweater. We met and hugged and had lunch,” I continued describing what we’d had to eat, what we’d had to drink. Every detail was clear and coming back clearer with the recall. By the time I got to the dock and the Star Trek conversation I was sure I’d had him. I could even feel the heavy, sort of queasy feeling of true love, or… no, that was indigestion from lunch and maybe too many cough drops. I definitely had a little buildup of gas. I remember my pants feeling tight sort of suddenly and a slight desperation to get back to my car so I could relieve myself. Oh. My. God. It was all coming back now. No. I did… oh no. I can’t even think it.

We did stop at that gas station. I never denied it. I only had to pee. Only, I didn’t. I told Philip I had to pee. I didn’t think he’d follow me in! Or that there’d only be one bathroom. And I really couldn’t hold it any longer, but he was waiting right outside the door! A partition so flimsy it may as well have been cardboard. He would hear every noise, down to the ripping of the toilet paper. But if I could be fast, and super quiet, he might think the smell was from some random guy who had to poop before we got there. He would never think that I would do something like that. Only I was going to have to look him in the eyes afterward, and the only way that would work is if I could believe, really believe, that I had not done what I was about to do. And I did it. I pooped in the gas station bathroom. Only I lied about it so hard that I convinced myself I hadn’t. I lied about it for so long, and with such conviction that for five years I thought I was telling the truth.

Well, I learned three things from that. First, you really can’t believe anything. Second, a little poop is not enough to ruin a good memory and third, being uncomfortable for the sake of perfection, compromising your morals so you can seem like one of those flawless girls who don’t have buttholes, is not a good way to live your life. Be yourself, let loose, and if you have to poop, poop because it might be the magical, serendipitous thing that brings you the man you’re supposed to marry.

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