All posts by pollydogland

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Cody and the Defiant Doo Doo

We were traveling back from our family vacation. Shortly after getting on the road, Cody mentioned he had to go to the bathroom. It is always alarming to hear these words from a child, as you can never truly know the severity of urgency. I took the first exit off of the interstate that seemed safe and clean enough for Cody. He’s quite particular when it comes to public restrooms, and absolutely everything else. Not unlike all other 8 year old boys with or without A.D.H.D.

We hurriedly entered the truck-stop and found the restroom. Of course, it was requested that I clean off the toilet, so like a tentative and caring father, I did. I explained the importance of wiping down the front of the throne, where your pants touch, because usually, it has been dribbled with someone else’s urine. I think my actual words were,”Don’t forget to clean this part”, while smiling, to ease the harshness of the lesson. If I had mentioned urine, he would have completely lost his mind.

So I patiently waited outside the stall, noticing things like a lone, dirty, toilet scrubber on the floor, halfway under the sink. An odd place for that to be. There’s a story we will never know about that scrubber. And there were framed posters for sale at the entrance to the restrooms, where the foyer splits the genders using hieroglyphic stick figures as the common language of our people. A triangle at the waist specifies the female of our species, whereas, no triangle is the male. The posters on the female portal side, are of manly, shirtless men, holding manly tools, and pouting. To the left, images of curvy women, in highly precarious poses wearing non-sensible high heels, and also pouting. One poster had the 50’s model, Bettie Page covered in tasteless tattoo’s, poorly photo-shopped, giving the appearance of lick-and-stick temporary tattoos from a quarter machine in a dimly lit and carpet stained corner of a deeply urban grocery store. And of course, there was the poster that unites all humankind with commonality. Any image of Marilyn Monroe. Everybody likes Marilyn Monroe.
As I paced through the florescent light reflections in the water droplets on the bleached white tile floor, I heard the toilet flushing repeatedly and saw his moving shadow through the crack in the door, I asked Cody, “is everything all right in there?” He hesitated while he organized his explanation, as he usually does, and started to answer- just as I interrupted,”If you wiggle around on the seat, the light sensor thinks you’ve left, and the toilet automatically flushes. You gotta stay still on there, you can’t move around”. He got really quiet, which is way better than arguing with me, or getting his feelings hurt. I felt a glowing sense of pride that I actually explained something, he listened, he understood, and he calmly remedied the problem. It is far more likely that his lack of response was due to being momentarily paralyzed by the enormous turd escaping his tiny body.

After I overheard Cody do the toilet paper clean up work and flush, I heard a sigh of frustration and another flush. And another. He opened the stall door and briefly looked at me with a mix of confusion, frustration, and shyness. He looked at the floor and tried to explain, “It won’t go into the hole. It’s across and won’t go down the hole.” In my years of traveling, even as a truck driver, I have seen strange and horrible things in public bathrooms, but I have never seen this before. His giant poo was laying across the bottom of the toilet bowl, like it was standing up, at one point, and someone pushed it over in front of them. It was a single, 9 1/2 inch, solid limb that was lodged in a way that could not physically be flushed down the toilet. Like a log over a creek.  A terrible physics experiment, an unsightly sight to behold, an anomaly of nature. It was shocking, then hilarious. I couldn’t help but smile, and say, “That is impressive, Cody. You may have a gift”. Cody was slowly finding humor in the situation as his genuine concern, confusion, and overall stress faded. He smiled and coyly said,”I don’t know why it’s so funny – because it’s disgusting, but it is”. I replied, in that glorious moment, “Welcome to boyhood, son. It only gets better from here”.

We stood there for a moment as I tried to devise a plan that would sink the colossal fecal obstruction. I considered using the dirty toilet scrubber on the floor to prod it into submission, but decided that it would be too gross. Then someone entered the restroom and unknowingly added chaos to our situation. I did not want to explain to a stranger why my son and I were just hanging out in a bathroom discussing the physical properties of poop, so I chose to calmly walk away instead. I probably missed an opportunity for a fatherly lesson in cleaning up after yourself and not being a disgusting and rude person, but in the awe and confusion of this situation, I felt it best to leave it to the professionals. The truck-stop janitorial staff.

There is a possibility that it may have been discovered by a tired and ragged truck driver that had an extremely uneventful day, and this might’ve lifted his spirits and enabled a renewed zest for life. It might’ve been photographed and cataloged and gone viral on the internet. It could’ve raised this particular truck-stop from financial turmoil as a tourist designated “New wonder of the world”. Or the stool may have just surrendered to the the will of gravity and eventually fell in. You never know what might have happened.

His poop was left in the hands of fate.

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Passive Spitter

It was the summer of eighty-five. My friends seemed to always be looking for something when they went out at night, trouble. They usually found it and I was usually along for the ride, like an oblivious journalist following a rock band.

They had heard of someone throwing a party, like every other Friday night, but this one was different. This time, one of my friends, Timmy, was having a rivalry with some other kids at the party. I was absolutely clueless to what was going on. I was riding in the back seat of a two door car and could not hear their maniacal plan through the howling wind and six by nine inch, oval speakers blasting Van Halen’s, Jamie’s Cryin’,  in my ears. We arrived at a house in a newly constructed neighborhood and parked in the dimly moonlit yard next to a Suzuki Samurai. Timmy and Mick yelled into the now completely quiet back seat telling me to stay there as they went into the two story, upper middle class home full of smoke, music, whiskey, and beer fumes. Their command was the first moment I sensed the malcontent behavior of this particular evening. Within minutes they were coming back from the house in a hurry. Our car started and Mick  jumped in as Timmy opened the door on the Suzuki Samurai that was parked next to us. He unzipped his pants and proceeded to urinate all over the interior of the vehicle as Mick was yelling for us to escape, “Let’s Go! Let’s Go!!” And we went! I’ll never know what took place inside the house. The Suzuki Samurai loaded with three angry kids soon caught up to us as we raced down main street. There were a lot of flying finger gestures and taunting verbal insults as I decided to join in and engage my own hidden talent from the back seat, not acknowledging any danger or repercussions for my actions.

This specific one of my unique hidden talents originated years before with a tickling accident and a pickle jar involving my brother. I think that is self explanatory, but if you need more explanation, I’ll suffice. I was being violently tickled by my brother on the kitchen floor when he opened the refrigerator door, grabbed a jar of pickles, and pretended to drop it on my face. Only he forgot to pretend to drop it, resulting in a chipped front tooth that left an eight millimeter gap like Alfred E. Neuman for many years after. It bestowed upon me the talent of being able to spit a stream of liquid about 12 feet through the space between my teeth.

I filled my mouth with beer, leaned up from the back seat, and squeezed out the passenger side window. I was brilliantly streaming a line of beer spit at the Suzuki Samurai. They scientifically deduced that since I was orally projecting a liquid with so much vigor, that I was the culprit that covered their interior with a piss-like substance. They also unanimously decided they wanted to murder me.

As we sped through town, Timmy and Mick , who were much more proficient street fighters than I was, chose to stop at a dimly lit, obscure, city park, in a quiet sub-division to engage in battle. As soon as the car came to a stop, Timmy and Mick  were out, and posed, and ready as the Suzuki Samurai sideways skidded into the parking lot behind us. The angry kids were also quite prepared as they bounded from their vehicle. As they all started beating the crap out of each other, my vision became very narrow and dark. I was holding on to the door of the car as some angry kid was trying to pull me away. He was intently saying something about it being my fault and I should fight. I was not prepared to fight, in fact, I had given up fighting in the fifth grade when a tiny Mexican kid almost choked me to death in a fight that I started. I was being accused by the other angry kids as well. I could hear their voices through the scuffling and punching noises. I needed time to think. Luckily, a scientific hypothesis of space and time relativity kicked in. I have found that Time usually slows down for me in these intense situations. As my arms were being strenuously tugged and stretched, I calmly thought to myself, “I should just explain this whole situation. If I could get everyone to take a little break, I could explain it rationally. Oh, but then I would have to reveal what the liquid actually is, and I honestly don’t hate these guys enough to tell them they’ve been riding around in human piddle. I don’t even know these dudes. It also could potentially cause some disapproval with Timmy if I tell on him”. I concluded that when the angry kid eventually pulled me off the car door, I would just take my beating like a wimp rather than try to explain anything or actually fight back.

As Time began to re-clock itself and become normal again, the blur was lifted and I could see again. Timmy was centered fifty feet in the distance under the romantically lit city park lights, trading punches with angry kid number three. Mick  was twenty feet away to the left, exchanging blows with angry kid two. Angry kid one was standing in front of me with limp arms at his side, staring at me like I was a spilled bag of the last buttered popcorn on Earth. He was very disappointed in me for not engaging in the overall brutality.

In an instant, it was over with the sound of distant sirens and bouncing shadows of red and blue lights. Everyone scattered back to their peed on, or non-peed on cars, and whisked away into the night. Recess was over.

I remember being courageously vengeful in my thoughts and dreams for months after the incident. I envisioned sneaking up to their house at night, and draining the oil out of all their vehicles as revenge. I hope no one ever really did that. I absolutely hated kids who had stuff, and things, and decent families. I never knew who the angry kids were, or why we conflicted with them.  It felt imaginary at the time and still does. It seemed like it was already a memory when it happened. There are more of those nights. So many more.

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Pulled Over for Speeding

I recently got pulled over. I was going about 5 miles over the speed limit. The young cop seemed overly cautious as he approached my driver side window. Probably because my truck has a smashed up rear bumper and a few random dents. Hey, it’s a work truck. It’s also a four door with dark tinted rear windows. I would be cautious too. Also, this was in a high financial residence part of the city and it is quite obvious that I am not in the high finance club. I was polite and he was brief and to the point. He took my license and walked back to his patrol car to check me out and possibly write out a ticket. I suddenly remembered something very important and yelled out to him, “Hey, I need to tell you something!” He came back up and I explained that the last time I got a ticket, the officer was not aware that I am not able to take defensive driving because I have a CDL. (Commercial Drivers License) And if he decides to give me a ticket, it will stay on my permanent record with no way to get the punishment reduced. The cop just turned and walked back to his car with no emotion.

A few moments later he returned with a written warning and handed my license back and said, “You know, just because you have a CDL, it doesn’t mean you can go around speeding.”

I politely thanked him and left, feeling weird. I was thinking that was an odd thing to say to me. I wish I could have replied differently.

– “Well officer, I disagree. You see, I paid a lot of money to obtain my special drivers license and I think I should be able to drive as fast as I damn well please. After all, I’ve been extensively trained in how to observe the roadway at a professional level and feel that even though other people may feel endangered, they should somehow know that I am in complete control of my vehicle.”

Comedy, Random Thoughts and Stories, Shared on Social Media

The Lone Ranger

I’ve never understood why it was called The Lone Ranger. He had a constant companion. He was not alone, ever. His best pal was an Indian named Tonto, played by a Mexican. Even though the show was in black and white, color images showed him in a baby blue, skin tight, monochrome onesy uniform with a dark blue scarf around his neck. Tonto was in cashmere?

I was flipping through channels and started watching an old episode of The Lone Ranger, but I only caught the beginning and the end of the show which is why it seemed so funny.

It begins with a man standing at a sink, washing dishes. He’s wearing an extremely feminine apron as his wife enters the kitchen, cinching down on her cowboy hat. She begins berating and emasculating him as he starts to fumble with drying a plate. She say’s, “You can’t do anything right. I don’t know why I married such a mouse and not a man! This ranch won’t run itself! I have to do all the hard work around here! You’re no good at anything!” He responds, “I don’t know why I’m such a mouse. You’re right as usual dear.” He drops the plate he’s drying and it crashes onto the floor. She redundantly say’s as she leaves, “Pick that up this instance! I wish I’d married a man instead of a mouse!” He waits until she’s gone and quietly says to himself, “I wish you’d married a man too”.

Then I changed channels and watched something else. I went back just as the show was on it’s final lines.

He is sitting at the kitchen table while she serves him dinner. She says,” I’m sure glad The Lone Ranger stopped by and fixed all of our marriage problems! I hope he stays warm enough on the dusty trail tonight.” He responds, talking down to her, “Just like a woman, you wouldn’t know anything about the outdoors! She smiles as she places the rolls in front of him.

And the scene changed to The Lone Ranger and Tonto riding off into the sunset as you hear, fading into the distance, “Hi ho Silver…and away!”

 

Comedy

Worms

Fish eat worms. Worms don’t live in the water. How many worms accidentally dig their way out of the soil into a lake. They must think, wow, the dirt gets really soft right here. And the air that I breathe is really humid. There IS an actual worm fish that is a seahorse without the horse shape. I learned that from my eight year old son who learned it from watching Wild Kratts. My son talks during movies. I think there is a stereotype about that, but not usually with Caucasian children. There is a scene in Disney’s Mulan where the bad guys are breaking into the castle and my son says, “It’s a pull, not a push!” Disney loves their castles. But they leave out all the human suffering that it takes to draw them.

Random Thoughts and Stories, Shared on Social Media, Uncategorized

Chell

She was unseemly and alluring. Unattractive and the most beautiful girl I’d ever seen. We were filled with deep words but nothing meaningful was ever said.

I lacked the means to articulate my thoughts with her. I was attracted lustfully to blonde hair, giggles. and big jiggles. Or petite and slightly stupid, brown hair with perky wiggles. Either way she was neither of them. We connected subconsciously . Never touched lips, or even chanced closeness. We were friends that were contently confused. I was twenty two, she was seventeen. I was terrified of our ages. The legalities and consequences. I knew always that she was so high over me, I constantly wondered why she spent a moment with me at all. But, I knew it was because she was too young to know yet. Which made me feel like a creep, exploiting her for my own comfort. And I knew that despite her age and adolescence, she knew anyway. Because she was also brilliant.

We met at a job in an ice cream shop. She was sixteen and already trusted to audit the cash registers, a job usually reserved for management. So right away I knew she was smart.  The other girls, the same age, were more concerned with themselves, and really non-important things, and generally often without a single thought.

I remember a pressurized whipped cream battle that occurred one evening, where there were no concerns at all. I was just an average boy spraying whipped cream on four pretty young girls. At one point, I was hiding in the walk-in freezer with a very bountiful pre-woman, having a private whipped cream battle. It was wonderful. Chell was more tactful and planning. We had our spray war as well, but it just wasn’t as memorable as the blonde in the walk-in.

I’d never been around a smart girl. Ever. I didn’t even know  if I was smart. She had good raisers. I saw a framed photograph of a beautiful blonde girl on an accent table in the foyer of her parents house. She said it was her older sister who was away, modeling in Paris. I instantly knew, I would not fit there on that tabletop. But I purged and advanced. She loudly told her mother who was behind the walls of the moderate house, “I’m going out, I’ll be back later.” Her mother answered something benign and we drove away. I thought, what trust they have in her.

Her best memory of me, I assume, is a car ride in the foothills. I pull from what I perceive as her perspective.

Like James Dean in a Dairy Queen. He’s elusive and cool. He drives a unique sports car and knows all the best scenes. He treats her like a lady when her hair gets sucked out of the rattling, unsecured, passenger door window, like a gentleman would. He doesn’t talk much. He’s mysterious and intriguing.

And here’s my perspective.

I’m wearing my nicest, dirty pants. I got a shit job with no prospects at all. I love cars and this was the cheapest and coolest car I could get. Just happens to be a fixer upper Porsche knock off. I know scenic drives because I drive around alone a lot. I’m acting like a gentleman because you deserve more than I could ever give you. I don’t talk because I don’t know anything at all. No mystery, I’m an idiot.

To this day, I don’t know her. I never knew her. I spent hours with her and never got to know anything. We were just “with” each other and that was enough. I never pined for her, or tried to look her up. I am absolutely more in love with the time we had than I could have ever had in actual love.

Like a film of white dust on a lake. It was never anything attainable, but it was real and it was there. It glimmered in the sunset and faded into time. It’s now a cherished memory, undaunted and unspoiled. We were never touched by reality. As it should be.

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Fred, the Pig

Fred the pig is famous. Fred the pig was a genius.

This the true story of Fred the pig

Fred was purchased by the Father of Sid the farmer. Sid the farmer’s Father was also a farmer. He probably knew more about farming than Sid.  Mostly because Sid was only nine and a half years old and had not actually studied farming. Sid the farmer’s Father didn’t know much about farming either and wasn’t very good at farming.  Sid the farmers Father was studying farming as he farmed. Sid the farmer also had an older brother. His name was Sam the farmer.

Fred was going to be like every other farm pig. He would be raised for showing at the county fair and eventually sold and processed for food for people to eat. That’s where bacon and pork rinds come from. Most people prefer not to talk about it. I’ll stop talking about it too.

Sid the farmer and Sam the farmer had raised pigs before. One each. Their names were Skoal the pig and Copenhagen the pig. Sid the farmer and Sam the farmer learned a lot about what to do, and what not to do, with raising pigs, but that’s another story. The point is that they were slightly experienced with raising pigs.

Sid the farmer and his farmer family moved to a new little town. Sid the farmer’s Father decided that Sid the farmer and his older brother, Sam the farmer would raise pigs in the new little town as well. Sid the farmer got three pigs to raise. Sam the farmer also got three pigs. A month later, Sam the farmer decided he did not want to be a farmer anymore and ran away from the new little town. He ran so far that no one could find him for a long time. Long enough that all six of the new pigs in the new little town were completely raised by Sid the farmer. Sam is no longer a farmer is now out of this story.

The new little town elementary school was very close to where Sid the farmer lived. One sunny day, Sid the farmer was studying in a classroom at his new little town elementary school.  He was sitting next to a classroom window that was next to a large playground. The school was in the country outside of the new little town, so there was plenty of land for playgrounds. The Principle of the new little town school announced over the intercom, “Will Sid the farmer please get his pigs off of the large school playground. They are rooting up the swing-sets and see-saws”. Sid the farmer looked out the window and saw all of his pigs in the large school yard. He left the classroom and went out to the large playground. He gathered and herded all the pigs through the brush behind the school and cut through the neighbors back yard to get them back to their pen. The neighbors house was abandoned and haunted so he was especially careful not to disturb the ghost.  The ghost was a mean old lady that peered out of the highest window in the haunted house and would later complain about the smell of the pigs. Who knew ghosts could even smell things anyway? Sid the farmer shut off the electric fence around the pigs pen and lifted the fence high enough for the pigs to get back through. Sid the farmer did not know how they got out of the pen. It was a mystery.

A few weeks had passed and life went on as usual. Then one day at school, a voice came over the speaker again. “Will Sid the farmer please keep his pigs out of the large playground”. Sid the farmer looked out the window and saw them again. Sid the farmer left the classroom, gathered the pigs and herded them back home again. Sid the farmer still did not know how they got out.

Another week had passed and Sid the farmer heard the voice at school a third time. This time the voice said,” Sid the farmer, this is your last warning. Get your pigs off of the large playground!” Sid the farmer left class and got the pigs back home. It was still a mystery how the pigs were escaping the pen with the electric fence. There were no signs of escape. Nothing was out of place.

One weekend. Sid the farmer went out to feed and water the pigs like he did every morning. Sid the farmer did this even on mornings he didn’t have school, because pigs don’t know the days of the week, they don’t know what school even is, and they are still hungry on weekends. This school morning he was a little later than usual. Normally, the pigs were tended to before school started. Sid the farmer filled the water trough. Fred the pig grunted happily and blew bubbles in the water trough through his snout like he always did. Sid the farmer thought about the water trough. He noticed the trough had been moved and recalled that every day, as the water trough became less heavy from all the pigs drinking, Fred the pig had been pushing the trough closer to the electric fence. This particular morning, as Fred the pig seemed to enjoy blowing his bubbles a little more than usual, he gently leaned his rear end to the side and touched Sid the farmer’s leg. With his snout dripping with water, he touched his long, wrinkly nose to the electric fence and waited for the pulse. The water on his snout helped the timed pulse of electricity travel through Fred the pig’s snout all the way through his to rear end into Sid the farmer’s leg. Sid the farmer jumped and yelled in surprise and pain as the electricity violently shocked him. That morning, Sid the farmer learned that Fred the pig understood how electricity travels through conductive water, and how electric fences pulsate electricity by sending it down every few seconds.

Sid the farmer decided he should probably spend more time with the pigs. He was hoping to witness an attempt to break out of the pen. One afternoon, Sid the farmer was doing his math homework in the pen with all the pigs. He asked Fred the pig some math questions and Fred the pig grunted the exact number of grunts that were the correct answers. Sid the farmer realized his pig was smart enough to help with his math homework.

On the next weekend, the mystery of how the pigs multiple escapes was finally revealed. Fred the pig seemed to be comfortable enough with Sid the farmer to relax his privacy. Fred the pig grunted at the other pigs while he blew bubbles, wetting his snout in the trough. He appeared to give an order. Soon they formed a somewhat single file line facing the electric fence. Fred proceeded to the front as they all forcefully squished together in a line. Suddenly, they ran in unison, powering through a small opening in the electric fence. All six pigs made it through but only the last one squealed. As long as they were all touching, only the last one felt the shock of pulsing electricity from the fence.

Fred the pig was a genius.

The Fair

The county fair was coming up in the new town. Sid the farmer couldn’t show all six pigs, so he had to choose only two. Fred the Pig, of course, and Rob the hog. The other four were sold immediately for food processing. Rob the hog had only an average pig intelligence, which still may be smarter than some humans. Sid the farmer overheard his farmer Father say that Fred the pig was going to be processed with all the other pigs after the county fair. It was a sad day, but they knew this day could come. It’s just the rules, and they’re complicated.

Getting ready for the fair. Sid the farmer’s Father built a temporary pen right next to the haunted house next door. The ghost neighbor yelled rudely down from the third story attic window, “Y’all move them pigs! They stink!” Since Sid the farmer was still only a kid, he didn’t know how to move the pigs, so they just stayed there and stunk. The ghost must have finally had a reason to leave and traveled into the spirit world as she was not heard from again. Good for her. Mean old lady ghost.

At the fair, Fred the pig and Rob the hog were put into short wood fence pens in a gigantic barn full of short wood fence pens. All the short wood fence pens were full of pigs. The short wood fence pens were twice as tall as the tallest pig. No pig had ever escaped from the twice as tall as the tallest pig short wood fence pens, until Fred the pig.

Fred the pig was probably just genius enough to understand that most of the pigs were going to become food for people after the fair. At first it was only Fred the pig that would escape the twice as tall as the tallest pig short wood fence pen, but soon Rob the hog would escape too. Then it seemed every time Fred the pig  and Rob the hog escaped, more pigs would escape just like they did. It was clear to Sid the farmer that Fred the pig had organized a revolution. It was the twice as tall as the tallest pig short wood fence pen revolution. At one point, all the pigs had escaped at the same time and were running wildly around the gigantic barn. The main barn doors were closed,so there was still no way out.

Fred the pig was now famous.

Since it was Fred the pig that started it all, Sid the farmer’s Father felt responsible and supplied big flat grey metal grate roofs for the twice as tall as the tallest pig short wood fence pens. After all the pigs owners ran around chasing and catching their escaped pigs, the  big flat grey metal grate roofs kept every pig contained inside their twice as tall as the tallest pig short wood fence pens from then on. The revolution was officially over and almost all of the pigs continued to their fate, just like Fred the pig thought they would.

Sid the farmer, Fred the pig, and all the other pigs in the gigantic barn, all learned that humans have the ability to overcome problems better than animals simply because people have thumbs and lift big flat grey metal grate roofs onto twice as tall as the tallest pig short wood fence pens. And also People can drive around and stuff. Pigs can’t do that…yet.

Fred the pig had an amazing, eventful life. Fred the pig was loved by Sid the farmer, which is more than most farm animals ever get in life. Sid the farmer will never forget Fred the pig, and now, possibly, neither will you.

The End