Bathroom Humor

Just to offer our readership a peek into the stall of epiphanies, here is an excerpt from a recent inner monologue: I really miss the Stall Street Journal. I thought all colleges had flyers and other literature papering their bathrooms. They were so enlightening; they just sort of assaulted us with helpful info. while we tinkled.

Ah, but here, here is something to read. We've got a free sleeve of Necessities Courtesy Bags.

First of all, is that font with that pale blue 1950s bathroom tile color even used anymore? Or only ironically? And is that floral outline universally understood as the official symbol of feminine sanitary needs?

I'm really glad it's called Necessities courtesy bag. It's just so clear. You can put whatever it is you call Necessities inside of it. As long it is not heavier than a marble as the seams are rather flimsy, and as long as they have been trademarked, Necessities. Who knew that word was proprietary?

I'm thankful, also, they've labeled the bag a courtesy one. I wasn't sure if I should compensate the invisible bathroom attendant that greeted me with an invisible wave when I entered. Furthermore, the subtext is extremely helpful: FOR YOUR NEEDS AWAY FROM HOME. It is kind of the purveyors of these courtesy bags to recognize that needs do not always strike at home. In fact, I find myself on the needier side whenever I am not at home (just me?)....

Courteous as well is the triple translation of this message. I hate it when I am in a bathroom where the necessities bag directives are not in my first language. I get so doggone confused, comprenez vous? These purveyors really are the most understanding of all. They surmise that needs do not arise exclusively in the home--but sometimes even outside of one's home country!

The message on the back of the bag is equally helpful (if, of course, you read English). One might wonder whatever to do with such a helpful bag. Keep as a souvenir? Add to a time capsule? Upcycle as Christmas tree ornament? The possibilities are practically limitless and yet here comes a polite request in Helvetica caps to please dispose of this bag. Presumably when it has courteously fulfilled your necessities. Confusion comes when the materials within might not be recyclable. I trust that disposing of this in a receptacle of my choice will still be pleasing to the good people of Necessities courtesy bags. They've already recognized I am not always home or even in my home country, leading me to think that a tagline for this bag in the future might be simply: When a girl's gotta do what a girl's gotta do....

McRevelation

It came to me when I was chopping green beans tonight, what it all meant, as all shattering revelations do. As I beheaded and befooted the beans, I realized where I went wrong. I had to get up a little earlier than usual to get the kizzle off to school so that I could meet the new freshmen in our department and venture on our community service. It's a campus tradition that before classes begin, the first year students gather and do a morning service project together at a local agency. We were told we were headed to Ronald McDonald house (love) and that we would be helping with a mailing.

We were off to a winning start as my children were still pro-hugging in hallways with their mom as I dropped them off at school. Also on the positive list are the new crop of students sent to our department, especially as this crop of students seems gregarious and sort of undaunted about the extroversion inflicted upon them during orientation.

Still, I have to say that I sort of felt, I don't know, like I was doing this really huge sacrifice today. That I was Giving Up All the Gold that is Kendra's morning that could be better spent writing syllabi, or better yet, adding crap to her Target Cartwheel app. Instead I had to shepherd some people born in the late '90s WHO PROBABLY DON'T EVEN KNOW ABOUT DOING THE CARLTON, to a place I'd never been, to do work that I was not all that dazzled about doing, probably while making small talk which it is well documented I am allergic to, all morning long. Sigh.

We got to Ronnie McD and the plans to have us help with the mailing were diverted to having our team of 14 clean the place. It was a lot of the blind leading--oh where is the Swiffer, what's a Swiffer?--the blind. It went by quickly and then we were helping with the mailing and blah blah blah everybody got that feelgood feeling, I'm sure of it.

Before we left, we got a tour of the facilities and our tourguide was explaining why the CEO of their location has a heart for the Ronnie McD House ministry. Because her baby died from leukemia at age 9, and there was no Ronnie McD house in Chattanooga, so their family had to go to Memphis for her to receive treatment. So she became the first paid employee of the House when it was founded in 'nooga. Then, as we were about to get our bags and depart, I looked up and noticed the schedule on the wall of where the parents who are staying at the House were that day. They were all at the NICU across the street.

But I still didn't get it.

I got a call when I returned to campus and I had to quick high-tail it over to my office to talk with a parent about her daughter's schedule. I was hot and cranky and underfed and irritated that I couldn't get to the Dollar Store with much time before I had to pick up the kizzle again from school. Gahhhh, I'm such a bondservant of the people today.

It was only when I was chopping the green beans, over and over and over and over, my littles eating yogurt and watching some McDonald's commercial on the tablet that the light in my McNugget-sized brain flashed on.

***

Today was about taking care of other people's children, namely my students, so that some other parents of sick children whose prayers are probably prayed with wringing hands and breathed through desperate sighs, could take care of their children hooked up to wires, bleeping monitors, oxygen. All the while some of the most dedicated teachers the world over were busy taking care of my children.

***

My faith is so small as I tread water in a pool that is not so deep, where I regard small ripples as great waves. I know others may think me naive to believe in this God who cares about my hang-ups and first world problems. I have experienced an awesome, majestic mercy, though, and am trusting that what I know to believe as true will be enough to help me get out out of my own way. I don't want to just tread this same water. My goal is to be back on shore....

Real talk about school drop-off/pick-up

You may be among the blessed whose school districts use a big yellow bus system whereby you are spared the pleasures of pick-up/drop-off. Or maybe you homeschool and lead us all to wonder why we are not doing the same. The school system where our children are enrolled does not have a busing system. The schools are located in rural-burbia where children do not typically walk or bike but rather climb into oversized sport utility vehicles with 2-3 cute dogs wagging their tongues out the window and are transported everywhere. I seriously wonder sometimes if this is what my forbearers dreamed about when coming to America. Lo, let us mount a sea voyage to the new world, they said, a twinkle in their eye, where we will enjoy a famine-less potato crop and our children will never need to exercise because we will drive them everywhere! 

But that is neither here nor there.

My point is that there is a long long queue of minivans and big SUVs parked outside our kids' school every morning and every afternoon and it is a scary scene if you don't know what to expect. Here's the reveal:

The first rule of drop-off/pick-up is to you never mess with the flow of traffic. Trust, you do want to be that person who is trying to do creative maneuvers into the school driveway. You remember that part from "Mr. Mom." Enter from the South, exit to the North.  You want to be in the correct lane and not have to depart from it or you will suffer sinister glares from fellow parents and you will sleep with one eye open lest they send gremlins up your shower drain at night for trying to pull a three-lane sweep just to get to the clutch parking spot. Also, don't be that guy who is sitting in the pick-up lane totally unawares of others trying to advance because he is sweeping like woah in Candy Crush. Fear the gremlins, bro.

The second thing you need to know about drop-off/pick-up is that you need to keep your eyes on the prize. If you have to go into the school building (true fear) as we do because of legal stipulations for signing kids in/out, you are going to have to watch out for the landmines. You are basically going to have to storm the beaches of Normandy to retrieve your kid. Everywhere, there will be social explosions. The mom whose name you can never remember. The dad who always wants to have a Big Long Conversation about the new math. The school  librarian who got a super cute new haircut and you just need to let her know. You have got to avoid all this, fair voyager, or else you will never make it to the end of this Super Mario level and rescue the princess. I mean, haha, pick-up/drop-off is not a video game! That would be insanity if I thought of it as a game. I meant, you need to put on the tunnel vision blinders so you can get to your child(ren) and take him/her/them home or chauffeur them to any number of organized activities and suffer more helicopter parenting. I mean, enjoy watching your kid kick the ball into the goal.

Then there is the matter of all the tiny student people who are slugging backpacks that are so large they have a Pizza Hut inside of them. Do not trip on them in the hallway. Try to dodge them at all costs. They will flatten you.

Let us also discuss the dress code of drop-off/pick-up. We live in the South where wearing sweatpants in public is the equivalent of announcing, I  have just gotten out of jail and this is all I was given to wear. Regardless of your incarceration status, if you are a female in the South, you must look fresh, have your "hair fixed" and have a handbag that matches your ensemble if you are venturing out. I am a daughter of the MidWest, so this all is against my constitution. Ergo, I am not always befitting of Haute Drop-off. If I am not teaching on a particular day, I am reliably going hard with my yoga attire, as if I have just gone to yoga or am headed there now. En route to bringing my children home, I will wave at the yoga studio like we are old friends, when the daughter of the MidWest in me knows the truth. And so, probably, do you.

I know there will come a day all too soon that this pick-up/drop-off madness will cease and I will hear the door slam to my child running out to hop into a friend's car and I will wonder if my child will die in a car accident or be prosecuted for wearing sweatpants in public. A part of me will long for the days when I was the chief executive of transportation operations. After that panicky prayer is uttered, I will probably go find my kid's lunch on the counter and turn around and bring it to her in school where I will wait in the endless queue of parents dropping off their kid at school.