Grandma, there's a big fat blogger in the toilet!

Hey everyone!

Since we've been having such magnificent weather here in Wisconsin the last several weeks and since, let's face it, I'm just not getting over to Gold's  (sorry KRAM...I'm still adjusting to my life.)  I've been taking walks at lunch time.  Granted, it's not a sweaty run on a treadmill, but at least I'm getting out of the building and moving my fanny.

One of the things I like doing is walking over to the Culver's, which winds up being almost a mile an a half round trip.  Now, before you get all up in arms about my destination, no, I do NOT eat at Culver's all the time.  But I have about 40 minutes for a walk, and this is a good stop and turn around point.

And, truth be told, I really like using their bathroom.

Those of you who know me know that I have issues using public restrooms.  I'm very particular about where I will and won't go.  Porta potties are right out...unless it is an absolute necessity.  I also don't do gas stations, unless they are Kwik Trip.  Highway rest stops?  Maybe, but not in Indiana (sorry, too many bad experiences there.)  And as for restaurants, I generally do use those...with the exception that I refuse to use a McDonald's restaurant if it's just off the interstate.



This sort of thing isn't
my problem at Culver's.



But the Culver's near my work has a nice enough rest room.  It's generally tidy, there isn't a ton of water on the counter  (seriously...why can people NOT wipe up after themselves?  I'm not buying for one second that bathroom counters sweat so much there are puddles.)  and there is almost always paper towel.  (I haven't quite made the jump to hand driers.  I need the confidence paper products give me.)  Also, unlike at work, I am not the only person capable of changing the toilet roll.

Anyway, so the other day I was on my walk, and I stopped at the restroom for a break.  While I was in there, a grandmother, I'm guessing since she sounded like a grandma, and her young grandson came in.  From the sound of things, they used the handicapped stall because grandson needed a bit of help and let's face it, all other bathroom stalls are far too narrow.  (This isn't my fat imagination either...bathroom stalls, like airplane seats, are getting more narrow.  I'd never stop going to an eatery that had stalls I didn't have to back into because they were too narrow for me to turn around.)



Only one of these is human sized...



The point of all this is that the conversation between these two made me laugh, and I'll share it with you because I hope it does the same:

"Oooh grandma, this is a nice bathroom."

"Yes, it is."



"But I don't have to go potty grandma."

"Well, let's just try anyway."

"Grandma, what does that sign say?"

"Please do not flush down any...paper.  Use the box instead."

(I'm guessing grandma didn't want to have to explain "feminine products" to her grandson.)

"What does that mean?"

"It means you're not supposed to flush down stuff that doesnt' belong in the toilet."

"But toilet paper is paper."

"Right, but it's toilet paper."

"So it goes in the toilet."

"Right."

"And poop.  Poop goes in the toilet."

"Right."

"So grandma...what's in the box?"

(AT this point I hear the soft squeak of a sani box lid being opened, and then a quicker squeak of it being slammed shut.)

"Oh nothing, nothing you need to see."



"But what is it?"

"Are you about done?"

"I said I don't have to go."

"But you haven't gone in a long time and you just ate.  Try to go."

(I hear the exaggerated sounds of of newly potty trained child pushing.  Then a I hear a surprised giggle.)

"Grandma...you don't know...I have a big poop coming!"



"I thought you might."

"A great big giant poop!"

"Yes, that's nice."

"I think this poop is bigger than I am!"

(What's a grandmother going to say to that?)

"So I wanna see it?"

I hear little feet hitting the floor and a flushing.  Then I hear this:

"Grandma...is that all there was?"

"Yes."

"That wasn't a very big poop.  I thought it was going to be bigger."

(Hey kid, remember this moment because someday your wife is going to put on 50 pounds in a pregnancy and push out an 8 pound baby...Yeah, I thought my kids were going to be bigger, too.)

They washed hands and left.  I waited a moment so that they wouldn't know Id been listening. 

Well, that and I had to stop laughing.

So my friends, remember this:  No matter where you are, no matter what you're doing...you're probably being observed by someone who writes a blog.  And if you're really unlucky...that someone might just be me!

Christmas Story #2...let your light shine...someplace else!

Good afternoon!

Okay, so this Christmas story thing isn't moving quite as quickly as I'd hoped, BUT  I dug one out of my memory banks that (And I should tell you that story #1 was deemed "Best Story EVER" by my Sunday School class!) I think you might enjoy.  So here we are:

Christmas with my mom's side of the family was always a sort of chaotic wild ride.  When I was older, I would come to realize that all sorts of mental and emotional issues ran amok in my family, but when I was 11, all that mattered was spending a wild time with my 8 cousins in my grandparents' sprawling old parsonage.

Most of the time the adults would stay in the big dining room while the children, ranging in ages from Cal, the oldest at 14 to Kimmie, the youngest at about 2 would command the upstairs, the attic  (when it wasn't FREEZING) and the cavernous basement.  Except for being moderately polite when we crossed from the upstairs to the basement through the dining room, we children had nearly no adult supervision, provided we didn't do actual bodily harm to each other.

The other thing you should know about these Christmas Gatherings is that my grandmother bought each grandchild exactly the same gift each year.  From eldest to youngest, we all got the same thing.  Be it the year of Scarves and hats, or the year we all got Mc Donald's coupons, it didn't matter.  All nine of us got the same thing.

Which brings me to the BEST CHRISTMAS EVER at my grandparents' gigantic house:  The year of the flashlight.

My mother's family always celebrated Christmas the day after Christmas.  This was so that those who were ministers in the family would be able to join the rest of the family.  This tradition lived on until only very recently, sometime after my grandmother passed and my uncles and mother became the heads of their own families with their own traditions.  December 26th was a date set in stone as any other high festival day in my family.

The tradition was as simple:  Go to grandma's house for dinner on the 26th.  Eat a large dinner, open gifts, then, children, disappear so that the adults could talk.

In the days before Game boys, computers, cable TV  (or more than one TV in a house) CD players, or texting, the nine of us had only each other in a massive house to amuse ourselves.  We often played outside, in the dark and cold because there we could play endless games of 7 steps around the house, or burrow deep in the piles of snow left by the county plow trucks in the church parking lot behind the house.  Often we would spend hours in the second story of the garage, a hidden place where we pretended to be (usually) Jews hiding from the Germans.  (Not sure how 9 German Lutherans came up with that, but we all wound up becoming students of history in one way or another, so I guess it was a natural thing.  That, and the "Diary of Anne Frank" was always assigned in school so someone in the family was always reading it over Christmas Break.)  Sometimes we pretended to be the Ingalls family, too, facing a hard winter. 

Ah, the things we did before Computers!

Anyway, gift opening was something that came between dinner and playing for hours without having to answer to adults.  We enjoyed it well enough, certainly, but since this wasn't the BIG CHRISTMAS, we really were more eager to just go and play.

So one year my grandmother decided that the gift of the year would be flashlights.  Nine children ages 3 to 14, all with a flashlight.

In normal years, we'd bundle up and go outside to terrorize the countryside with these amazing lights.  But that year, the year of the Flashlight, it was far too cold to go out.  So, gift opening over, the children were sent upstairs.

Normally this would not have been a problem.  We were just as capable of playing upstairs as we were out doors or in the garage.  But nine children, all with flashlights, have only one purpose:

MAKE IT AS DARK AS POSSIBLE AND CHASE EACH OTHER.

Of course, we could play such a game in complete and total silence so as not to disturb our elders.

Right.

The upstairs had a long hallway that reached from the front all the way to the back of the house.  A perfect runway for a game of "CHASE IN THE DARK WITH FLASHLIGHTS."

I'm not saying we were loud...That would be a gross understatement.  I will say that the windows shook with the shrieks of the middle children (I'm one of the older kids)  and the howls of the younger ones. 

One cousin, the tattle tale  (and isn't there always one in the bunch?) informed the parents of our game.  (Seriously, like they didn't know?)  One parent came upstairs and told us to settle down and be more quiet.

Yeah, that lasted about four minutes.  And then...ooops! All the lights upstairs went off again and the chasing and yelling and shrieking continued.

Seriously, was there another result from giving 9 children flashlights?

But, this fantastic noisy game came to an end, as all good things do.  I believe no tattle tale was needed.  A few of the younger cousins ran up and down the main stairs, a cardinal sin, and that was the end of that.  Flashlights were taken and packed in parental suitcases to be returned later.

Still, when I hold a flashlight in my hand, I can't help but remember that night in my grandparents' house with my beloved cousins, racing around the upstairs of that glorious home, screaming in the dark.