Missouri is flooding again. The Mississippi River, in fact. Last night Ben and I were catching up on a bit of news and some CNN reporter was wandering around in some little flooded town in northern Missouri with
- a microphone
- lights
- camera and
- action
and at the end of the report said,
Filling and placing these sand bags is so rewarding for these people.
Ben and I looked at each other and started having a conversation reflecting the fact that we are often annoyed by the same things, but react quite differently:
I said,
Rewarding? How does the word rewarding properly describe people filling and placing sand bags for three days straight in a desperate attempt to save every single thing they own from the enormously misguided Army Corps of Engineers levy system that is actually thought by those a-holes to be capable of controlling the flow of the fifth largest river in the world?
He said,
Somebody oughtta shove that microphone up that reporter’s ass.
I said,
Somebody oughtta shove a microphone up the ass of the Army Corps of Engineers.
OK…so…maybe we don’t react so differently after all.
Earlier in the day we spent about 20 minutes in the bathroom in our basement with something like 250 pounds of dogs because of a tornado that visited a few of our neighbors about 1 mile down the road and Ben was still a little bent by the whole thing a few hours afterward.
But the fact that he went into the bathroom with us at all was a step in the right direction because:
- The first severe weather event we went through as a couple
- had us glued to the television watching what was going on and
- he kept trying to send me into the bathroom
- before there was actually a tornado
- which I refused to do until
- there was actually a tornado on the ground and
- the fact that there was a tornado on the ground caused
- Ben to walk out into the front yard in his underwear to look for it
And, even though I’m not much into the idea of ‘training my man’ in the way many of my girlfriends talk about when it comes to their men, I did consider it a good idea to start ‘training’ Ben to go into safe rooms instead of front yards when tornadoes are coming.
So spending 20 minutes in the bathroom with me and something like 250 pounds of dog got high marks for me as a ‘man trainer’.
And got high marks in the humor arena as well because…
he had a look on his face that is most normally seen when someone is experiencing severe gas pains when he
- walked into the bathroom
- put the lid of the toilet down
- sat his lumber jack sized self down
- and then picked up our Chihuahua, Mable Misdemeanor,
- and let her perch on his lap the entire time
And high marks also go to him in the area of being sweet because
- me and the other 244 pounds of dog had
- piled up together on the floor of the bathroom and
- he kept going around the room with his hand and
- patting 80 pound Estes on the head and
- patting 80 pound LaLa on the head and
- patting 80 pound China Marie on the head and
- then resting his hand on my knee and asking,
How ya doin’ hon?
And one time I said,
This is pretty scary.
So he kept his hand on my knee for a long time.
Living where we live causes nakedness.
At least that’s what we said it was going to cause after we closed on our home and property but had not yet moved out here.
Our conversations were along the lines of the following,
It’s so remote. Why not do all kinds of regular every day things naked out there!
and
Who wouldn’t be naked there? Who? Tell me who?
and
Nobody. I’m tellin’ ya. Even a frikkin’ nun would have to, at the very least, stand naked at least once on the back porch.
And the first morning we woke up at our new house out here I was sitting on the back porch in my robe having coffee when…
- the back door flew open and
- Ben came bursting out in his birthday suit and said,
- ‘Good morning hon’
- then walked across the porch and
- about 50 feet away from the house and
- took a monster piss and
- then walked back across the porch and
- back into the house
And that was the point at which I knew we had not been full of shit when we had talked about being naked out here.
Especially because Ben is far more likely to be modest about his nakedness than I am.
When I was in something like 5th grade my parents, older brother and I went to Kansas City to visit a couple my parents had grown up with. That couple had one child; a daughter one year older than me.
And their daughter spent one full evening of:
- Bursting into tears because I thought it sounded boring to go into the bathroom with her just so she could show me how she had just learned to do her own pig tails and
- Angrily throwing a pillow at a little mobile that hung from the ceiling in her bedroom until the entire thing fell down and was broken into pieces on the floor and
- then telling her parents I had broken it when they came to see what the ruckus was all about and
- Bursting into tears again when I called her a liar when she spun a tale of her dad having bought her a pet tiger that she kept in a special zoo across town that she visited every weekend
And the next morning I woke up and
- my head was still kind of spinning from that girl’s shenanigans and
- my dad got my brother and I to sit down at the kitchen table and
- I was entirely miffed when he told us the family we had gone to visit had
- left earlier that morning and
- just when I was starting to ask a bunch of questions about when we could go home
my mom came walking into the kitchen wearing pants and shoes and her hair was done and her make up was on
but all she had on top was a bra.
And seeing our mom in anything other than a full set of clothing was an amazing thing for my brother and I and my brother asked our dad,
What if they come home and mom is in their kitchen wearing a bra?
And our mom said,
They’re not coming home and you’re just going to have to get over me being in their kitchen in my bra because this has been a very long weekend for all of us and I’m very tired and I’m just trying to get some coffee because your dad is tired too and we’re going to take turns driving on the way home.
And my brother kind of started crying and said,
I want to go home.
And that made me start crying a little bit too.
And my dad said,
I’m going to sing a little song right here at this kitchen table!
And my brother and I melted into laughter when our dad started loudly singing,
Mom’s in her braaaaa! Mom’s in her braaaaa in somebody else’s kitcheeeeeeeeeeen!
Years later I discovered that the horrible weekend that had culminated into my mom wearing my bra in the kitchen was due to:
- my parents trying to show up for friends who
- were dealing with alcoholism and
- being gone when we woke up because
- the dad had taken the daughter to his parent’s house so
- he could take the mom to a substance abuse treatment center
And that answered a lot of questions about how I’d ended up getting blamed for a broken mobile and my mom wandering around in someone else’s kitchen in her bra.
And it also complicates the reality that one of the most confounding things about my parents is that they did lots of trying to show up when I was a kid for friends of theirs who were alcoholics, but that they don’t like it one bit when my brother or I talk openly about the fact that we are recovering drug addicts.
And, even though we’ve both been clean for almost two decades, they still don’t like to hear much about it.
So now I’m sitting here thinking that it’s probably a good idea to go wandering around in your bra or naked or something when you’re dealing with the fact that someone you really care about is an alcoholic or a drug addict.
In the figurative sense anyway.
Because, when it all comes down to it,
- it’s better when everyone is just exposed to the fact that
- kids start crying and throwing things and
- families end up leaving their own homes sometimes and
- modest people sometimes wander around half-clothed when
- someone is first dealing with
- being an alcoholic or drug addict
And I’m also thinking wading into the truth like that is akin to
- going ahead and sitting on the toilet with a Chihuahua on your lap if a tornado is coming and
- speaking openly about shoving microphones up people’s asses who are being ridiculous
And I’m also thinking we could make a bunch of money if we were willing to do a bit of marketing and abandon our home one weekend out of each month so customers could come out here and wander around freely in their birthday suits.
