In school I learned that the human body consists of 98% water. As a father I have discovered that this principle is not only true, but that it is incredible as to how many ways that fluid can escape the body of a child.
Of course, you start with the basics. At birth they come forth with a gush and don’t continue gushing in one form or another until they leave home. The diaper is a wonderful but ineffective device as children are equipped front and back with multi directional waste removal nozzles. It matters not if the child is male or female as they are both very effective at bypassing the diaper and marking their real target – their parents. This expulsion system seems to be activated by the presence of nice clothes or the shortage of time. Our son, Benjamin, had the charming ability to defecate on his loving fathers dress shoes without leaving a mark on the diaper.
Tristan is the sneaky one as he would wait until the diaper was off and his unsuspecting mothers face was hovering closely over him in concern of his lack of “wee wee” in his diaper. The boy is an excellent shot and Angie reports that there is not excessive salt or sugar in his fountain of youth.
Then we have the wonderful world of projectile vomiting. Our children would lovingly provide us with the advance warning consisting of “I think I’m going to….” followed by the immediate and forceful ejection of the previous hour’s intake all over the couch, carpet, cat, dog, or anything else close by. These situations are bad enough but add their father’s obsessive aversion to the totally natural but unpleasant reverse pump that is in our digestive tracts, and it reaches a whole new level.
It seems that our family is plagued by the “psychological Spanish influenza syndrome” which is when every member in the family thinks they are coming down with the flu the minute one member of the family’s stomach goes into reverse. This was caused by the trauma of living through a particularly bad flu that ran through the family when we were visiting the family farm in Oregon. This memorable event resulted in every member of the family on the farm coming down with the front and backdoor trots at the same time. Two bathrooms and ten people was a recipe for disaster. The only person who didn’t come down with this bug was Angie’s 18 year old cousin, Beth. She might as well have as she spent the time curled up in the corner awaiting the grim reaper. The farm resembled a commune in Central America after a kool aid party. Bodies were all over the yards and in the two homes. I personally left a permanent memorial to the event in the form of a heel print into the drywall opposite the porcelain god in Uncle David’s bathroom.
With this in mind, even a mild case of the flu sends paralyzing fear through the family so when my 15 year old sister in law informed us that she didn’t feel good in the middle of the first night at the family cabin you could smell the panic rising. It was dark in the cabin so I got up and turned on a flashlight to light the way out. She made it to the rear door but didn’t quite get the screen door open in time. I have never thought to sift the contents of one’s stomach and now I know why you shouldn’t. It is not pretty. I helped her clean up and got her back to bed, then set about cleaning up the cabin floor and screen door. I must love my sister in law very much as I usually run like a pizza delivery man from a weight watchers convention at the first sign of an upset stomach. Fortunately it was just a case of bad chili and the dreaded plague didn’t surface. That is on this trip. Another trip was quite the different story.
We were again at the family cabin and Grandpa George came up from the farm to visit us. At that time the drinking water was from a community ladle and old milk can that you would fill from the manual pump at the well. Grandpa went back to the farm and unbeknown to us proceeded to get deathly ill. We packed up the next day and headed off for the 6 hour drive home. Three car loads of unsuspecting people headed out with many happy memories of a “successful” trip. We were blissfully unaware of the evil bug lurking in our digestive tracts. The first carload made it home before exploding. The other two cars were not so fortunate. We made it to the rest stop at the half way point when the first explosion happened. It was in Angie’s car and it was our youngest, Tristan, in his car seat. He managed an even coat of liquid over himself, his seat, and the surrounding area of the van. As Angie was valiantly trying to clean him off she was passed by an elegantly dressed mother and daughter team on their way to the restroom. They stared at her as if they just had an encounter with a leper. My vehicle pulled in behind her and I managed to crawl over to the grass before collapsing. My memories of the rest of the trip is vague at best, but suffice it to say, we welcomed our arrival to home with a gang attack on our two bathrooms.
Benjamin has the bladder the size of a walnut. This fact resulted in many interesting road trips. Usually it would start with an onset of wiggling and inappropriate grabbing. Then the whining would kick in.
“Dad, I got to go!”
“We just left!” was my reply.
“But Dad, I got to go real bad!” A frantic search was made and a relief stop was made as soon as possible. With much dancing and grabbing Ben would rush in the restroom just in time. One time there was no restroom around, just miles and mile of miles and miles. We pulled off the freeway at the first off ramp and found the closest tree. Ben ran to the tree and with his back to the van full of exasperated family members he proceeded to drain his spastic bladder. As he was going, he started yelling and jumping around, spraying the countryside with his home-grown fire hose. It appears that he had watered down a nest of fire ants and they were showing their displeasure. Usually, it would be within ten minutes after the frantic “pee” stop that Ben would again announce his urgent need of further relief for his disposal system.
“But you just went!” I would reply at his frantic request.
“But now I need to poop!” would be the reply.
I learned early that there are different levels of the need to poop and that when you reach the “prairie dogging stage” you need to stop immediately or suffer the aromatic consequences. To this day, when the family is going back to the cabin, we point out the places we had to stop for Ben to “pee”. I’m sure it sounds like a weird tour guide to any nonfamily members with us. “And to your right you’ll see the dreaded fire ant tree followed by the area on the left where you really don’t want to look in that old tractor tire.”
Ben’s bladder problems didn’t limit themselves to just automobiles. The family boat was also fair game. Most of the time the problem was easily solved with our home-made invention we called the “whizzer” It was a 1 ½” diameter ABS drainpipe that we kept in the boat. All you had to do was stand with your back to any surrounding boats and hang your whizzer off the edge of the boat. This worked well for the male members of our family, and I have often thought of inventing the female version consisting of the pipe with a hollowed-out bicycle seat adaptor, but I doubt if we could get the females to use it as everyone knows, they all have to go together in the group potty rituals that the species is famous for.
On this occasion the weather wouldn’t allow the safe use of the whizzer as the wind had turned the water rough on the lake. Ben excitedly informed me of his first of many urgent needs for relief for the day. I told Ben to kneel down in the front of the boat and go in the emergency water bailer that we kept on board that was actually an old plastic one gallon milk bottle with the bottom cut off. After Ben finished relieving himself, he asked me what to do with the contents of the bailer.
“Just pour it over the side” I told him.
We were on a fishing trip with one of our dear family friends named Herb who was affectionately known as “Warthog”. Herb’s seat was on the side of the boat behind me with his back to Ben and the impromptu bathroom on the front of the boat. Apparently, Ben had never heard of the phrase “you don’t spit into the wind” so he flung the warm contents of the bailer out over the side, and it blew back over Herb’s head. Fortunately, Herb had no desire to go back to prison, so he just angrily announced.
“I hope that was warm lake water I just showered in!”
Ben didn’t speak a word to him and would not even make eye contact with Herb for the rest of the day. His father, although was unable to control his laughter at how Ben literally “pissed off” Warthog.
Another nautical adventure involved my secretary’s husband Perry. Perry is a very large man who has no neck, just a large head mounted on massive shoulders. His knuckles also drag on the ground, and he speaks in single syllables. We made the interesting discovery that Perry is prone to sea sickness when we were on a company deep sea fishing trip that we sponsored. The boat had not gone more than one hundred yards from the dock when Perry started to not feel well. We should have turned back at that point, as that would have been the wise thing to do but we would have missed out on Perry’s wonderful ability to entertain a group with unique and unusual ways of expelling matter from his massive body.
Perry had a bad back from an old work injury that had been operated on repeatedly. The result was that his back was bolted rigid in the same way his movie twin, Frankenstein. This made a very strange sight as Perry launched his first of many projectiles into the pristine ocean from his straight up position. The vomiting was bad enough but the sound effects he made during the launch was remarkable. I have often heard the legendary Bigfoot screaming in the wilderness at the family cabin and he was doing a remarkably good imitation.
To top off his misery, his southern regions also started to rebel resulting in a mad dash to the “head”, as the potty facilities on a fishing boat are called. This was an old fishing boat, and it was not equipped with the self-contained sewage systems that are now the norm on all sea going vessels. This one consisted of a pipe that ended right under the boat. We found this out when Ben, my son, excitedly exclaimed.
“Whoa! What’s that?” while looking over the side of the boat.
We all rushed to the railing thinking we were going to see some unique sea creature only to be treated to the sight of a large brown meatloaf from Perry’s upset colon, followed by a decorative wrapping of toilet paper.
We went on several deep-sea fishing trips after this one but for some strange reason Perry would never again accept our invitation.
An interesting side note about Perry. He was totally devoted to Angie as she once saved his life. It was on a houseboat trip on Sly Park Lake one holiday weekend. Perry had jumped into the lake and quickly got a severe cramp. He started yelling and flailing about to get our attention. I was in our boat next to the houseboat and was trying to get it near him when we heard a splash and saw Angie jump in with an inner tube in her arms to save the day. It took two men, a horse and a boy to get the panic-stricken behemoth onto the boat but we finally did. To this day we don’t quite know why the rest of the group didn’t jump right in to save him. Maybe the sight of this massive flailing beast made us hesitate, but it says a lot about Angie. She may make you scratch your head at her unique way of thinking but deep down inside you know that she is a treasure wrapped in a loony lady suit.
Now that Angie and I are getting older we have discovered that it is not only the children that have unique ways of losing some of that 98% liquid we are made of. Interesting developments now come from a simple sneeze or one’s trying to sneak out a silent lower intestinal gas bubble that can result in a quick change of clothes or an unexpected trip to the upholstery shop for that comfortable chair in the living room.