The Five Strands of A Sedentary Empress

Scat

All bloggy and such.

M. is under the weather, having had dinner with his friend C. at a pub he'd never been to before. Told me this last night after returning, right after he said that C. has told him that he needs to lose 30-40 pounds. I asked why they bothered to go to a pub, then, given that C. thinks M. is overweight and that C. himself had a heart attack last year, but he responded to this by shrugging his shoulders and saying 'I didn't order dessert!'. But, he had the steak and kidney pie, which, I'm thinking, is not light on fat or calories. I cringed when he told me this, thinking about the organs he'd swallowed, how it would have made me gag, probably. Then, at roughly 3 a.m., I heard him get up from the bed and leave the room. When I woke again at seven, I noticed he still wasn't in bed, but as he is someone who suffers from sporadic bouts of insomnia, I didn't think much of it. I showered, went downstairs to fetch the chattering wee one who was supposed to be getting ready for school, and saw M. laying on the couch in the living room, looking as though he'd like to moan but probably thought I'd roll my eyes at him. I would have, actually. He does not do well with pain or any other kind of illness, like a lot of men.

Turns out that whatever he ate last night did not 'agree with him', but as he's been complaining about various stomach issues over the past five days, I figured it was simply the residual bug he'd had last week. Other than heartburn and discomfort, he'd had no other symptoms, so I decided to pat him on the head and do my own thing, which included feeling awful myself the past couple of days. I also have had heartburn, but I'm used to it. Still, I've been much better lately so I have decided it's a virus or something and that it'll pass eventually. No, I don't think it's 'swine flu', or whatever they've renamed it, it's just one of those things. Then, a while ago, I decided to take advantage of the quiet around here and do a bit of deep cleaning. I started with the downstairs bathroom, the one the wee one prefers to use which, consequently, is the one which needs the most attention and when I lifted the toilet seat, I nearly threw up. Apparently, it's not just heartburn for him. Indeed, there had been fallout.

Now, if you want to know if you really love someone, all you have to do is test your endurance when it comes to cleaning up after them when they've either vomited or experienced explosive diarrhea. This applies to your better half as well as babies. As I've mentioned many times before, I have a very sensitive gag reflex, and sometimes even thinking about something disgusting will start the waves in my throat, but somehow, I scrubbed and cleaned that bathroom until all evidence of intestinal woe were erased. I wasn't even that angry, which is odd given that I have a natural acerbic reaction to anything like this, blaming the messer and calling them out on being a disgusting human being. I looked at it, sighed, felt only mildly nauseous and went at it like Lady Macbeth and her bloody hands. All the while, he lay on the couch, still wanting to moan, I believe, hearing the water run and the sound of the toilet scrubber moving furiously over the porcelain, probably thinking I'm some kind of clean freak instead of realizing what he'd left behind. As I scrubbed, I thought to myself, Must really love this guy to be putting up with this sh... It's the same with children and pets, too. We come equipped with a maternal resilience to this kind of thing because we are the ones who have to deal with it. I remember how my Uncle, a man who regularly went hunting and would gut a deer without even flinching, nearly threw up when he was asked to change his own daughter's diaper. A real man's man, that one.

Though I'm not categorically angry with M. about this, I am wondering why he, and so many other men, don't take responsibility for their backend business like women do. When living with my best friend, sister and R. years ago, not once were there any bathroom issues which were the girl's doing. Also, what's the deal with skidmarks? I truly do not understand why boys get them and women do not. We all function the same way, have the same parts in that area, so tell me what the deal is. I've done the laundry for three men in my life: my father, R. and now M. Skidmarks for the lot of them. The funny thing is, I have never mentioned what I've seen, not wanting to embarrass them, but what I can't get over is how they know I'm going to be doing their laundry, and they don't even seem bothered by probability of me seeing their scooter marks. I worry about offending them with mentioning it, but they almost seem proud of what they've accomplished.

Men are just more comfortable with that sort of thing, I suppose. They do not just pride themselves on the size of their penises, let me tell you, and I've been forced to endure enthusiastic discussions about the size of other things while sitting with a group of boys. Lucky for me, M. is not in this distinguished group and we keep bathroom talk to a minimum. For me, this is a prerequisite for a happy relationship. I remember my grandmother telling me once about she dropped her teenaged boyfriend because he told her he had to go to the bathroom. Whether or not he used some kind of charming 1937 colloquialism, I don't know, but I remember laughing when she told me this and saying that maybe her standards were unreasonable. Now, though, I'm not so sure. For me, the sexual tension is broken with mention of any kind of bodily function. I do not want to picture my heart's desire straining atop a toilet. This would undo any passion I might have had in me. While I am full aware that we all have biological needs and functions, I just don't see the need to discuss them. R. got a little bit comfortable in that area, and it really affected my attraction toward him. It wasn't the fact that he was human and had to function as one, it was more to do with the lack of respect he demonstrated whenever he talked about it. Let's just say that the Johnny Cash song 'Ring of Fire' will never sound the same to me again after living with him.

I'm not a prude, though. Not entirely. For me, it's about speaking and behaving with an awareness of other people I find this to be more interesting, more sexually stimulating and a far sight more mysterious. Think of Princess Diana, for instance. Willowy, shy, impeccably dressed, perfectly coiffed hair. Now, picture her on the toilet. See what I mean? Of course she went to the toilet! The thing is, we don't envision people like her when they are 'indisposed'. Now, there are other people who you immediately associate with bowel movements and thunderous gas and I feel it's a safe bet that these are not people who are routinely fantasized about. Just how it is.

I even feel embarrassed for dogs when they squat in the park, knowing that everyone is looking at them, hearing 'eeeewwww's' from children who watch, transfixed, from the swings. My old dog Murphy used to be embarrassed to do it, and would only relieve himself if no one was watching. Maybe I rubbed off on him. What was funny, though, was when he'd occasionally pass gas and we'd all sit up and say loudly, 'Murphy! Did you just fart?!', and he'd flatten his ears, put his tail between his legs, roll his eyes up a little to reveal a tiny bit of white, and slink away to another room. For some reason, we thought this was just hilarious. Poor old fella.

So, maybe my rigidness over it is just as offensive to them. Could be. I still remember that night, about fourteen years ago, when my sister, Kyla and R. and I lived together and we were all readying to go to a club with a group of friends. The bathroom door upstairs was locked, so I knew R. was in there, when suddenly there was such a ridiculously oppressive stench emanating from under the door that I felt like I was being strangled. I was literally floored by how much it reeked, and I was embarrassed, too, because everyone in the house was going to be smelling it and would likely be commenting. Instead of being quiet and cracking a window, I did what came naturally to me back then, I got dramatic.

"Rob, good GOD! Did something crawl up into your rectum and DIE? What the hell is WRONG with you? There are people here, you stinky bastard! What the hell are you thinking! Can't you control yourself? Why didn't you at least wait until everyone went outside! You are absolutely disgusting and you should probably see a doctor because there is really something wrong with your ASS!"

Then, I went downstairs where everyone was giggling madly, including...R. Then, the upstairs bathroom door opened and down the stairs came A., one of our friends, his face four shades of red and his eyes fixed on the floor.

'Uh, sorry. I guess I had no idea how powerful my ASS was.'

Needless to say, it was the last time he ever used our toilet.