Totally crap runs

Sure, I could blame the lingering effects of the tunamush sandwich, but it's been happening for a long time now. And yesterday was no different.

It's a rare run that doesn't involve, well, the runs. I'm no doctor (altho I am a fiiinnne medical editor) but a person shouldn't be overcome by a mutiny of the bowel on a simple jog, especially when  the bowels have been purged just prior to the run. In response, I've developed ways of coping, including identifying public rest stops along the way that won't turn away a runner in distress, and I plan my routes around them. I hear that this is a somewhat common occurance amongst runners, but no one ever really discusses it, let alone offers solutions that can prevent this crap in the first place. Yes, I mentioned it to my doctor once, but he went flying off in the wrong direction and faster than rat-a-tat fart he had me undergo a sigmoidoscopy. Now there's an unpleasant experience.      

So I manage as best I can. And yesterday, I managed to wedge myself in a stall in the bathroom at the public school on Bellevue Ave--Sam's school. I like to meet Sam when school lets out. She only contorts ever-so-slightly with mortification when she sees my smiling Mom face and the rest of me dressed in multi-layers of running-gear and looking kind of like a hobo.

She's doing pretty good at the school, fitting in in her own way, although she did report a small mistep. The school administration placed her in Computer Basics, and she made no friends when she compulsively answered every one of the teacher's questions to the class--   
Teacher: "OK class, what is this called?" *holds up a keyboard*
Sam: *happily blurting* "A keyboard!!"
Teacher: "And what is this?" *points to the monitor*
Sam: "It's the monitor you dork. Oops, sorry."
Teacher: *shoots Sam a look* "Now who can tell me what this device is called?" *swings a mouse on its cord*
Sam: *lets forehead fall down on desk* a muffled "The mouse" escapes.
So Sam was removed from that class, but other than that, she's doing well!

But I was telling you how I got stuck in the school bathroom. I arrived at her school a bit early, as planned, and asked the security guard who let me in the locked door if it was OK for me to use the bathroom. I slipped quickly through the scarred wooden door with the frosted panes and into the ladies room and was taken aback by the size of the bathroom fixtures--but only for the briefest moment, because I had urgent school business to take care of. So I slid sideways into a stall that was only about a foot wide and lowered myself, and lowered myself, and lowered myself some more, carefully putting my arm on top of the toilet paper dispenser to avoid wedging my shoulders in the cramped stall, until I finally made contact with a tiiiinnny toilet that stood about half a foot off the floor.

Needless to say, I needed this to be fast. For one thing, I was afraid I was going to break that toy toilet and for another, I wanted to avoid an encounter with some poor unsuspecting student. I finished up and just as I was turned around backward to flush, there was a knock on the door. OK, I'm a grown-up people, and I had every right to be in that bathroom doing bathroomly duties, but can I just say I experienced an intense panic at the sound of that knock?

Me: *nervously blurting* "I'll be right out!"
Muffled male voice: "Wa wa-wa wa waa."
And in an instant, my leg was stuck between that teeny toilet and the stall wall, and with my leg stuck like that I couldn't open the stall door more than a few inches because the door opened inward, and I was in a goddamned Lilliputian bathroom, a 1:16 scale model of a real bathroom.   

Another knock followed shortly, and again I piped out in a shakey voice "I'll be right there!!" as I fought like hell with the door, my stuck leg, and the toilet until I was hit with the solution to this weird puzzle--with my free leg I stood up on the toilet seat and shook free the trapped leg, and once I was out of the way on top of the toilet, I could easily open the door. Just in time for the Vice Principal to walk in and see me standing on top of the school's toilet, head and shoulders above the stalls.

Hello! Did I mention I'm a grown-up? Mortification knows no boundaries.       

Comments

[Ron]

Classic! I'm fishing around for an appropriate comment but to be honest right now I'm still wrestling with the vivid mental picture you've painted....:-)

[em]

a guess one moral of the story would be there's a reason that's the little kids bathroom.

[lou lou]

oh the trauma!

working in a school, but with big kids i'm the dwarf!

[Ron]

Is there actually a bath in there then? :-) 'Restroom' is the best euphemism though, it always conjures a picture in my head of a load of people sat in the room 'resting', perhaps after a long walk with some heavy shopping....

*runs away*

[em]

well, frequently there is. maybe I should have said water closet, with the emphasis on *closet* :-)

but really, what in the world is a "water closet"?

[Mr Wibble]

Oh Em..thats such a picture. They'll have you tagged as "that weird running mom from down by the river"...

[em]

well that wouldn't be too bad, I could think of worse. :-)

[anxious]

Nope, don't think my running counselling skills can help with "runners' trots" (as they call it on this side of the pond!)