In some cultures, a boy’s twelfth birthday is a very important rite of passage in his life. In Judaism this is marked with a Bar Mitzvah, in which, in the eyes of his society, he has officially become a man.
Although I wasn’t brought up in the Hebrew tradition, I was still pretty excited for my big one-two.
For reasons well beyond the scope of this story, Autumn 1992 was the very first time in my life that I didn’t have my slightly older brother J around. Up until that point in time I had been overly-dependent on him to guide me through pretty much all social settings. Thus, being rather shy by nature, transitioning to not living with him was scary AF for me.
Amazingly, only months in, and I was finding that I was actually capable of holding my own when flying solo. Yup, I was ----- proud of myself for adjusting–I wasn’t the helpless little kid I feared I would become. And turning 12 was going to help me mark this important milestone in my life.
Now all of this was in the midst of the 5 years that my mom and us boys spent living in Springfield MO while she attended Baptist Bible College.
About a month before my birthday, she had gone on a blind date with an older guy about her age who was also a student at BBC, whom we’ll simply refer to as Chaz.1Kind of his real name. I don’t know why I should even bother with protecting this fucker’s identity in the least, though. Little did we know he had his sights set on marrying her ASAP.
Even littler did we know what a complete ----- psychopath he would turn out to be…but that’s a story for another time. The key point here is that when I use the term psychopath, I’m not bandying it about lightly. This asshole was cunning and deceptive.
A critical component of his matrimonial plan was wooing the kiddo–which he was already doing a surprisingly good job of2She had dated another gentlemen a few years earlier. In summary, I did not take it well.–and he decided to swing for the fences by really treating me for my birthday.
He actually had put together a nice little itinerary for the three of us, and I was pretty pumped about it.
We would kick off the night with a professional magic show. I had never been to one, so for this wannabe David Copperfield, this was going to be a real treat. Spoiler alert–apart from the requisite anxiousness that the magician was going to ----- up–it was a real treat.
After that we would do some fine dining at my favorite restaurant, Ryan’s Buffet, and then cap the night off with a Living Christmas Tree Cantata at a rival church, High Street Baptist.
For those of you not familiar with Ryan’s let me expound a bit.
We never had much petty cash during those times, so one of the few times we would get to eat out was when our grandma would visit from Kansas. Almost every time she came out we would indulge in a trip to Ryan’s.
Ryan’s truly was a chubby kid’s paradise.
First, it was “all-you-can-eat.” However, one thing the execs running Ryan’s didn’t account for in their business model was under-privileged gluttonous underage geniuses3I.e. yours truly. hacking the system. You see, I never let the “can” part of all-you-can-eat stop me. I had a pretty solid strategy in which, once having eaten to my nominal capacity, I would take a “half-time break” trip to the restroom and make room for Round Two. I only had one shot at this a year, so I was going to get the money’s worth of whoever was paying, dammit.
Second, back then, it was one of the rare massive buffets that have become more ubiquitous in this day and age. It had all the bars a ravenous kid could want: Salad bar. Soup bar. Meats & Pastas bar. Bread bar.
And most importantly, a stacked-to-the-rafters Dessert bar.
GOD, I was obsessed with the Dessert bar. NOM NOM NOM! I salivate just thinking about my old friend.
So there I was, it’s my twelfth birthday, and I was there to party. I had my plate loaded up with all sorts of sweets and goodies. The only thing lacking was the pièce de résistance disguised as an accoutrement: the whipped cream.
Now the whipped cream posed an interesting dilemma for me. My gut instinct was to pass on it that day. And I literally mean my “gut” here: while I had a limited number of data points, I had noticed a clear trend in which consumption of Ryan’s whipped cream would almost inevitably lead to gastric discomfort later on, and on occasion, a moderate4…to severe case of the squirts.
On the other hand…it was my ----- birthday.
Unfortunately, the latter of the two won out.
I clearly and distinctly remember thinking, “Fuck it5Sorry, Mom, I don’t know why my censorship plug-in doesn’t catch this.–it’s my birthday!” and scooping approximately a snow-shovel’s worth onto my plate.
The point of this story is live life without regrets; indulge in the little things in life that bring you joy and happiness, especially if it’s a special occasion, such as your Bar Mitzvah, or the Gentile equivalent thereof…
J.K. Kidding. Oh, how I wish that were the point of the story.
But where would the fun be in that, right? No, the birthday celebration must go on…
So, after indulging in a healthy dollop of whipped cream with the rest of my desserts, we wrapped it up at Ryan’s and headed off to ol’ High Street for some light holiday revelry.
When we got there, we found comfy seats in the middle of the left third section, about halfway back. In front of us sat a mixed race couple and their three kids–a darker Asian6Perhaps Indian or Filipino? I’m not really much of racist that sees people in terms of color, so I’m not/was not very good at making such distinctions. man and a gorgeous blonde trophy wife.
Now admittedly, this last detail has exactly jack-shit to do with today’s story, but 1) it’s just another example of how, uh, “memorable” that evening was, and 2) I recall observing that family and formulating the following theorem: classy interracial relationship = exotic dark-skinned male + beautiful blonde female. The importance/irony of this is that 15 years and 2 weeks later I would prove the inverse of this theorem to be true when I became the gorgeous blonde trophy husband in an interracial marriage…
ANYWAYS,7I feel unnecessarily compelled to tell you at this point that I’m trying a new strategy at writing my blog posts more efficiently by concurrently imbibing fine licorice-flavored French liquor. In theory alcohol would make me more focused, but in this case it seems that it just helps me access deeper parts of an already overly-vivid memory. about what seemed like halfway through the performance, my tummy started to feel a little rumbly. I didn’t think much of it, other than, yeah, of course, because I had eaten Ryan’s whipped cream.
After about ten minutes of my stomach gurgling, I realized that a quick trip to the restroom was in order.
The reason I described in way-too-much-detail the location of our seats was because it determined my path to the nearest restroom. I needed to move to the left-central aisle and head to the back doors. After that I had to circle back around to where the restrooms that were, relatively speaking, nearest the front-left of the…nave?8This is what happens when drinking while blogging: (see Figure XXX).
As I scurried along that path, I gradually started to realize the seriousness of the situation. In response, I clenched my anal sphincter muscle as tightly as possible and power-walked even faster.
I was halfway down the corridor that had an almost direct path to the nearest men’s restroom, when I passed a fella I knew from High Street via Awanas.9Awanas has been previously referenced in: Kandy Karma, Part 1. I highly recommend reading that one if you haven’t already. As I passed him, he nodded a greeting, and I feigned my best “How do you do, good Sir that I know to the most modest of degrees? But please FOR THE LOVE OF ----- do not stop and chat me up. I beg of thee.”
I didn’t mean to be impertinent, but I had much more pressing matters.
And those matters? Approximately 3 seconds later they pressed a little too hard on my 144-month-old sphincter muscle.
Whoosh!
My previously trustworthy sphincter gave up the ghost and a fount of fecal matter flowed down my right pant leg.
It was official: my Bar Shitzvah was in full swing.
Mind you, I wasn’t even to the restroom at this point. I still had a good 15-30 seconds to get to the relative safety of a stall, all the while thinking, “Mother ----- It’s my 12th birthday and I’m straight-up shitting my pants? ----- my life. ----- it in the ass. You’ve gotta be kidding me.”
Once I made it to the restroom, I holed myself up in the singular stall in the men’s bathroom, hoping to mitigate the situation.
I sat there for a good 10 minutes in shock from what had just transpired, unsure of how the hell I was going to get out of this one.
At this point you may be saying “Give it to me straight Doc. How bad was it?”
Well, I will give it to you straight, Bub. It was bad…real bad.
The good news first, though: my left pant leg was largely unscathed and still quite dry.
Now the bad news: my right pant leg was completely soaked through all the way down to the ankle.
Ever the optimist, I thought maybe, with enough toilet paper, I could dab the juices until it was dry enough to go back out in public without it being completely obvious that I had just shat my britches.
I went through about 2/3 of the toilet paper supply before giving up on that strategy and moving to Plan B: let it air dry.
Not that it was a great idea in the first place, but at that point what else was I going to do? But then, a fly appeared in the ointment.
After about 5 minutes of sitting in the stall, alone with some very emasculating thoughts and still dripping wet pants, somebody wandered into the bathroom.
It appeared that they needed to use the stall, as they just started loitering and not doing much else.
In my head I was like “Welp, buddy, sorry but I ain’t going anywhere for awhile. I highly recommend not trying to out-wait me, because that’s a losing proposition for ya.”
It’s not like there was anyway in hell I could actually explain the situation to him, so I just sat there quietly, hoping he would get tired of waiting and go find another, more available–and non-desecrated–restroom.
But, oh my god, this guy. Five minutes of awkward silence–still there. Ten minutes, fifteen minutes–that fuck-face was still there. I mean, couldn’t he smell that things weren’t quite right with me?
Admittedly, time was kinda at a standstill for me, so I don’t know how long the World’s Most Awkward Standoff lasted, but it was at least 30 minutes before he left.
You know, it’s bad enough being on the verge of your teenage years and defecating yourself in public, but can you imagine being trapped in a stall, with someone standing for over half an hour on the other side of the door, the whole time knowing that they have to know that you’ve done crapped your pants?
If there ever was a moment in my life in which I wished I could die, this would have definitely been it.
And where was this guy’s sense of humanity? His actions definitely went against the very spirit of Christmas.
Anyways, even with that poop-sniffing fool finally gone, I still didn’t have an exit strategy.
Eventually, the best I could come up with was mummifying my right leg with as much toilet paper as I could in hopes of at least not having my skin in constant contact with my liquified excrement between then and whenever I finally got home.
So I wrapped up my leg as best as I could with what remained of the t.p., pulled up my pants, tried not to throw up, and strolled out of the stall. I tossed my D.O.A. underwear in the trash and proceeded to wash my hands 5-10 times.
Now, I would have hung out in the warmth of the bathroom longer, but by my best estimate, the Cantata would be ending any minute, and I wanted to be ready to skedaddle the ----- out of there as soon as possible.
However, this was complicated by the fact that I absolutely did not want to interact with any other humans in my current state, so staying inside the church seemed too risky.
…so that left me with no real alternative but to wander out into the freezing cold parking lot without my coat10Like Kirk Cameron, obviously it had been Left Behind in the nave, since this Nostradamus didn’t exactly foresee where the night was going to head. and park my moist butt next to Chaz’s Blazer. And wait.
Again, alone with my thoughts.
God, I was miserable. Cold. Wet. Stinking to high heaven. Depressed.
And on top of that, it turned out my estimation of how much time remained was slightly inaccurate.
Although my mind and soul seemed to freeze while I waited, I was cognizant enough to note the passage of time. It was at least another 45 minutes to an hour of my personal hell before people started to trickle out of the church and into the parking lot.
Of course the nightmare wasn’t quite over, as I feared I would have to explain my little adventure to Mom and Chaz. I knew Mom would be gracious and understanding, so no problem there.
On the other hand, this was like the 2nd or 3rd impression that Chaz would have of me, and even if he was kind about it, BJ the Pants-Pooper would be ingrained in his mind FOREVER.
Fortunately, Mom covered for me, and just told him I had an upset stomach, so we loaded up and headed straight back to our apartment.
I almost cared whether or not I might be leaving watery shit-stains on his seats, but, nah, I was so done with life at that point. It ’twas what it ’twas.
Finally home and after a nice long hot shower, I had more than enough of my fill of the day, so I just went straight to bed and hoped I didn’t further degrade myself by crying myself to sleep.
I had woke up that morning a young man, and now here I was, going to bed a little boy. At last, my Bar Shitzvah was complete.
Happy birthday, me?
The point of the story is, you can say “fuck it–it’s my birthday!” all you want. But make no mistake, boy, you still gonna have to live with the shitty consequences of your poor life decisions.
Appendix A
Content created on: 11/13/14 December 2019 (Wed/Fri/Sat)
Footnotes & References:
Hmmmm, I don’t remember the magic show. Where was it? And I do remember the rest of it. Only the flu was going around then & I thought that is what caused your problem.
And I appreciate your blanking out most of the offending words. Xo
Well, if you insist on focusing on the most boring detail of the whole story…it was at the Shriner’s Auditorium. And no, it definitely was not the flu that bit me in the ass, so to speak.