Kohl's Moment

There are some things you just can not talk about publicly. In the years since my mothers heart attack there are many things I've seen and done that I can not describe, because it would be hurtful to my mother and also because sooner or later more members of the family and friends of the family, will find this blog. It would never be appropriate to say anything about one's mother that hasn't been cleared by her first if it is at all possible that it might get back to her. (Also I think my little brother would come and hack of my testicles for talking bad about "the family" in public, or just beat me like a red headed step child).

There are things that you don't talk about because they are personally embarrassing and the idea of having other people know about your personal shame is terrifying. The thing is; You can talk about these things. The stories may be humiliating. They are also very funny if you can step away from em and really look at em. I propose to dive into this area head first by letting y'all know what a Khol's Moment is.

Back in the day, when I was living in the college town and my diet consisted primarily of nicotine, caffeine, sugar, alcohol and grease, I was home visiting the parents for a holiday. They asked me to go with em to the polish restaurant. I readily agreed. It had been quite some time since I had quality ethnic food like that. I had important expenses like beer and smokes. Good food just didn't make the cut.

So we get the restaurant and I just stuff myself. I have a bowl of soap with a potato in it. I finish the mother's soup and get the entire potato. I have a huge order of butter engulfed cheese dumplings. When I say better engulfed I don't mean that I was dipping em in butter but that they were served glistening from butter, with little pools of butter on em where ever the dimpled. The plate was an ocean of butter. They weren't just saturated in butter they were the essence of butter lightly flavored with noodle and bakers cheese. I had some of the mothers dumplings and one of the old man's potato pancakes. I packed it all down with a couple glasses of coke or Pepsi.

So by the time we are ready to leave I'm completely stuffed and ready to go home and spend a few quality moments on my friend Mr toilet. Except that's not the plan. I start to panic as I find out that instead of going home we are headed out to a suburban mall. The mall is a good twenty minutes drive. I tell the parents that we have to go home, that we cannot go shopping as I need to go to the bathroom. They ask the immortal stupid question, "Why didn't you go at the restaurant?" Because I didn't. I doesn't matter why. The fact is that I did not go then and I need to go now. We need to go home. The mother is adamant. She is going shopping at Kohl's and that's final. I'll just have to use the bathroom at the store.

So the trip is hellish. Every couple minutes I feel like my gut is going to burst and excrement is going to fly out, splattering the van in shades of nastiness. Still we make it to the store without any catastrophe's occurring.

When we get into the store the mother points me in the general direction of the bathroom and wanders off in the direction of some brightly colored piece of apparel. I spend an eternity doing the duck waddle to the back of the store, my entire being focused on keeping my sphincter closed. I make no sudden moves.

Some time the next century I make it to the bathroom. I find a stall that doesn't look disgusting, take off my winter coat, and lock the door. I undo my pants and just as I'm bending over to pull my pants down, the unthinkable happens: Total sphincter failure. I'm not talking a small brown out passing of gas, rather this was out of control diarrhea jet stream.

I'm a twenty something year old adult and I'm standing in a public bathroom with a pants full of (explicative deleted).

It gets worse.

I'm in full panic mode. I do the dumbest thing imaginable. I start to pull down my underwear, with some vague notion of assessing the damage. One might call this taking the finger out of the dyke. Something (you know what) plops out the leg holes that are no longer damning up the filth and lands in the crotch of my pants.

Normally the thought of having so much contact with fecal matter would make me want to wretch, but I was more terrified of someone walking into the bathroom and seeing the pants at my ankles with the nastiness all over. I know at any moment someone is going to walk into the bathroom and just know, perhaps from the terrible stench in the air, perhaps from the od scuffling noises in the stall, what terrible things are going on just the other side of that stall wall. (especially as the weight of my coat on the door hanger makes the door keep popping out of the lock).

I'm a twenty something adult and all I want to do is cry or scream at my parents for bringing me to this store in the middle of no where and making me walk ten football fields across the length of the store to get to the bathroom just so I can crap the pants in a public place.

So after a bit I calm down. I systematically begin to clean things as best I can in the stall. I sit. The shoes come off and get placed safely out of the way. The socks come off and are tucked into the shoes. The pants come off and are set aside so that no further damage can occur. The underwear come off and are flushed. The its toilet paper and toilet water to body and pants. Scrape away every last bit of evidence. I want to ditch the pants and hope that the old man will come to the bathroom looking for me. Then I can send em on a pants and underwear purchasing mission. After an eternity I realize this isn't an option. I dress and find myself incredibly grateful that I buy winter coats that cover my rear end.

I find the old man near the front of the store. I tell him that we need to leave. He tells me to find my mother. I tell him we need to leave. He tells me to find my mother. I get real close and in a quite yet intense way I explain that, "I just (explicative deleted) myself. We need to leave." The old man hands me the keys to the minivan and says he will find my mother.

Mom isn't ready to leave. She has a bunch of stuff she wants to try on in the changing room and has been waiting on my father or I to do the traditional role of male holding the purse. The old man explains, "Apparently your son has crapped himself."

Mom wasn't happy she almost accused me of doing it out of spite because she dragged me out shopping instead of taking me home, but then she realized how ridiculous that idea was and was just angry that she had to sit in a car that reeked of excrement.

So in the years since my mother has brought up the Kohl's moment on a number of occasions. She will talk about how she was at the grocery store and almost had a Kohl's moment. If we go to the mall she will ask me if seeing the store scares me. If we have to go to the god awful store, she will ask me to try and control myself. She is basically letting me know that she has control. If I choose to displease her she will divulge this horribly embarrassing story as a humorous anecdote.

No more.

The world (or at least a very small portion of it) knows my shame and I am none the worse for it. I can now work on my telling of this story and make it funnier with every retelling. I will know that I have achieved greatness when Kohl's sues me for associating their brand with my excrement. Then I'll owe a lot of money to lawyers,but I'll be able to hold my head high.

More Laters