My last two posts were a bit dreary, and many people have asked me how I deal with what I do. Well, first, I have such an amazing support system of friends and family and I am forever grateful for them. One of the other things that has helped the most has been learning to laugh at myself.
Do you have a friend whose name you could finish this sentence with? "That would only happen to _____."
I think I'm that person for every group of friends I have. I have more embarrassing stories than anyone else I know. I don't mean embarrassing to the point of being traumatic (although some are close) but embarrassing in that the stories usually get told over and over. So, in the spirit of continuing to share the inner workings of my brain, I will tell you some of those stories.
This story I will never live down, and a certain someone I know and love with never let me live it down. She tells it every chance she gets. ;-)
I think this was in the 7th grade, a girl I went to school with, but wasn't really friends with, had a party. She lived near me and we shared a lot of the same friends. So a lot of my friends were at this party, and I wanted to go. But I wasn't invited because, like I said, I wasn't really friends with the hostess. But it bothered me so much that I wasn't there, that I decided to take my dog for a walk thinking they just might be outside or looking out the window when I walked past. They would see me and and say "Hey, do you want to join us?" So off I went, walking the two or three blocks to her house. I went past and no one saw me. So I went home. Then I thought, well maybe I'll walk by again and they'll see me this time. This went on for more time than I care to admit. Finally, they saw me and invited me in, just like I had hoped. In my world, they just happened to finally look out the window and invited me in. Little did I know, they had seen me pretty much EVERY time I had walked past and finally felt sorry enough to let me in. Yep, only me. And yet I'm laughing as I sit here typing it. But not only did I get invited in, but remember that hostess I wasn't really friends with? She is now one of my closest and oldest friends. We share much of our lives and also our son's lives together. So embarrassing or not, I'm glad I decided to walk my dog. (and no, that's not a euphemism)
The next story I will tell you is a favorite among the people that know it. But I warn you, it has a bit of a gross factor to it, so if you're easily offended, don't read this.
So back in 2006, another one of my closest and oldest friends took a trip to Florida with her daughter. We had everything planned out day by day, and it was one of the best trips I've taken. Anyway, we decided that we didn't need to spend a whole day at either Animal Kingdom or Epcot. So we bought a hopper pass and did Animal Kingdom in the morning and Epcot in the afternoon. After Animal Kingdom, we ate lunch right outside the gates at Rainforest Cafe. That is where our story begins.
I don't remember what I had to eat, I only remember that when we got in the car to drive to Epcot, my stomach was NOT happy. I'm not talking about not happy in a nauseous way, or a gassy way, but in that rumbly, "uh oh" kind of way. Now, if you know anything about Epcot, you know that once you park, that's not the end of the trip to the entrance. You then have to get on a tram and take the ride to the gate, often stopping to pick up people along the way. I was clenching like I have never clenched before. Trying to avoid pooing my pants a la Charlotte in Sex and the City was all that was keeping me going. We finally got to the gate, scanned our tickets and I ran, yep ran, to the nearest person that worked there asking where the closest bathroom was. I don't even know that I paid attention to where my friends were and I don't think I cared. I sprinted to the bathroom, ran into a stall and yet...I still wasn't willing to sit on that Epcot toilet seat without a seat cover. So I hurriedly pulled out a seat cover, punched out the middle and sat down.
Here's where things get a little offensive.
Now, obviously, when you have a major explosion of that sort, it doesn't smell good. But when I was finally done and stood up to pull up my shorts, I smelled poo. Not just all-around-me poo but it's-a-lot-closer-than-it-should-be poo. I looked down to see a lovely stripe of poo on the back of my right hand. I apparently had not punched out the seat cover as adequately as I should have, and it created a small pocket for the poo to sit in. When it came time to "clean up", I ever so gently swiped the back of my hand across that pocket, thus creating the stripe of shame. Other than disgust, my immediate thought was, "Well if it's there, it HAS to be somewhere else too." And I was right. I unbuttoned and sat back down to see another lovely stripe of poo....on the front band of my underwear. I have no idea how it got there, but I knew I could not spend the rest of the day this most magical place with poop on my underwear. I did the only thing I could. That's right; I took my favorite mint green underwear and donated them to the happiest place on Earth, and proceeded to spend my day at Epcot in my baggy vacation shorts, commando. I'm sure Mickey would be proud.
Hopefully you have enjoyed my little anecdotes. And believe me, there are plenty more. But in my life I have been shown through experience and through that support system I hold so dear, that laughter really is the best medicine.
“You gain strength, courage, and confidence by every experience in which you really stop to look fear in the face. You must do the thing which you think you cannot do.”
–Eleanor Roosevelt
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