'Twas a warm, sun-shiny afternoon and I was running through my grandparents’ long hallway past the infamous ‘haunted middle bedroom’ as fast as my eight-year old legs would carry me. Ghosts, however, were neither the pit of my fears nor the summit of my immediate knowledge. I was running because, as usual, I had the runs.
See, one of the great things about living next door to your grandmother is that you can go there, stay up past midnight, ask her to make you a full breakfast at one a.m., and then wash it all down with a couple of cokes and ring dings. When you can no longer hold your eyes open, you pass out watching British re-runs on PBS. Mom and dad are none the wiser.
The heiney, however, has no respect of age or innocence; and its secrets will not be long kept.
As I finished, or at least thought I had, I felt another swell of gurgling brown tide. I couldn’t walk away from the bowl. I stayed perched over the now darkened stew, anticipating another helping, when I heard the pitter patter of my middle brother’s tiny feet at the door. "Big D" had to go. At more than a year younger than me, we were both too short and weak to operate the lock so before I can stop him, he was pushing his way in.
"No, I'm not done!" I squealed at him. He whined, "Hurry up I gotta’ go too!"
I listened to him stomping back and forth in the hall, occasionally stopping to bang on the door and yell "C'mon hurry up!" At this point I wasn’t so sure I could get up but I also couldn't help giggle guilty expectation at his worsening dilemma and my part in it.
Finally he'd had enough and pushed his way through my chortling protestations. Seeing that I'd enjoyed the spectacle of his suffering - or at the very least that I wasn’t taking him seriously – he got pissed. The fact that he was angry and that I was still gushing did not help to hold back my laughter; in fact it inspired even bigger guffaws.
The toilet was positioned at one end of an old, claw-foot style bathtub, close enough that you could reach out and brace yourself for the biguns. Little brother's anger grew into a teary rage as he pulled down his Aquaman underoos in desperate anticipation of my departure from the throne. Seeing this caused me to tear up with breathless, wheezy laughter. He was about 3 feet from me on one of those old-style, oval bath rugs and clutching the long side of the tub with furious indignation, desperately pleading with me to hurry.
As he held onto the tub, we could both tell that his time was drawing near; he very slowly started to squat into a water skierl-like stance and intensified his boo-hooing. The more he cried, the more I laughed, until we were both totally red faced and soaking wet with tears.
Then slowly and to my utter amazement and disbelief, I see this thick brown rope slowly descending beneath him to the rug below.
I completely lost it. At this point I was laughing so hard it literally hurt.
While still crying, he stiffened his hunkering pose, white knuckling the side of the tub. Underneath him on the rug, the thick, corn-studded cable was perfectly coiled. It resembled a shit snake ready to strike. As I fought for breath from laughter and the overwhelming stink from the ultra dry excrement laying just a few feet from me, I notice something strange. At the top of pile, the tail end of the turd had been sculpted into a perfect little whipped topping design a la the old Dairy queen or Cool Whip ads.
Big D quit sobbing enough to take stock of his creation below and noticed the same peculiar extrusion.
Realizing that I was no longer laughing at him but at the henna-hued oddity that lay before us, I sensed he was beginning to appreciate the hilarity of the entire event.
"Hey it looks like an ice cream cone" I pointed out.
"ewww it does" he replied, and his mood slowly turned silly.
Wiping his little red tear-stained face he started to chuckle. Knowing that this could still go either way, I said to him "Ha! Ha! What are we gonna do with it now? Just go throw it away in the dumpster? Granny will never miss it. She’s got tons of rugs, she won’t know!"
I handed him some toilet paper and we both giggled as he cleaned up and tossed the used wipes onto the ruined rug.
He rolled up the bath mat, with the picture-perfect pile safely hidden inside like a big old shit taco, and then checked the hallway for any signs of an approaching parent – it’s a huge old house and we were somewhere near the busy half. Only our grandmother was at home at the time and she was busy washing clothes in the back, so it shouldn't have been too difficult to sneak the crappy crepe through unnoticed.
Seeing an opportunity to make a clean break for it, Big D grabbed the rancid roll and headed for the back door. I stayed seated and continued to polka-dot the commode. Before I could finish, he was at the back door too soon; and I ended up beckoning him in to find out how he got rid of it so fast.
"Did you get it out to the dumpster already? That was fast!" I suspiciously questioned.
"No", he replies. "I went through kitchen where Granny was doing laundry, but she was outside hanging up some clothes; so I just threw it over into the washing machine."
"Was it on?" I fearfully asked.
"Yeah" he said. "That’s why I tossed it in."
I slyly slipped through to the kitchen to see this for myself and perhaps do some damage control of my own if possible.
It was in there all right, full of water and agitating like hell.
We pretended like it never happened for years, except among each other of course. We were never questioned or heard about any gruesome findings either; I don't think grandma would have busted us either way. She was cool like that.
One thanksgiving or some family get together the full story finally came out to the shock and entertainment of our entire brood, especially the kids. If there’s a lesson at all here I guess it’s that even if it takes years, everything does eventually come out in the wash.
