David is an okay kid, but I find him to be a little off. He has that lost look about him. And during an earlier visit a year or so back, there was an "incident" that still leaves our family puzzled. David took a bathroom break and called his mom for some help. As I said, the kid is a poster child for Troubled Youth Magazine, so I wasn't surprised he still needed a hand in the bathroom.
Long after David left, our guest bathroom spilled over with the familiar odor of shit. I lifted the lid expecting shock and awe, but the bowl was clean. Nothing in the tub, either. So where the hell was the stank coming from? To my horror, our beloved wastebasket was brimming with soiled toilet paper. My wife and I stared at each other in silence, searching for some kind of rationalization. Was the mother afraid of clogging our septic system? But we don't have a septic system. Nor does she. No one in this town does. So maybe she... nope. Nothing came to mind. We were stumped.
With today's visit, I made sure to line our new wastebasket with a plastic bag, just in case. Call me Mr. Proactive.
The kids had fun that day. They ate pizza and had a ball playing in our backyard. When they came in for a break, the boys helped themselves to another slice of pizza. David talked about how tired he was as they'd done a lot of running around. I had to coax him to sit down and eat, as I thought he'd pass out just standing there.
"No, I'm okay." He preferred to stand. Again, that thousand-yard stare.
That was the first omen. The second omen came with the smell of our old pal shit. But not coming from the toilet. This time it was coming directly from David. "Gas," thought I. Off David went to use the bathroom. I was pleased that I remembered to line the basket. I'd just seal ‘er up and chuck it when he's done. Yep, Dad did well.
David's head poked out from the door. He was carrying on a conversation with my son. Weird. After a few minutes, I wanted to know what was going on. I could bore you with the details of the conversation, but the bottom line is that the kid shit his pants. He got so carried away playing that he just lost it.
I'm a reasonable man, but there is no way on God's green earth that I am wiping the ass of another's child. Nor do I want to look at a strange child's shit-filled underwear. When the feeling returned to my extremities, I threw David a bag and instructed him to put his "project" into them. He put the whole mess in his backpack and waited for his mom to come fetch him. When she finally arrived, David's stink had invaded every corner of my home like some evil Yankee Candle with a fragrance like "Crisp Summer Linen that Some Kid Just Shit On."
Epilogue
It took my wife a few weeks to casually mention the incident to David's mom. Seems she wasn't shocked it happened in the least. Apparently it's a family thing -- her brother also regularly shit his pants as a kid. When I hear things like this, I understand arranged marriages: "Satish, you will not marry the girl who's brother drops dal in his pants... very, very messy. Our family will not be messy in the pants." Makes perfect sense.
David is now on meds, as he was diagnosed with ADD this summer. Hopefully he'll now concentrate a tad more on taking evasive action when he feels that little bowl pressure. Also, it would be nice of something poop-related actually found its way into that family's toilet.