His house was just down the street from mine, so our moms trusted us enough to let us walk back and forth to play at each other's houses. On weekends, it was common that Stevie and I would make several trips between each house to play. It was during one of my visits to Stevie's house an incident happened in which I now call The Fuzzy Pink Carpet Affair.
Stevie's mom was the typical Mrs. Cleaver. She was always wearing a dress, and her home was always spotless. Their living room was huge and had these big windows that went from the ceiling to the floor. Their bathroom was nicer that most living rooms -- it had mirrors everywhere, a marble floor, pink fuzzy carpet around the toilet and in front of the bathtub, and even one of those fuzzy toilet seat covers -- you know, the kind that won't allow the seat to stay up, so we guys always have to hold the seat up with one hand while we take a whiz.
One day, Stevie invited me over to play Rock'em Sock'em Robots, a popular kids' game at the time. We had just really gotten into the game when suddenly I got this funny feeling in my intestines, and I knew what it meant. Soon I'd have to hurry home to torque a moonfish (well, a baby moonfish). Bravely, I fought off the pain and continued playing for as long as I could, until my brown star was poking out further than the bumper of a '58 Buick.
Up until now, I had never used anyone else's bathroom, not even at school. Not that I was afraid to -- the occasion just had never arose. Casting aside any thoughts of using strange facilities, I politely asked Stevie if I could use his toilet. He replied, "Do you have to make a number one or a number two?" I told him "Number 2". He then said he'd have to ask his mom (my guess is that he had never been confronted with this situation, either), and went off to find her.
Since I already knew where the bathroom was, and was quite sure that I couldn't wait for Stevie to return, I took it upon myself to avoid dropping a school of guppies in my Fruit of the Looms and headed for the bathroom.
Upon entering, I noticed two things. One, the door was right next to the toilet, and two, it didn't have a lock on it. Now I was nervous. What if someone walked in? Anyway, there was no turning back now, so I continued my quest. I lifted the fuzzy pink covered seat, pulled down my pants and hopped on. Quietly I sat and panted, feeling like a woman in her first Lamaze class.
All of a sudden, I heard someone running down the hallway towards the bathroom. I jumped to my feet with the moonfish hanging halfway out of my ass, only to be struck broadside by the bathroom door, which had been hit full-force by Stevie. The impact was violent. It twisted my body sideways, launching the now flying moonfish into uncontrollable flight. Both of us watched in horror as it boomeranged off the bathtub and hit the floor with a thud, finally coming to rest on the fuzzy pink carpet.
Stevie screamed "Mom!" and ran down the hallway. I reached down, picked up my battered flying fish, and tossed him into the toilet for proper burial. Having already flushed, I was washing my hands when Stevie returned with his mom. I explained to her what had happened and she just looked at the brown tracks left behind on the bathtub and on her fuzzy pink carpet and laughed. She said, "I'll clean up in here, you boys go play." Wow, what a cool mom.
A couple of years later, my family moved, and I never saw Stevie again. The last I heard about him was that he had moved to Florida and was working for a Streets and Sanitations Department. Go figure.