I had a paper route when I was about fifteen or so. Thirty years later, I'm still trying to forget it. But there was one time—one priceless moment—that I will cherish until my dying day.
It was a day like any other day. It was a day like no other day. Some of us overcome, and some of us just succumb.
My paper route, in its furthest reaches, led me about a half-mile from my parents' house. My best friend lived nearby, and one day he came along with me as I was making the rounds collecting for the papers that I had delivered throughout the week. We eventually made our way to the part of the route furthest from our houses. I swear it was the absolute furthest. I can still remember it to this day: XXX Valerie Road, a farmhouse, about fifty yards from the road.
My friend began to complain about a need to go to the restroom. I told him that if he could hold it, we'd be finished in about twenty minutes. We went up to the farmhouse, I made my collection, and we left.
We made our way down the dirt driveway and back out to the main road, where he began complaining a bit more as we crossed Valerie to Bradwood Drive. I asked him again if he could just hold on. I was sure it couldn't be that bad. (It would still be another year before a similar fate would try to overcome me while on a cross-country training run. I persevered, but only at the cost of GREAT pain, and made it with only milliseconds to spare before I got my pants halfway down my legs prior to eruption.)
I digress.
I told him, in all (my) confidence, that everything would be okay. We'd be finishing up soon.
As we made our way across the lawn to the house next door, my friend went into "urgent mode." We've all been there. I told him, "OK, look, I'm gonna go across the street and sit down behind the bushes over at the elementary school. You can go ask back at the place where we just were. Just wait until I disappear."
He said okay, and I ran across the street and took up my position.
He went up to the door. I could see him clenching his butt muscles from about seventy-five yards away, doing that little jig that we've all done at one time or another. I watched him ring the bell. Without waiting much longer than American protocol demands for ringing the doorbell in any circumstance other than an emergency, he rang it again.
The woman answered the door.
I can just imagine the exchange. "Ummmmm... hi..." -- little bit of a wiggle, with knees knocking -- "I was just here with Tim, and I really gotta poo. Can I use your restroom?"
I could see the lady shaking her head no. I could see my friend kinda get that hunched back and clenched butt that comes on automatically when our whole universe centers around our sphincter and we struggle desperately to try to prevent the end of the world from coming.
He looked across the street at me. From where I was, it looked like he was saying something like, "I'm not gonna make it, my friend. Please, let my mother know that I love her."
He shrugged his shoulders and went on. He kinda got this one-leg hobble thing going on as he crossed the lady's yard and driveway. It turned into a trot, and then almost a full-blown run, as he got to the center of the next-door neighbor's yard.
He stopped.
He stopped for what seemed like a minute, although I'm sure that it wasn't more than a second or two. I'm not sure, but I think Einstein was right when he said time is a relative thing. It slows way down when oxygen is cut off to the brain because you're laughing too hard.
He took a step forward. He looked my way and just stood there for another moment. And that would have been fine. But then, he shook his leg. I swear to you on a stack of Bibles, he shook his leg. At this point, I was just about ready to wet my pants.
And then, like a dejected... well, like a guy who had just lost his best... well, you know what I'm talking about. It was all just terrible... terribly funny.
I cannot tell you the pain that this story has brought to me over the years. The tears it's brought. The first time I told it was to my mom when I got home that day. I could barely finish the story. And now, my fiancée thinks something is terribly wrong with me for laughing like I do when I tell this story.
My friend had about a 3/4-mile walk home ahead of him. Before he left, he told me that it was already running down his leg. Later, he told me that he lost a pair of socks and shoes to this tragic incident.