The Trouble With Trusting A Fart...

Before we get started, let me remind you that there is still time to enter my blogiversary giveaway!

I debated long and hard about whether to share this story with you all because...well...it's pretty fucked up and due the nature of this revelation, many of you will have a hard time looking me square in the eyes from this moment forward. I must admit, that's no great loss to anyone, but it will make me uncomfortable because then you'll be forced to focus directly on my schnoz, and that like doesn't happen enough already, asshole.

On the other hand, I am sure many of you will high-five me and declare, "This brave, self-less woman had the courage to crawl into the stinking depths of my inner being, grasp the sinewy tail of my darkest demon, and to wrench it free of my soul and out into the light of the day where it will melt and scream in agony! You, Cat, are my fucking hero!"

Or maybe not.

I even went to Facebook for help: Cat "wonders if there's REALLY such a thing as "too much information". I think people want to know, you know? Do they? I do. TELL ME."

To which everyone responded, "Yes there is such as thing as TMI, but we still want to know anyway." So basically yes. But no.

In the end, I opted out of sharing the story. It is the only way to retain the solitary shreds of my self-respect and dignity. This revelation is better left untold, a secret among many, hidden from the prying, judging eyes of the Interweb.

And then I remembered this post, wherein the last of my dignity up and bailed on me back in December. So now I figure, what the hell? Why not. It might make someone incredibly uncomfortable, and I've been known to go to great lengths to cause discomfort.

So here you go. You're welcome and I'm sorry.

I remember this time, it must have been in 9th grade, when my best friend Sara came from Virginia to stay with me for a week during summer break. We were too young to drive, and thus spent most of our days slathered in facial masks, painting our toe nails, calling Josh Wright on the telephone, and video recording every single second of our time together. And no, it was not the sexy kind of video, perverts.

We arranged to be dropped off at the movie theater to see some flick and meet some boy, and therefore had to stand outside and wait for my mom to come and pick us up after the movie was over. Of course, Sara and I did our best to "lean sexily" against the side of the building, and "appear to be older than we were", because of the things that matter, those are the two which matter most to ninth grade girls at the movie theater.

As we stood there in the hot night air, leaning our little hearts out against the brick wall of the building, we noticed two elderly couples exit the theater doors together and make their way down the sidewalk towards us. It was obvious that the couples were together, on some kind of a double-date, and all four of them were laughing: hysterical, belly-style laughter. Santa Clause laughter.

We were never able to glean the source of their mirth, be it the movie they just saw or some other instance of hilarity. They shuffled slowly along, whooping and hollering and crying and occasionally leaning against the wall to catch their breath, which is what I presumed one of the old ladies was doing when she stopped and braced herself against the wall.

Except that instead of catching her breath, she spread her legs and peed.

PEED!

She just let her bladder go right there on the sidewalk in front of god and fucking everyone. Which caused the troop of gay old friends to laugh EVEN HARDER.

Needless to say, my friend and I were beyond horrified at this spectacle, unable in our youth to imagine a time when our own bladder might fail us or a situation which might call for such extreme public humiliation. Perhaps even worse was the response of the old woman's date, who simply gripped her arm when she had finished watering the cement and steered her on down the sidewalk, all of them still laughing and bellowing to beat the damn band.

We stared after them, jaws unhinged and resting on our shoes, watching as they reached the car and the woman spread her legs once again and finished off her business right then and there behind the car door. It seemed to me that there were gallons - neigh, OCEANS! - of piss coursing out of that old woman. It was a sight to behold.

Then she gathered up her skirt, got into the backseat of the car, and they drove away.

I didn't sleep for a fucking week, let me tell you. There is nothing so terrifying to a teenager as the thought of growing old and losing control of your body. It simply cannot be, this "aging" thing you speak of. Look at me! I'm perky and elastic-y and simply fucking glowing with the light of a thousand unicorns! I will never be that old. Right? RIGHT!!??

And so now you might understand why, when recently I made a stop in the restroom to pee, I had a stroke and died on the toilet when I...saw.the.SKID MARK.

I literally floated up out of my body and looked down upon my soiled garments and thought, "Whose ass is that? Surely that is another person's ass. For my ass would never behave in such a manner. I demand to know whose ass I am wiping!"

And when finally I accepted that it was, in fact, MY ass, the memory of that old lady and her oceans of piss flashed before my eyes and I realized, maybe for the very first time, that I will one day clutch my belly as uncontrollable laughter causes me to shit myself in the movie theatre while on a date with a prostate cancer survivor in a toupee, and probably with a prescription for Viagra that he often confuses with his styptic tablets.

After this realization, I sent my grandmother a package of diapers and a sympathy card.*

*Actually, the first thing I did was text Gray because he was having a really bad day. And suddenly he realized that his day wasn't so bad anymore because at least he had clean boxers. And then I told Veronica, whose response was, "Are you actually TELLING ME THIS?"