all parents and potential parents have fears. will my child be healthy? will my child be happy? will my child succeed in what they want to do? while we all have them not everyone is forced to face them head-on. not everyone is actually dealt one of these blows to cope with, adjust to and move on from. while maybe not a foreseeable item for me, one of my greatest fears regarding a child of mine was realized last week.

it has come to my attention that the most particular of my friends is struggling through a dilemma.

it would seem his wife dropped her shiny new clie palm pilot in a public toilet. he and i thought the same thing, 'oh suck, now i've got to buy another pda'. she thought something entirely different though, something along the lines of 'how am i ever going to dry off my pda now that i just fished it out of the toilet'.

i leave you with a message i know to be fact; all things are disposable given the proper conditions.

odd places i've seen stray pubic hairs in the not-too-distant past:

1. in alex's diaper at his 1-week pediatric exam. the doc checked to make sure it wasn't attached before confessing that had it been, we may have a problem.

2. sticking out of the play-doh as it passed through a fun factory's shape maker. the shape of the moment was a simple square.

3. on my work laptop's computer keyboard.

and on the last item it was the client i was meeting with who brought it to my attention. he didn't say anything, he just waggled a long index finger above the letters R and T where it sat. 'oopsey-daisy, wonder where that come from?' and, to say you don't quite know what to do with it once you're holding it in the air pinched between your thumb and forefinger, highlighting it's curlycue shape, would be a vast understatement. if it were an obvious head hair you'd just lightly shoo or blow it off the desk and onto the floor, but i know how i'd feel if someone started floating stray groin hairs around my work area all willy-nilly. so i did the only respectable thing i could think of (at 8:15 in the morning at least) and daintily picked it up, studied it momentarily and deposited it into my shirt pocket. i'm a staunch believer in conducting low-impact business meetings.

after leaving this appointment i spent a moment hoping the guy knew i was simply trying to be respectful of his space and that i was not a collector of random short hairs. although, i can say, should anyone have such a hobby or collection, i would have interest in seeing it.

a bad day is having your breath mistaken for gas by your wife upon first waking up.

a worse day is having your your breath mistaken for gas by your two year old daughter who won't stop chanting "gas. gas. gas. daddy gas. gas. gas. daddy gas. gas. gas. gas. daddy gas." and, all this while patting me on the shoulder just in case anyone in the store was uncertain of who exactly daddy was.

that spike in the altoids' stock was me. and me alone.

my household is keeping the oral b folks in business since bella discovered the host of cool things that can be done with a toothbrush. you'd never guess what a versatile tool it was. but to my point, someone i know owns and uses some juiced kind of electric toothbrush that has an auto-timer and other amenities on it. i'm looking for you. clues as to your identity.

1. you stayed at my home in the last year and a half.
2. on one such visit you touted the advantages of your shiny, automated mouth tool. and, if i recall, you may have been doing that while bella was using my toothbrush to apply diaper rash medicine to her perpetually moist teddy bear.
3. you did not specifically mention how this implement could be used for alternate, possibly sexual purposes, but i was thinking it.

if you are this person, please shoot me a note with the brand and model of this device. i would be forever grateful.

and, for those thinking that this is a bad plan and that i will now simply be repeatedly replacing a more expensive toothbrush, i'm way more anal about my gizmos than i am about my $1.39 pieces of plastic. i know it's sometimes hard to see the logic behind my actions but i assure you there is a tangible reasoning beneath the murk.

so some guys at work were all huddled in this circle talking about various guy things when one of them pipes up and starts bashing the adult flushable wipe. i mean he's essentially calling them feminine hygiene commercials for men and asked "what kind of man is going to use these." i saw several heads nodding in agreement. being new and being the least testosterone ridden of the pack i found myself unable to step up in the name of my personal sanitation-based savior. my head hung in spineless shame afraid my eyes may betray my allegiance. when shockingly i heard an unlikely voice speak up in their defense. i say unlikely because if you had to pick the guy most opposite me in our group, this fellow would be it. but, all the same, here he was and proclaimed the following in a stern southern drawl. yeah. take that you heathens.

i don't make bets very often. the few times i do, i'm certain i will win (exept where e-love is concerned). yesterday i was presented with such an opportunity. the bet: if you put a dime on the floor beneath the urinal in the men's bathroom, would it still be there an hour later. the wager: lunch. my position: yes, it would absolutely still be there one hour later, one day later, one lifetime later (barring the janitorial process).

all men should know where i'm coming from but women may not so allow me take just a moment to explain this rationale. i'm sure you ladies have possible notions of how a male attends to his liquid business but there is minutia involved that most wouldn't be privy to. now i know those that are married or co-habitating have a semblance of understanding because there are drops and smatterings of your partner around your own lavatory. you may on occasion marvel at the quantity or the distance it traveled from the commode but assuming you're only living with one guy at a time, these thoughts are still wildly deficient. now what i need you to do is imagine the mayhem created by 100 men sharing one urinal over a span of 9 hours. furthermore, consider a man's attention to such matters in their own home and then project how their nature may change in a public forum where they are not solely responsible or held accountable for the cumulative effect.

for instance, in the morning when the bathroom is pristine from the night's cleaning, men just step up and do their deed. as early as ten am you may have to move anywhere from 6-12 inches back as to not stand in the shiny pool beginning to form under the urinal as brought about by the hapless shakes and miscalculations of previous patrons. by 3pm you may find yourself a full two feet away with legs apart as not to be standing in this accumulated swill.

so given this you can imagine my certainty when someone said they were going to set a dime in the epicenter of this mayhem at 2:30pm and that it would still be there come 3:30. i know, sheer madness. but this fella was confident as was i, so the dime was dropped at the appointed hour. for obvious reasons we could not stand watch over the urinal so i cannot say if the silver lucre lasted 10 or 55 minutes, all i can report is that it did not last the full 60. i repeat, it did not last the full 60.

shocked and staggered and now uncertain of the far-reaching ramifications of this study, i will buy this lunch but i will buy it with paper currency. and i will accept only paper currency in return, as my change in that from this day forward coin will never again touch the hand of troy lane dearmitt. never!

and oh yeah, everyman submissions are due tonight by midnight.

bella's new favorite saying is 'my toy'. everything she can see, touch or conceive is her toy. when we were taking a shower the other day she pointed at my penis and said 'my toy'. i explained that i was very confident that that was not her toy, mostly because it was my toy, my favorite toy in fact. she thought on this for a moment before smacking my toy with a toothbrush, another of her toys and reclaiming it as her toy.

the best parenting advice i ever received came from my father-in-law; "you just gotta be smarter than your kids". i try to live this and thought quickly at this moment and decided to remove the curiousity, so i turned around before continuing my ablutions. i then heard another softer 'my toy' seconds before feeling the toothbrush attempt to pierce my rear crevice. let's just say my surprise could have snapped that brittle plastic in half.

when recounting this drama to marty she asked which toothbrush she had. all i could say with confidence is that she didn't have mine.

now oddly, my whole family brushes their teeth with the same toothbrush, mine.

the downtown tower i work in is, thankfully, very regimented about their bathrooms and because of this they are consistently very clean and well supplied. to maintain this standard they send cleaning guys around three to four times a day. i often pass by them while attending to my own three to four times a day duties and am always intrigued by the mechanical process in which they perform this task.

their methods are precise and systematic. if you remove the chore at hand one may call it some modern form of interpretive dance. that is until the shockingly jolly fellow walks along the galley of toilets and begins his repetitive review. he slaps the first door open, peers in, checks the toilet paper, wipes the seat, all good. he slaps the second door open, peers in, checks the toilet paper, wipes the seat, all good. he slaps the third door open, peers in and stumbles backward shielding the lower part of his face with his forearm and exclaims "oh, for the love of christ!"

so much for high art.

i know i just did one of these but i've gotta tell the stories as they come. isabella recently learned how to throw clothes down the laundry chute. last night as i was emptying the bin in the basement i found the following items in addition to our soiled clothing.

a toothbrush
the cover from a magazine
a credit card
a floppy disk
a cup (which i think was half-full when deposited)
and a pair of my boxers that i'd only worn twice last week.

i have so much to teach little bella. everyone knows underwear doesn't get thrown down until the third wearing. sheesh.

this site is know as many things to few people. my favorite moniker-maker is "he-who is-not-afraid-to-use-naughty-words-in-his-blog-ed". in addition to his current descriptor of "the whole life catalog", he previously referred to my site as "troy has his whole dang life online". thanks for the kind and apt descriptors f-bomb ed.

in addition i've recently gotten the impression, from another blogger, that i've been neglecting my viewing audience. to this, i agree. i have been taking you for granted and depriving you of the details you have become accustomed and addicted to. so in attempt to live up to big ed's nomenclature and to push the plunger for buddy james' awaiting needle, allow me to share some details from my recent life to get everyone up to speed.

more recently than i'd like to admit i wore the same pair of pants 23 days in a row. and, if you're asking the same question marty did (have you washed those this month?), the answer is a confident no.

when not wearing the 23-day pants, i wore the same pair of shorts, which i will call, for simplicity sake, the 23-day shorts. and again the answer to you and marty's question would be a second confident no.

i kicked a bella-discarded pickle part under the stove instead of throwing it in the garbage.

crouching near the ground in my work clothes i saved 8 earthworms from a post rain sun and droves of killer ants, despite many concerned looks by passerby's.

i recently watched the complete first season of OZ in two days. that would be 13 hours worth of humor for the uninitiated.

after the neighbor's dog licked my hand, i wiped the slobber off on the back of bella's shirt. (for those gasping at my lack of respect, allow me to report that she didn't seem to mind).

so as you can see, all's well and going as expected in troy-ville. thanks for your patience and continued intrigue and i promise (meaning i will try as long as it is not inconveniencing to me) to keep you better apprised of my happenings.

10 days off work
16 days away from home
2,600 miles over construction-ridden interstates
48 hours in a rented mini van
4 uproarious travel partners
10 north american states
8 sunny days on the beach
9 competitive days of tennis
1 lap around d.c.'s mall
16 iterations of mamma mia on the hi-fi
1 backyard wedding
5 tetris competitions
7 episodes of world's scariest police chases
1 great house-sitter

and after all of the above blessings it was this single item

1 open flatulence rule

that turned what should have been a frolic-filled holiday into an every man for themselves version of survivor on wheels.

and, the only reason i'm not filled with hate given this tenet of war can be gleaned in that it was i who proved the victor in this improvised test of perseverance and dedication to all that is unhealthy to eat and subsequently digest.

i want to be a cowboy. or rather, i used to want to be a cowboy. i've had a change of heart and now know what a flawed and filtered impression i had of the life of these wild bills. in my youthful daydreaming mind i envisioned the romantic days of the cowboy lifestyle. this adolescent portrayal may have been mildly antiseptic. antiseptic because i did not take into account things like the wicked s...

things found in bella's diaper this weekend during changes: urine, feces, a jenga block and one domino.

so if you ever play dominos at my house, handle the double-six at your own risk.

recently while filling up the car at this archaic gas station i ran inside to pay in that they had not yet discovered credit card readers at the pump. it would seem the smoke-free environment had also eluded this establishment in that a white cloud billowed out the front door like i was on the set of ron howard's backdraft. after returning to the car, marty asked me if i had partaken in a carton of cigarettes or just hung out in the mouth of someone who had.

it was at this precise moment that a synapse in my brain registered a connection between carrying that memento out of the gas station and the special-heinous bathroom situation at my office building i spoke of earlier in the week (post super bowl vapors). the question is, am i transporting, on my person, the flatulatory swill of half the guys on my floor? i mean are these colonesque particles forever fused into my apparel and epidermis, because i can assure you they are forever etched into my mind.

and, before you belittle my neurosis please understand that these aren't your typical pencil-necks. these are men who move towards the bathroom with a confident conviction, proudly cradling a folded newspaper under their arm and loudly cracking it straight while in the stall.

but the funk. for the sake of debate, let's agree i am wearing it and it goes where i go and i'm unaware because my sensitive nasal receptors have been obliterated by the nefarious atoms which are almost visible to the naked eye given their extra volatile payload. do you think someone is going to alert me to this obvious problem? how do you tell someone that it doesn't necessarily smell like they stepped in something but that instead something pretty damn wicked stepped on them, twice, and squished and slid their feces-painted foot all over their person and that a conventional shower will not even begin to eradicate the foulness that has been imprinted on their soul and that even if you were to get into outbreak-like measures you'd be getting closer to a fix but still not in the ballpark and that you would most likely require some government issue exfoliater hidden in the vaults beneath the pentagon to begin correcting the irreparable damage certainly caused by whatever tattooed its aroma on you because at this very moment you not only have the stench of the ten people you came in direct contact with but you also are the proud possessor of rectal mites from the ten people each of those ten people had prior contact with and did i mention that you currently have about nine minutes to live.

i would not be comfortable telling a stranger this. bookguy sure, a stranger, no.

the best thing about living in the city of the super bowl's losing team is the parade scheduled for downtown on the next day during the afternoon rush hour is canceled.

the worst thing about living in the city of the super bowl's losing team is the work restrooms seem to be extra cantankerous from the culinary offerings at all the super bowl parties. although i imagine this could be the case all over the country, the digestive tracts of many a rams fan seemed to be hating life a little more than usual on this particular day.

Marty made the observation that dating is better when you don't live with the person you're going out with. When I asked why she felt this way, she responded:

"Because, I then wouldn't have to watch my date walk into the bathroom and pull the boxers he's going to wear out of the dirty clothes hamper."

I must admit I don't get her point.

I have been seeing how many foul things I can put into my wastebasket at work before they give me a new plastic liner. To date my month old liner has housed the likes of:

1. A half eaten custard filled long john
2. A cupful of sunflower seed husks
3. 7 pieces of spent bazooka joe gum
4. 1 full helping of left over mashed potatoes
5. 1 broken and leaking bic pen
6. A half empty thai iced coffee, which busted open when thrown in there
7. One sock from the gym that had a hole in it, post work-out.
8. And, 1 chewed up cud of a snickers bar that made a funny noise while chewing on it.

Another week and I'm going to take a black light to the container and see how many different organisms and funks have set up shop in the space. My company doesn't occupy a slot in the fortune 500 because they distribute trash bags all hurly burly for no apparent reason. No sir-ree-bob.

I have this thing with hand lotion, skin creams or essentially anything that makes my hands greasy. One of the quadrillion times Marty obtained poison ivy in the back yard she asked me to apply some soothing ointment to her back. I looked at her back and then the bottle of murky murk she handed me. I pondered the request to touch evil substance A to evil substance B with nothing more than my left or right hand. I dealt out five spots on Marty's back, smartly distancing each glop for even coverage. I then took the opening of the bottle and began pushing the mounds of goo around to all of the affected areas.

What are you doing?!?

I'm putting this stuff on your back.

You have to rub it in.

I am rubbing it in.

With your hand, not with the bottle.

What's the difference?

One is what normal people do and one is what insane people do.

Yeah, I know all of those crazy people getting this stuff all over their hands, that's why they're crazy.

Oh forget it. Give me that.

Marty sat up, snatched evil substance B from my hand and went into the bathroom to tend to evil substance A on her own. I wanted to help. I sincerely did. But, I sat on the bed unable to get the thought of either of those contaminants out of my head and the epidermal mayhem that was occurring just down the hall behind the half closed bathroom door didn't ease my anxiety. After a few minutes she returned looking a tad peeved. I asked if I could help, she said that she was just fine on her own. If she could have done it herself I'm not certain why she asked for my assistance to begin with. I decided not to mention this foible to her. She did have poison ivy and all.

Paying for things with damp money equals huge fun. After an energetic bout of tennis or an afternoon at the pool, nothing rivals reaching deep into a front pocket and placing this dark and heavy paper into the upturned hand of a cashier. The facial contortions made while studying the soiled bills and contemplating the source of the money's funk are unrivaled.

Unrivaled at least until the tables are turned and a cashier deposits moist bills in my hand at the conclusion of some transaction. The look of compounded disgust on my face is absolute while I consider the amount and whether or not to put them in my pocket, wallet or garbage can. Heathens.

marty recently told me that swimming no longer counts as a bath. since i was on a three day run using this philosophy i asked when this expectation changed? since you became an adult, she replied. assuming this has in fact happened, i have interest in canceling my membership.

How has the onus of the toilet seat's position fallen upon men? We don't need it down to tend to our lower numbered task, therefore why should we be the one's expected to manage it willy-nilly all day long. Now think about it. Not only are we asked to put the seat down when we're done, we are also expected to lift it up before we start. I don't do that much work professionally; I'm certainly not going to take it on as an elective. If you want it up when not in use, I suggest YOU lift it up. If you need it down to do your deed, by all means, put it down. I know I do when necessary and in fact have never had my delicate cheeks kiss the icy glaze of room temperature commode water because as a civilized creature I have the wherewithal to see if I'm going to go plummeting into a sitz bath before committing to the act.

The only practical path here is that the toilet seat should always be up and comes down only when called upon. This is a win-win for all concerned. The seat stays clean, no one makes any undue assumptions and I don't get yelled at every time I visit my mother-in-law's house. Although, should you argue the above points you force my hand ... You force my hand to shake wildly instead of calmly and you force me to whiz on the seat intentionally instead of accidentally. The choice is yours to make.

One time while showering I had a persistent hair tickling my upper lip. I would push it out of the way only to have it return moments later. While attending to my post-shower ablutions the nuisance returned. I leaned into the mirror to locate it and saw the pest sneaking into my mouth (This wasn't greatly unusual in that I've always been shaving challenged and have missed many a chin or cheek hair for weeks at a time). I trapped the nuisance between a forefinger and thumb and gave it a tug. To my bewilderment the result did not register on my lip though, but in my nose. I leaned closer and pulled the hair directly away from my face and sure enough after the visible inch it snuck up into my right nostril.

Being in college at the time, I considered leaving this unique strand in place to astound and impress my classmates with but after a moment of lucidity gave it a hearty tug and dropped the surprisingly stout root into the sink. Later in class I momentarily panicked at the thought that this coarse black hair had been hanging out of my nostril for weeks. I rapidly deduced this was impossible because even if people did not possess the social experience to address such a fix there certainly would have been gasps of horror and fleeing children in my presence. So it obviously must have been around for some time, like since age twelve, growing in an upward direction only to be dislodged by an allergy based sneeze or a healthy blow of the nose. I don't know this to be fact but it is the explanation I'm running with still today. Furthermore, I've yet to purchase one of those silver claw contraptions used for internal hair removal but have also not ruled it out of my bathroom arsenal just yet.

A few people have razzed me recently regarding my sandals and socks look as seen in this month's gallery selection. It is time for us as a people to get past this hangup with socks and sandals. I am doing you a favor by masking from you my least appealing and cleansed body part. And, all this without even touching on the medicinal implications of the foot--bunions, calluses, lost toenails (which is super-gross if you've ever had the pleasure), foot odor, athlete's foot, etc. So let us dissect our friend to the south at a raw and anatomical level.

Unless you are a part of the wasabi tribe of southern Africa or one of their charter members, your feet are bunged up all the time in a B.O. ridden vacuum you call your socks and shoes.

All male feet at one point or another have come into contact with human urine, and oftentimes it's not our own. Tut, tut, tut ladies, don't wipe that brow just yet, because if you've ever lived with a male, your little piggies have swam in the yellow water as well.

While my feet are exceptional in this next area, most people's feet possess at least one oddity. My claim to fame; my feet are as wide as they are long. Yes, you did the math right, that would make them square.

I have never seen two sets of toes that look the same. This is unnerving. I've also known people whose second toe is longer than my pinky finger. Also unnerving.

Lastly and most importantly, people's grotesque negligence towards the routine and non-optional maintenance of their feet is appalling. You gotta get between the toes, between them.

Given the abuse I have taken over my cloth-covered toe, the obvious need for discussion and the fact that I am right, I am dedicating this entire week to the human body. And, can we get a game of socks versus skins going here?

My only, or greatest, problem with other people's flatulence is that if I detect something, which emanated from your person, one could surmise that an unpleasant and ejected element, even if only a molecule, that was just in your rectum is now setting up shop in me. And, in an OCD guy's mind, you might as well pick me up and insert me, head first in an ally mcbeal like antic, into these vaporous confines that jettisoned this waste product in my direction.