a year or two back i was in a large bathroom stall of a public toilet with all three of my kids. one of them had just gone to the rest room and i leaned over to flush the toilet. bella put her hand on my arm and said in an alarmed tone:
BELLA
whoa! what are you doing?
TROY
what? i'm flushing the toilet.
BELLA
you can't do it like that.
TROY
like what?
BELLA
standing like that.
TROY
why not?
BELLA
don't you know that a toilet can shoot spray from the bowl, like, twenty five feet into the air when it is flushed.
TROY (straightening back up)
uh. no. i didn't know that.
BELLA
uhhh. yeah.
TROY
where'd you hear that?
BELLA
at school.
TROY
oh.
BELLA
and just think if there is pee or pooh in there.
some things:
- what bella doesn't know is that while i'm surely fearful of pee or pooh being jettisoned at me in the form of a fine mist, clean water from a public bowl disturbs me almost to the same degree.
- since that day, i have never flushed a public toilet without thinking of that moment with bella (not to mention using an outstretched foot and turning away as soon as the flush begins).
- also since then, i've come to believe that she (and her teachers) are right in that a few times after flushing the toilet in my office, thanks to a bright frosted window in the stall, i can see small droplets flying through the air in volcanic-like antics.
- and, by the way, where the hell was that lesson in my sixteen years of schooling?
- i will confess that, as a grown man, it sucks to have your eight year old child so effortlessly place more obstacles for your neurotic mind to navigate. she's exerted more energy asking to have the potatoes passed her way.
