The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death (22 page)

“Oh, come on,” my husband argued back, as if what I was asking was completely outrageous. “Who expects to see poop in a
basement
? Who expects to take the drain off a pipe and just have pieces of poop hanging out? I never expected that!”

“Do you really go to school?” I asked. “Or do you just huff spray paint and glue behind the 7-Eleven all day? The drain led to a sewer pipe. What did you think it led to, the Evian spring? It’s the potty pipe!”

“Whatever,” he said, getting out of the car. “You’ll never understand. I thought it was mud. I thought they were mud patties. It was an easy mistake!”

“HA!” I bellowed, still mad about my cootie face. “I’m sorry, but I think it’s safe to say I know doody when I see it!”

“So you’d think!” my husband rebutted as he opened the door to the restaurant.

T
he next day,
I was barely out of bed when John was at the front door, ready to investigate. I showed him the pond in the basement and told him to be careful.

“It’s a shit hole,” I explained, hoping to get a laugh.

“What?” John said, squinting, not even remotely entertaining me.

“There’s poop down there,” I explained. “I know because my husband touched it.”

“Why’d he do that?” he replied, visibly recoiling.

I shrugged. “He thought it was mud,” I said kindly.

“That’s not mud!” he replied. “What would make mud look like that, in a little patty?”

“Believe me, I’m thinking the same thing,” I agreed. “But if you find any red mice in the drain,
they are not mine.
I know better!”

John responded by giving me a look that said, “
I am not coming here anymore.
”

Upon examination and with the use of a heavy-duty plumber’s snake, he determined that the clog was not a gigantic poop ball, or a colony of mysterious red mice, but roots. Nothing but tree roots that the snake had now thrashed away, leaving a clear, unobstructed path from my toilet to the great unknown.

“Here. These are for your husband,” John said as he handed me a pair of floppy, white latex gloves on his way out. “In case he feels the urge again.”

All of the hubbub about the basement made me a little more aware that it was something I needed to pay attention to, so several weeks later when I heard some loud splashing coming from that direction as I was doing the laundry, I ran down there immediately. Sure enough, while a lake hadn’t formed on the floor of the basement, one was getting ready to as the utility sink was about to spill over with water drained from the washer. I almost reached for a bottle of Drano on the shelf when I spied the broom handle and sort of poked around the drain of the sink. Quickly, I heard the water begin to rush through the pipes. I sighed a breath of relief, stood back, and watched the water flush down.

That’s so weird, I thought to myself. What could have been covering the drain—a piece of paper, maybe some cardboard or packing materials that had fallen into the sink? I wouldn’t doubt it at all with all of the stuff we have down here. I watched as the last of the water trickled down, crisis averted, and there I saw a form emerge, almost like a golf ball. A golf ball? I thought to myself. Could it be one of Maeby’s balls, totally encrusted with dirt? Why would one of Maeby’s balls be in the utility sink? Plus, I don’t remember her having toys that small, she should never have toys that small, Oprah’s dog choked on a ball that small and died, I kept thinking as my hands moved toward it to pick it up, closer, closer, closer, and then I saw a second golf ball, closer, closer, it almost looks like a chocolate truffle, or a croque—

“Oh, shit!” I screamed shrilly as I yanked my own hand away, just in the nick of time.

And, on second glance, I saw that I was absolutely right.

Blue-Light Special

I
love a good sale,
just like anybody, but there are just some things I can’t bring myself to skimp on.

In Phuket (I don’t know how you pronounce it correctly, but I’ve been doing it phonetically for the last hour and am getting a big kick out of it), an internationally popular resort island in southern Thailand, blue Hawaiians on the beach aren’t the only things you can get for cheap. Apparently, Phuket (isn’t that fun?) has seen a boom in the number of private clinics specializing in cosmetic surgery and sex-change operations for tourists because the costs for those procedures are far lower than in the United States or Europe.

Now, honestly, the last thing I’d bargain-hunt for would be a new nose, brighter eyes, or a whole set of genitals. Those are examples of things I wouldn’t use a coupon for. Sure, if they have a two-for-one dinner at a Sizzler on Phuket, count me in, but clearly, I wouldn’t use the same discount should Laurie want to become Larry, if you know what I mean. They don’t call that stuff the family jewels for nothing. Ever hear of the expression “You get what you pay for”? Well, it’s true. Do you want to spend the rest of your life explaining, “Yeah, well, they’re not exactly what you would call a matching pair, but the one that causes that exact reaction was 20 percent off!”

I mean, sure, when you’re in the market for a book, a sweater, or even a bra, seconds will do, but when you’re playing outlet mall with your gender,
who knows
what you’ll wake up as? You might become a whole new species, something even
Star Trek: The Next Generation
hasn’t seen. Someone I used to work with in Phoenix decided Tijuana was the place that they were going to go to obtain lap-band surgery because it was considerably cheaper there. The details were then revealed: the procedure wasn’t even going to take place in a hospital but would be done in a hotel, and even though I think Holiday Inn Express commercials are funny, I understand that they are just commercials and that Holiday Inn isn’t a college or a medical school, even in Spanish. Weeks after the surgery when the person was eating at a restaurant, the patient followed the doctor’s orders and ordered the soup—then proceeded to gobble up artichoke dip, eight squares of pita bread, and seven deep-fried coconut shrimp. You get what you pay for, I thought to myself; Dr. Holiday Inn Express slipped you a roofie, knicked your belly button with an X-Acto blade, gave you a Band-Aid, and then cashed your check. You don’t even have as much as a twist tie in there, let alone a lap band.

When thinking about doing something permanent, irreversible, and requiring more talent and skill than coloring hair, I tend to take the approach that you’re gonna need the best guy possible. If I’m considering a body-altering procedure, I’ll save my pennies, eat out one or two fewer meals a week, stop shopping at Gap and go to Target instead because I want Dr. Number One. I don’t want Dr. Half Price, I want the best guy on the block. He may be
from
Thailand, but if he’s that good, he’s not there anymore.

And if that’s not bad enough, it’s in
Thailand.
No way am I going there, no matter how big my chin collection has grown. I saw
Brokedown Palace
sixteen times last month on HBO, and if that country will arrest Claire Danes, it will arrest anybody. No one is safe, and I’ll be damned if I spend one night of my life sleeping outside on a straw mat with roaches trying to crawl into my ears and parasites attempting to stage a military coup in my small intestine.

Should I decide that I need some work done someday, I’ll find a nice doctor in a white coat who has an office with walls. And if my insurance won’t cover the surgery and I can’t afford it, I’m not going to Thailand. I guess I’d rather just say, “All right, then. Phuket.”

The Idiot Girl and the Flaming Tantrum of Death

I
will be
the first one to admit that I was one to think that I had done a pretty good job of hanging on to my “cool” quotient after I finished college, got married, found a job, bought a house, and then started wearing body shapers. I will fully cop to having the idea that should I ever return to a college campus, I could slip right in, fit in amongst the younguns without any problem or hiccup because I thought I knew what was goin’ on.

In fact, every now and then, I still go to see bands if one of my favorites is playing (although now I like to leave a little bit before the show is over to beat the traffic out of the parking lot), I can still slug down JD with the best of them (although now I really prefer a nice red wine coupled with an Ambien), and I prefer the Gap to Chico’s any day (although I do adore the room that anything marked “stretch” affords me).

So if you hold that delightful, youthful reverie close to your self-esteem, identity, and/or worth as a human being and believe it as much as I did, then my advice to you is that unless you really want to know just how old you are, a college campus is the last place you’d ever want to be. Retain your dream, full and intact, and go to a golf course instead, mutter “Fascists” under your breath as you’re teeing off, or eat lunch at a Cheesecake Factory and pretend to be horrified that people are delighted to pay seven dollars for a piece of cake.

However, no one had given me that advice before I moved to a college town that every September doubles its population from the preceding month’s. Therefore, I was entirely unprepared for what I saw the first time I went to pick my husband up at the university.