The first time I had to raise my hand in a class had nothing to do with a teacher’s question. I actually had to raise it 30 minutes earlier than I did, but didn’t, and I would regret it for years and I am sure if childhood relevance cared any weight in adulthood, I would say that I regret it more than any other single self-inflicted event in my life.
The quiet rumbles in my lower stomach started while we were saying the Pledge of Allegiance, but the discomfort was minor, and I gave it little thought. Ten minutes later my view had changed somewhat, the early rumbles had become a bit gassy, but if I softly eased it out and looked busy and innocent, I could escape detection. Another ten minutes and I was out of gas, one leg here, move another there, putting my weight on the right butt, then on the left, gave only seconds worth of relief. Another 15 minutes and I was in serious trouble. That is when my butt said, “Raise your hand or poop right here.”
I did not raise my hand; I launched it as high as I could stretch. The teacher looked at my sudden demand for attention like one would a stranger. Not at all sure that she recognized me, confused and busy with more important matters she said, “not now.” Like stretching rubber, my arm went to unnatural heights. She took a second look, whatever sub-human quality she saw in my eyes gave me a reprieve. I told her, and announced to all that I, me, the invisible one, who saw the slightesst attention like the plague needed to go to the bathroom. She said, “Can’t you wait,” and then thought better of it, “OK go.”
I had so wanted to make it. With my first step into the hall, I knew it was now a race, but if I moved too quickly, I would not hold. Only thirty feet left, now twenty, at the ten mark it was over, out it came. Like a green horn just off the saddle, I waddled the last few feet to the boy’s room. It still would have been OK, no one was in the halls, but as I threw open the restroom door there stood Jerry Egerton, the toughest, nastiest kid on the planet.
I did not hear his hackling end even after the bathroom door closed behind him. I cleaned up pretty well and I covered up my underwear with a mountain of paper towels at the very bottom of the trash can, but the damage was done.
The humiliation should have been crushing, but as it turned out, only Jerry Egerton had been humored because everyone hated the bully as much as I did. If truth be told no one was that far removed from a poo in the pants at some point, and others simply thought, “Thank God that wasn’t me.” Within a couple of days, Jerry’s finger-pointing shoutouts of “poo boy” got old and ended. By week’s end no one remembered, no one but me, who still winces at the ancient memory of my final delicate waddling steps.
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