Tuesday, June 28, 2011

He Literally Scared the...

While fitting shoes on a customer at the store yesterday, I heard another customer tell her child, " Just go in your diaper, that's what it's there for." I assume the little pooper had said something like, "Gotta go potty," but I missed that, focused as I was on my job. But the word DIAPER always reorients my concentration. (As do words like NUCLEAR, WASTE, TOXIC, and DISASTER.)
A coworker, unaware of the imminent arrival of an S-Bomb, began to help the mother. In the previous week, he'd had surgery to remove part of an eyelid, on which a melanoma had been found. The surgery was considered successful, but it left his right eye mostly shut by stitches, and that side of his face somewhat swollen and discolored in a purplish-yellow sort of way. He was not easy to look at, even for those of us adults who work with him daily and have seen a lot of zombie movies.
A couple of minutes passed, and my customer was coming to a conclusion on his shoes, which allowed me to devote about 93 percent of my attention to the happy and curious toddler. He was exploring the stacks of shoe boxes, and trying to clamber up on one of the fitting stools just before it happened. The mother was trying on shoes, and, I'm guessing, not thinking any further about the doo-doo directive she had given the flesh of her flesh a few minutes ago.
Doubtless, he was not thinking about it either. He was testing the safety of his environment, and the strength of his muscles, when, nearly atop his Everest, the melanoma-free, purple-cheeked, child-friendly but one and a half-eyed old man with the gruff voice, and comedic intonation insufficient to convince a two-year old, said, "Hey, don't climb on my chair."
The child, now filled with fear, devoted all his muscular energy to getting the hell away from that face and voice, and laid down at the feet of his mother, crying softly. The employee apologized, and said that he had only been kidding, though his pirate-zombie face could never convince the child of it. Then, of course, the mother, keenly aware of the scent of her offspring said, "Well, I guess, you did use your diaper, didn't you?" I vomited inside my own mind.
Thanks for reading,
MP

Monday, June 20, 2011

What I Learned From An Iowa Marathon

#1. The lake part of Storm Lake is no more than twenty feet deep, which means Jimmy Hoffa is not playing bocce ball and wearing cement shoes down there.

#2. The county where the marathon was held is Buena Vista. Pronounced like "bee-yu-na." Such a mauling of this bee-oot-i-ful Spanish word makes me think that we need more immigration from Me-hee-co.

#3. That is the smell of money, not manure.

#4. Iowans are friendly-even when treated rudely. I don't know what the jerk-off with the earbuds said to the teenage volunteer at the mile 23 waterstop (Other than it wasn't "Thank you."), but she apologized to him.

#5. There is always someone who has done more marathons than you. Unless you're the guy I talked to afterwards who had just finished his 151st. I could have said that I'd done 152, but I was in a small town in Iowa-I just couldn't bring myself to lie.

#6. Spectators should never shout out, with about 1400 meters to go, that there are only "1400 meters to go to the finish." A meter being about one step's worth of distance, 1400 of them seems like a trip around the Equator. Just say things like, "Almost there," or, "Just around the corner." The promise of imminent relief from pain, even if false, is what's needed.

#7. There is always enough gas in the tank for a couple of "fly-bys" in the home stretch. I extended my trembling arms shoulder high and swooped from side to side, like a drunk walking a tightrope. The spectators loved it, and I only knocked down two of my fellow participants, who were dueling it out for 96th place.

#8 Lastly, I love Iowa. It's a beautiful state, with well-kept farms, and hard-working, fun-loving people who will come out to watch and help complete strangers exhaust themselves running from one end of a county to the other. They thanked me for coming and doing my silly airplane swoop.
My wife is a native Iowan, and she came out to support me and those who were strangers to her. She wandered about the county roads, taking pictures of sheep, and breathing in the smell of money. She was a small-town girl who had come home. She is kind, and decent, and hard-working, and loving, and funny. She is the thing I love best about Iowa.

Thanks for reading,
MP