My Grandpap Was a Genius

I was sitting here staring at my word processor while working on another piece of writing when I remembered two old complaints about Western TV shows and movies. One, no one had to reload. A guy could fire 50 shots and never reload. Two, no one had to unload. You would see the inside of a cabin or ranch house, and there wouldn’t be a bathroom. It got me thinking about my own childhood and my first vivid encounter with the lack of indoor plumbing. This memory surfaced as I thought about the convenience of having the toilet inside the house, instead of out back. It was an experience that marked an unforgettable chapter in my journey through family visits and personal discovery.

You go to the bathroom, do what you need to do, wipe, and flush. Everyone in the house knows what you just did. When you open the door and come out, everyone wrinkles their noses. Going to the bathroom is a private thing, and yet we set it up so that the toilet ends in a public announcement. What genius came up with this idea? It certainly wasn’t my Grandpap.

As a kid, I was used to having a toilet. I was used to it after I was housebroken. We always had one. After spending two years overseas, my parents and I returned to rural Pennsylvania for what they called the "Family Tour." We started with my father's family, the Hoity-toity's. They all had flush toilets inside. I don’t remember using one, but I'm sure I did. Well, maybe not; they were a funny and particular crowd. Then it was time to do the second leg of the Tour, my mom's family. It was called Bradenville. It wasn’t a real town. It was a Post Office stamp. That did me in.

I’m sure I had been there before, but I either had forgotten or was still in diapers. I can't think of any other reason for the eye-popping experience I had. Bear in mind that I was nine years old. After spending the afternoon playing with my not-too-well-acquainted cousins, being chased by the junk man and his junk-yard dog, I went back over to my grandparents’ house. Their house was only four rooms; they raised ten kids there. When you stood in the doorway, you could see into the parlor and kitchen and up the stairs. I had to go upstairs to find the bathroom. The stairs opened to a bedroom. I saw a door and figured it was the bathroom; it was a closet. I went through the room to the other bedroom and saw what was in the bathroom; it was also a closet. What's this? The bathroom was in the living room or, shudders, the kitchen?

Down the stairs I went. It was getting painful. I peeked into the living room, but no doors. That left the kitchen. Nope, no bathroom there! What is this? I needed to go. If I only needed to pee, it would have been no problem; a guy can pee anywhere. What I needed was a toilet, and I couldn’t find one. I had no choice but to ask.

“Mommy, I have to go,” I said.

“Well, then go.” (Uh, oh, is she having one of her days?)

“But, mommy, I-”

“I can’t go for you. ” (Yes, she is)

“I can’t find it.”

“It’s out back. Where do you think it is. This Bradenville.”

Wow! Grand-pap is smart. He put the toilet out back, instead of in the house. What a genius! Of course, you never smoke in an outhouse. You might end up four houses down with no hair from the methane explosion. I went out the backdoor, down the steps, across the board-covered well, and over to the shed. The toilet had to be in there, away from where you lived. It really needed to be in there the way I was feeling. I didn’t have time to do any looking around. Smart old man, my Grand-pap I opened the door, and the next thing I knew, I was six feet away, down on all fours, gagging and trying to hold myself.

I stood up and faced the biggest crisis of my life. I could go back into that evil-smelling shed, I could go in my pants, or I could go in the yard. My pride forced me to try the shed again. I had been housebroken for too long to go in my pants, and I was too shy to go in the yard. I unbuttoned my pants, pulled the zipper down, and, holding my pants up with my hands, I sucked as much air in as I could and dashed back into the shed. No toilet! All there was was a box with a hole in it. What should I do? I climbed onto the seat and cut loose. Unfortunately, I ran out of air first.

Now I'm gagging, crapping, and crying. I finished, grabbed some toilet paper, wiped, pulled my pants up, and tried to run out. I was yanked off my feet! My shirt was stuck in a crack in one of the boards! Oh, no! I’m doomed! Then, like a miracle, my shirt started to rip as I pulled harder and harder. I must have looked like a whirling dervish spinning out of that outhouse. I finally came to a stop and fell to the ground. I was alive! Praise the Lord, I was alive!

It was then that I learned why all those old pictures showed people with pinched expressions on their faces. Never trust an old portrait; those faces aren't solemn, they're constipated. They were holding themselves until they had to go.

"If Mom says no, ask Grandma. If Grandma says no… Who are we kidding? Grandma never says no”.

“When grandparents enter the door, discipline flies out the window”-Ogden Nash.

“Be yourself; everyone else is already taken” (Oscar Wilde/Maya Angelou)

“Beautiful young people are accidents of nature, but beautiful old people are works of art.” – Eleanor Roosevelt

“To a small child, the perfect granddad is unafraid of big dogs and fierce storms but absolutely terrified of the word ‘boo.’ ” – Robert Breault

“You know you’re a grandparent when you laugh when your grandkids do the same things that made you so angry when your kids did them.” – author unknown

“Grandparents are there to help the child get into the mischief they haven’t thought of yet.” – author unknown