My parents tell an infamous tale of me and poop. I was a wee baby, and my mom went to the grocery, leaving my dad with said wee baby.
At this point, my dad’s words ring through my mind. “And jiminy christmas, the second she pulled out the driveway, you pooped.”
Then the storytelling moves back to Mom. “I got home, and YOUR FATHER is standing at the top of the basement stairs, stripped to the waist. And he cries, ‘She pooooooped! And it got on ME! It got under my FINGERNAILS!'”
And then, she always adds a lovely little coda. “And he’d strapped you naked to the changing table.”
This story gets more detailed with every telling. I love it, because at this point, it’s almost performance art. And because I can picture my dad in his jeans, standing at the top of the basement stairs in our old house, freaking the fuck out. But I also love it because on some level, I can relate.
Li’l Frankfurter was sedated today so the vet could take X-rays of the kid’s back. Everyone’s favorite doxie is doing better, but the X-rays will give us an idea of what’s really going on in his long little doggie back.
He woke up from the sedation and we left. He cried when I put him in the kennel in the backseat and I felt guilty. He obviously wanted to be held. I considered pulling over and just this once holding him while I drove. He’d had a stressful afternoon.
But while I was mulling this over, an aroma filled the car.
I’ve had my car for two years but it still feels new to me. But you wanna know when the new car smell officially goes away? It’s when your dog has explosive diarrhea in said vehicle.
Poor baby. He was obviously upset. Once we got home, he had a bath immediately. And I as I used my bare hands to scrape the poo off Frank’s fur, I thought of my sweet daddy. “It got under my fingernails!”
Frank is now asleep. The kennel has been washed and bleached. The car is in the garage, windows open. I have dishpan hands from washing them approximately 953 times. But sometimes? Sometimes, love means getting poop under your nails.
5 Comments
That last line is a big fat truth.
That’s a great definition of love.❤️
Oh gosh! Thank goodness you didn’t attempt to hold him on the way home – holy mother! This is hilarious. The baby story is a hoot. Thanks for the visual – I have never met your dad, but I can certainly see him during this traumatic event.
Totally love. This story makes me think of when I sat with my BFF and her new baby boy (I had no kids yet) and watched her use her perfectly manicured fingernail to scrape a booger out of his nose. It occurred to me in that bizarre moment that love makes people do strange things and gross things and I wondered if I’d ever feel enough love to do something like that.
You know the answer.
Hope you sorted out som eanswers on Frank.
reminds me of my MIL. she could barely stand diapers. when my husband was 8 or 9, she tells the story of how their old dog exploded on the stylish shag carpet. she couldn’t deal with it. my husband had vanished somehow, so she seized on his older brother and offered him 50 cents to clean up the rug – a good amount for a kid those days. he looked her in the eye and said ‘mother, it’s worth a dollar’. she was about to fuss at him when she realized yes it was, and she should count herself lucky he hadn’t asked for five bucks.