Brown Eye Sees Red

Although it may sound like what I'm about to declare is cynical, I assure you that this is not the case.  Simply put, throughout my life I've observed many people and things, resulting in my having certain attitudes and beliefs.  Many, or more likely, most people will disagree and this is where the label of Cynic would be bestowed upon me.

I don't believe in God, Jesus or Heaven and Hell.  The likelihood that once upon a time there was a dude named Jesus, is possible.  Hell, you could go down any street in the greater Los Angeles area, call out that name and a half dozen fellas of Latin decent will respond, so the likelihood of one existing in the "biblical" age, is possible.  He probably wouldn't have been found at a Home Depot....  Although, Jesus WAS a carpenter, wasn't he? 🤔  Hmm.  Subject for another day.

I also do not believe in coincidences, accidents or luck.  Not good luck, anyway.  I am somewhat superstitious.  Not to the point that I believe Friday the 13th to be cursed, nor do I think it unfortunate if a black cat crosses my path.  However, I do think that if I break a mirror I will receive seven years of bad luck, although with a good lawyer, you might get that reduced to three years with good behaviour. 😄 [Insert comedic rimshot here 🥁].  I think Wednesdays tend to be the worst day of the week for me, but have improved over the course of the last year, so perhaps I can lay that one to rest.  And red underwear promotes diarrhea.

"WAIT!! What was that last one?" you all are probably saying to yourselves. "Red underwear does what now?" 

I've discovered through trial and error that consistently, whenever I leave the house wearing red underwear, I usually will have an accident or what is called in the armed forces as a near miss.  Today I had a near miss and I will tell you all about it.

It was dark and I was still half asleep when I dressed myself for work, this morning, so I never noticed what colour of undies I was stepping into.  I got to work and everything went as planned.  I arrived downtown late and missed the shuttle back to the garage, so I waited.  When I finally got back to the Operations Center where we keep the buses, I had to go inside to fill out the sheet for overtime.  It was when I was returning to my vehicle to come home when I felt a little pfft.  A little fart snuck out like a teen sneaking out her bedroom window to see the bad boy her parent disapprove of.  Only the aftermath of this sneaky little ripper felt... off.  I stopped dead in my tracks, standing in the middle of the parking lot looking perplexed.  It wasn't until I sat down in my vehicle before I realized what had actually happened.  If the wetness I felt in my undercarriage wasn't enough to convince me, the stench certainly did.  Woof!! 😬

What's done was done.  No getting around that.  I had planned on stopping off at the grocer on the way home and decided to follow through with that plan rather than racing home.  I figured I could salvage my situation in the public restroom before going home.

Have you ever had to "go" really bad and as soon as you arrived at home, it's like your body believes it's okay to open the flood gates before you get to the restroom?  That never happened to me, but like I said, today's debacle was a near miss.

The moment I parked my truck and began my trek into the store, the same thing occurred.  My body thought it was time to unleash the Hounds of Hell at which moment, I tightly clenched my cheeks and I'm not talking about the rosy red ones on my face.  Now I had to quickly make my way inside the store, walking only from the knees down and very little movement everywhere else.  It was all eyes straight forward, avoid eye-contact with everyone and steer straight into the bathroom.  You avoid eye-contact because at moments like these, everyone becomes psychic and they suddenly know you're in peril and will either intervene, forcing the matter to be even more intense.  Or they'll stand back and stare with judging eyes.  Either way, I don't wish to engage.

Before the door was completely open, I saw a sign stating the toilet was out of order.  "Oh shit!!" I said aloud, but then noticed there were two stalls.  A reprieve!!  After removing my heavy coat and gloves is when I discovered the aftermath AND that I was wearing red underwear. 

I ate a salad on the weekend.  Within a few hours, the lettuce and everything had vacated my body and it wasn't pleasant.  At the time, I believed that it was because I may have put too much dressing on the salad.  I'd shaken the bottle so instead of thick ranch dressing oozing out of the bottle, it was a liquified ranch that came rushing out of the bottle.  So last night, when I finished off the pack of salad, I used much less dressing, even adding croutons and cheese to the blend.  So when I discovered the tragedy that had occurred in my skivvies, I was bewildered.

Later in the day, I had to consult Google as to whether salads cause diarrhea and guess what?  I was not the first person to pose this query to the search engine, nor am I the lone wolf affected by this.  Apparently, because salads are high in fibre, it promotes bowel movements and because lettuce has high water content, the afore mentioned bowel movements are often liquified.

🤨 The shit you learn...  Pardon the pun.

I finished out my tasks, including filling up with fuel.  The nastiness was behind me (Again, pardon the pun.)  I had makeshift protection in my pants in the form of folded T.P., which got me thinking about a product to pitch to the folks on Shark Tank.  A protection pad for men.  Similar to those pads that the ladies use, only these would be designed to guard against sharting.  It happens way too often.  Hell, I remember missing my best friend's son's baptism because I sharted on the way to the church.  That was not a near miss.  The attack that day struck with heavy vengeance.  Today's nastiness was mainly water, I believe, but this is bordering on T.M.I..

I had initially called them Shart Pads, but quickly changed the name to Shartnado Pads. [Patent Pending 😉] It's just a catchier name.  

Bugbear

Do you know what the speed limit is within a parking lot?  Would it surprise you to know that it is 15 kilometers per hour?  I think I am one of the only people to, not only know this fact, but who practices it also.  Yet people on foot, will constantly run in front of or behind my vehicle then turn to chastise me for "moving too quickly".  These are usually the same culprits who will then climb into their vehicle and speed out of the parking lot at a velocity of sixty or seventy kilometers per hour.  These people are among the many pet peeves that seem to plague my everyday life.

A "pet peeve" is described as: A particular and often continual annoyance; A personal bugbear.

My life seems riddled with pet peeves, the afore is a minor one.  Though it seems to occur upon almost every visit to the nearby Home Depot, it has little or no effect on me, personally, but has become tiresome, all the same.

I've tweeted my major peeves, which have been commented on as being shared by many.  The most frequent being that I will sit through a barrage of annoyingly repetitive commercials only to realize that the program I'm watching is recorded.  Even with the remote control in hand, my thumb placed firmly over the fast-forward button, I will often mutter profanity to myself about the irritating commercials, all the while forgetting to depress the button under my opposable digit.

Another exasperation of mine is sitting down to watch a program, whether it a mere sixty minutes in length or a movie that is more than a couple of hours long, and falling asleep.  I'd prefer to see the show in it's entirety, avoiding revisitation.  Earlier today, it happened to me twice while watching the (Christopher Nolan) Batman Trilogy.  The movies are not boring in the least, yet I found myself slipping into deep slumber about an hour into each movie, only having to skip back ninety minutes to rewatch the full movie.  This also occurs whenever I sit down to watch any of the Star Wars movies, although I rarely bother going back to watch the full stories over again.

Probably one of the biggest pet peeves I have, nowadays, isn't one that's come into fruition until as of late.  It does not occur very often, yet when it does, it sends me spiraling.  It has occurred when I'm climbing into my vehicle.  When I'm climbing into bed and (earlier tonight) settling down on the sofa to watch a movie.  Breaking wind.  A split-second before I plant myself firmly in my seat, a minor fart will slip out.  Minor in it's simplicity, yet major enough to almost bring me to tears.  The smell nearly harsh enough to drop a moose out of the sky.

I know not the recent exuberance of flatulence, but I suspect it may largely have to do with the ingestion of tomato-based foods.  I did have pizza yesterday and lasagna today.  Decrease the intake of such foods and I'll be less likely to fart on myself.  So better consciousness of my surroundings and my pet peeves will likely decrease.  If only it were so easy...

Trouser Snake

At first mention of the words, trouser snake, one's imagination goes to a male's genitalia, which in this instance you'd be mistaken.  To what I refer to in this blog, today, is going to be much much worse and far more offensive.  So be warned before reading on, and if you indeed choose to continue reading, you've been forewarned and cannot blame anyone but yourself.  So that being said, I will continue my tawdry tale.

Last weekend was Thanksgiving for Canada.  I don't know why our Thanksgiving Day is more than a month prior to that of the U.S.  Canada probably wanted a long weekend in October, is what many of us have speculated.  I know in the last few years, there was a holiday proposed for February, although I don't think it's recognized in all the provinces.  (I'm talking about YOU, Quebec.  You suck, Quebec!)

So after stuffing myself full at my mother's house, she was gracious enough to send me home with a mountainous amount of left overs.  I don't know how much, per se, but upon warming it up the other night, I'd speculate that it was, at least, a pound in weight.  The left overs contained pretty much everything that had been available at the dinner table, except for the beets, which my mother announced she wouldn't include out of fear it would turn everything purple in colour.

So Thursday night was the night I'd decided to heat up and devour this huge meal.  This was not the easiest of tasks, by any measure, but like a trooper, I forced it all down as I watched wrestling (TNA Impact Wrestling) on Spike TV.  Later that night, I suspect due to the tryptophan in my system, I slept one of the most restful nights in a long long time.  I hadn't been sleeping very well in the nights preceding, so the slumber was welcome.

The next day, work went on as usual.  No issues.  No nothing, other than the usual setbacks and shit.  After work I needed to speed across town to sign some documents, then afterwards, I headed to the Home Depot, in search of a specific tool that I want to purchase for my brother-in-law for Christmas.  While looking around, I suddenly found myself needing to visit the washroom.  I don't normally like to use public facilities, as they are usually pretty f*cking gross, but this being a newer Home Depot location and in a decent part of town, I didn't think the washroom would be in too terrible of disarray, and quickly hobbled in it's direction.  Plus, judging from the impending doom, whether or not the bathroom was a disaster, I had one locked in the chamber and the safety switch was slipping.

Sadly, someone was in the handicapped stall, the spot I usually like to occupy as it has lots of leg room.  I don't necessarily need to stretch out as I "drop the kids off at the pool", but it's like a life jacket on a boat.  It's nice to have, just in case.  So I squeezed myself into the other available stall and unleashed the fury.

Actually it wasn't so furious, thank god!  Nothing is worse than having an atrocious bowel movement and having to clean up the mess with that sandpaper they call toilet paper.  Am I right, people?  It's like wiping with a cheese grater.  It might do the trick, but it doesn't feel good at all, nor are you left in a very happy place afterward.  But thankfully, this was not one of those horrific occasions.  Nope!  This one slipped out quite nicely.  Like a basketball through a hoop with nothing but net.  Phoof!!!

I took care of the aftermath and turned to flush when I noticed the gargantuan specimen looking back up at me from the porcelain bowl.  I'm not bragging, nor is this anything to be proud of, but I am a little impressed at the slick torpedo that was laid to rest in the tiny toilet stall at the Home Depot.  By my estimation, it had to be between 14 to 16 inches in length, and it wasn't coiled.  It was straight as the crow flies, nestled comfortably at the bottom of the bowl.  I was almost tempted to take a picture of it with my phone, but quickly decided against it as I don't know of anyone who would be as impressed with this feat as I was (and am).

I flushed and forever lost the evidence of my visit to the Home Depot, but the memory is still in my head.  I remember leaving the confines of the tiny bathroom thinking, "That was one helluva trouser snake."  It was then that I knew I'd have to share this with the world, via my blog, Brain Matter!