Right Place, Wrong Time.

I truly believe that there are little “Humor Angels” flying around me just so I can experience it, marinade in it, let it age a little, then eventually write about it.  I enjoy a good laugh.  I enjoy a sense of humor.  I quite enjoy mocking myself.  And as of late, I enjoy a good ol’ fashioned “ARE YOU KIDDING ME?” moment. 

No one person is perfect.  I’m definitely not.  I’ve had my share of embarrassing stories, frustrating moments, foot in mouth disease as well as just an over all bad day.  It happens.  

But what I experienced this week was something that just doesn’t happen.  It doesn’t.  Or at least I thought it only happened to other people and I just see, hear or read about it. 

Once you get past my hard crunchy shell, I’m actually a sweetheart.  Stop laughing.  I am.  I’m sympathetic, compassionate, will tread through hell or high water to protect the ones I care about, and honestly, I’m a crybaby titty mouth. 

I get embarrassed watching programs, (ha! I said “programs” what am I 80?) where the characters say or do something completely humiliating.  I blush.  I get nervous.  I actually cover my face with my fingers split so I cannot watch but watch.  I get shy when I witness someone else’s discomfiture.  I do.  Inside I’m saying “Oooohhhhmygosh! That poor person!” but on the outside my face is red and my armpits itch.  Random, I know.

Allow me to paint this picture for you, so you can engulf yourself into my world of “THAT. JUST. HAPPENED.”

Chevron, a local convenient store (slash) gas station where I live.  Unless I’m a complete nimrod and don’t realize they are a National Chain – just go with me here. 

I’m in a hurry because my ex is on his way to drop my son off.  I’m in line anxiously swaying back and forth.  It’s close to lunchtime so there are a few people in front, and in back picking up their all-American lunch of Snickers and a 40oz soda pop. 

I’m third in line.  In front of me is a gal a few inches shorter than me and about a buck sixty.  I don’t see her face.  She’s sporting a ponytail with cute little wisps of hair.  Her tank top is fairly loose and her spray-painted on knee-length sweats are a light gray.  Cute.  But tight. 

A lady and her friend are behind me, both are chatting it up about “So and So at their work”.  I don’t assess their attire – trust me, I was in cut off sweat shorts and a halter-top because I was playing in dirt.  There, I said it.  I’m not a fashionista. 

The cash register is ringing, door chime is chiming, coolers opening and shutting, people bs’ing, TV over the register is displaying CNN and there were a couple of construction workers bickering over the burrito display. 

Then this noise appears out of nowhere. 

PPPFHFFBBBBLLLFPHDFFFBBBBPPPLLLLLRRRREEEEEEET.

**cricket, cricket, cricket**

I stopped swaying.  The atmospheric noise simmered down a bit and everything was kind of in slow motion.  I looked around to see if I was the only one that heard that. 

What was that?  I couldn’t figure it out.  Then it came.  The aroma filtered through the gap between the person in front of me and myself and lingered like a freshly blown out candle.  

Oh God!  It burns!  I cough.  Then I hold my breath – kind of.  Then I start backing up.  Make it stop!  This putrid smell of dead fish and peanut butter or something maybe ketchup, was floating around me.  My throat itches!  I cough again.  I. CAN. TASTE. IT! 

**filter’s broken**

“Oh for F*cks sake!”  Fell out of my mouth.  I can’t breathe.  I hold the cash up to my nose so I could take in the smell of a million grubby fingers over the potpourri of wrong and foul and road kill.

I catch a glimpse of the cashier glaring at me.  What? What did I do?  Apparently we need to switch spots so he can bask in the stench for a bit. 

I looked down at the girl in front of me and I – well I wish I had my camera with me because there is no way, on this earth, that anyone would believe me if I swore it on a Bible; but there was a brown spot on her light gray sweat pants that I know wasn’t there before.  I don’t know what possessed me to glance down.  I honestly have no excuse.  I really don’t.  Aside from the weird fact that I did. 

Yep.  That about sums up my expression.

At this point the conversation in my head went something like this:

Me: Did she just shart?

Me: OMIGOD, she did!

Me: Wait.  Was that spot there before?

Me:  Nope.  Pretty sure it wasn’t.

Me:  It’s wet.  Ok, gonna throw up.

I looked up – again, checking to see if anyone was seeing what I was seeing and by this time things have gone back to fairly normal.  Then I looked down again. Yep, still there.

Mind you, the gal in front of me is at the register by this time.  Pays for her goodies, is very pleasant, chats it up a bit to the cashier and carries on through her purchase as if pooping herself is an everyday normal activity that partakes in her home.  “Oh, I’m good, I just shit myself, but that’s ok, I have like 10 more of these sweats at home.  I tell you this material just isn’t as absorbent as they used to be.”  Yeah, totally imagined her saying that.

My turn.  I step up the counter and my little talking out of place moment that happened earlier left a bad taste in Grumpy Cashier’s mouth.  I’m sure he wasn’t aware of the 30-second torture that felt like 3 days that I just endured. 

“I need two packs of Marlboro Ultra Light 72’s please – and a bottle of fresh air.”  He cocks his head sideways.  Then I let go.  “Did you not smell that? Did you not see that?” 

Grumpy: What?

Me:  That lady that was in front of me just shit herself.

Gal behind me: Oh my God! Thank God we weren’t the only ones who smelled that.

Me:  Smelled it? I tasted it.  Oh my god.  I’m sorry.  That’s embarrassing.

Grumpy:  I didn’t smell it.  She was nice. 

**awkward**

Two men at corndog/burrito/chorizo/deep fried .49 food cabinet:  (chuckle, chuckle) I don’t care who you are, that’s sexy.

At this point I’m crying.  It wasn’t funny.  Or sexy. Trust me. I was a little irritated that that just happened and I could not figure out why, if you feel something coming on, you can’t excuse yourself to the restroom.  Or do what I would do and just bail.  At what point do you stand in line (with the odds pretty much not being in your favor that what you are about to release will be messy) and just let it go? 

I get that you are taking a chance.  The Russian roulette of farting.  Will it be silent? Will it be loud?  “Oh well, that’s a chance I guess I’ll have to take. Six of one half a dozen of another, right?”  How do you arrive at such a decision?  And did you even factor in that it wouldn’t be just air?  Maybe, just maybe it would make a poopy stain? 

For the love.

I told the two women behind me to go ahead because I could not see from the tears I had in my eyes.

The transition from repulsed to uncontrollable hysteria, came from the fact that (after assessing the situation that really only took place in under 3 minutes) this all reminded me of a blog story I read a while back.  I don’t find this funny.  I was actually pissed and embarrassed for the girl.  However – my bloggy friend wrote about a similar accident that happened to her back when she lived in Kansas.

Except the lady that did it – admitted it. 

When I read the story, I couldn’t believe that would actually happen.  So when it came time for me to pay for my smokes, I couldn’t.  I was literally crying from the irony that not only did I call bullshit on her story (because that’s stuff you see in movies – not real life) but the little humor angels I pissed off with my doubt, showered me with some good ol’ fashioned down home bathroom humor.

I’m damaged.  My weak stomach cannot handle foulness.  It can’t.  Not only do I feel horrible for the woman who pooped, and apparently didn’t care – I feel bad that I laughed so hard I cried.