I’m eating lunch with all these old teachers. I eat quick so I don’t have to listen to them talk about a pesky student or the latest Survivor episode. One day, I am finishing off my lunch with an apple. There is a nice elderly lady who always sits to the right of me, but we never talk. As I am eating my apple, my bite creates an unusually huge squirt that lands on her left shoulder. At first I think I’m in the clear, but nine seconds after my squirt her right hand slowly brings up a napkin and starts wiping her blouse. Shit. I look in her direction and say, “Uh, yeah, did I get you?” She interrupts me almost immediately and says, “No don’t worry about it; it was a juicy apple.” I force a laugh and mumble, “Sorry about that.” The poor lady is wiping at her shoulder for the next three minutes until I finally get up to leave. From then on, she mysteriously sits on the other side of the table.
The Lunch Lady
The lunch lady doesn’t like me much. There are two options for lunch. Pay $3.50 for the medium size plate and fill it up, or get ripped off and pay $4.50 for the large size plate and get the additional four square inches. Everyone always goes for the $3.50 of course. The deal is you get to fill up the plate as much as you want. All the other “normal” teachers fill it up all clean, pay “nicely,” and sit down with a smile to eat. I fill mine up every day to the point of absurdity with food overflowing. And everytime the lunch lady (who was obviously the brains and pioneer of the “$4.50 deal”) gives me this look as if to say, “You’re a cheap motherfucking scuzbucket! Why don’t you just pay the extra dollar for the other plate!?” As I pay, I act coy and guilty, the same way an obedient ten-year-old boy might act the day after he was severely punished by his parents. She never changes the rule though, and I absorb her looks the whole year. Mysteriously, the next year the prices are raised fifty cents.
The Bathroom
There is this one coed bathroom for two entire buildings of teachers to share. Sometimes there is a line, so I will rush from my room to get there first so I can sit on a fresh toilet seat without dried butt sweat and tiny poop particles. Problem is, sometimes there is a wait, and I feel hurried. Even worse, when I am finished, I leave to see three female teachers waiting. I feel guilty, not because they’re waiting, but because it stinks. I exit the lavoratory and murmur, “How you doin’?” They reply with a fake smile and a “Good, how are you?” as they walk past me. I say “fine,” and that’s that. Of course, its blatantly obvious what they’re really thinking: “I hope he doesn’t think that I’m thinking that I know he just took a shit. And I hope the people after me don’t think that it was me who took the shit. My shits don’t smell that bad.” It’s always the same three female teachers and it’s always the same It-wasn’t-me-that-stunk-up-the-bathroom smile. Mysteriously, one beautiful day in April, enough was enough, and there is a full bottle of lysol sitting upon the paper towel dispenser.
The toilet seat up/down dilemma:
Unlike my germaphobe colleagues and men who use toilets even when there are urinals available, I sit down on the toilet to take a shit. First I check to make sure the seat is down of course. If it’s up, it enhances the situation because there is a better chance someone hasn’t pissed all over the seat. If it’s dirty, I wipe it up. I don’t worry about bugs that evolved for infecting buttholes. Depending on the urgency with which I need to poop and the general level of filth in the bathroom, I may decide to lay down a layer of toilet paper over the seat (I always use toilet paper. I don’t trust the toilet protectors. They’re too thin. So sometimes I use a double or even triple layer of toilet paper over the seat). Otherwise, if it’s clean, I just sit down. Poops are much more pleasant when you can sit down and relax. Now when exiting the restroom, if you leave the seat down, women will like you and think you’re chivalrous; they’ll tell the other old ladies how you’re such a gentleman; and they’ll be the same old ladies having to squat over the toilet seat after some asshole (male or female) pisses on the toilet seat and doesn’t clean it up, thus worsening the whole piss-on-the-toilet-seat situation. I prefer leaving the toilet seat up. I think it’s an act of preservation for the community in preparation for the assholes who don’t put the seat up when pissing or the bitches that choose to squat and piss all over squeaky-clean toilet seats (Girls have admitted this to me.). However, the women will think you’re a jerk if you leave the toilet seat up and complain about how their husbands and sons do the same thing. I’ve had this conversation with women, but still have yet to persuade any woman with my reasoning. It’s a shame, since the bathroom situation could be improved for everyone if we all just left the toilet seat up.
The Shart
It’s nearing the end of lunchtime as I sit wearing my usual shirt, tie, and dress pants in the teachers’ lounge biting into my red apple. All the sudden I have to fart. So, instead of releasing a test fart, I fart. It’s a long, hot fart where you can actually feel the hot air come out slowly, possibly searing your anal tissue and butt hairs. I am surprised it does not smell as I expected. Three minutes pass as I finish my apple and get up to throw away my trash. As soon as I get up………I know. That fart earlier wasnt a fart. It was a shart. I knew it!!! My mind is going frantic, and I suddenly realize what is at stake here with two classes left in the day. I hurry to the bathroom to check if the shart has soaked through my beige dress pants. As I get there, I am having visions of the future. “Mr. Glenn shat his pants!” “Mr. Glenn, do you have any kleenex?” “Haha.” My entire reputation and well-being is on the line. I arrive at the bathroom, and my nightmare is true! Around the anus part of my pants, there is a noticeable brown spot the size of a dime. If only I hadn’t been sitting down! Around the brown spot is what appears to be a “bulls-eye” of poop-juice-water from the shart. In total, the entire thing is about the diameter of a tennis ball. The bell just rang, eliminating any possiblity of an emergency cleaning procedure. The journey to my classroom suddenly feels like a quest from “The Fellowship of the Ring.” Only I’m all alone on this one, and Smeigle is everywhere. I peek around corners like a pet detective to make sure no students will be closely following me. If one student sees it, the entire school will know. I knew this would happen!!! My trek back consists of strategic manuevers such as walking sideways like a cardboard cut-out, and twenty-step jogs” to create a “blur” to any students whom I pass, and even a couple “spin moves.” I make it to the room safely. I walk to the front of the room like a cardboard cut-out again, and I am SAFE. I collect homework and give students a made-up pop quiz on the overhead that we grade in class, my backside never exposed. I sit down to block out any possible exuding poop smell and relinquish myself to that squishy, horrible feeling I haven’t felt since middle school. I make it through the day and am saved. When I arrive home, I slowly walk through the front door like a penguin and quickly hop in the shower. Wow.
@The Shart entry. So hilarious! I had streams of tears while reading this! btw just bought your book Sexcessful Failures. I hope you decide to someday publish a book about dating, flings, and texting etc., on women, and I know you don’t admit to it, but you are a master of your craft and you know how make your articles entertaining while making a point at the same time. Thanks Dave, your words of wisdom have helped my line of thinking with women a whole lot easier!