Thursday, September 15, 2011

Traveling Meth Lab

Let’s cut to the chase. Everyone poops.  When you open up a can of worms and ask about GI issues while running, everyone comes out to play!! Your comments were exceptional on yesterday’s post. I learned a few things:

  • Churches are a great place to go for an emergency crap during a run because they are usually open. Very apropos because I’m pretty sure Jesus pooped as well.
  • In some circles, “PICO” is the code word for “it’s happening” (i.e., Poop Is Coming Out).
  • Many of you actually plan your runs around where you can squat: cornfields, McDonalds, friend’s houses.
  • Any of you who offered their homes to me to poop in (Jill) are saints. Real friends let friends blow it up.
  • In my post, I used the phrase “turd honking for the right of way” to express urgency. Some of you suggested “turtling,” “touching the cotton” and “steamer knockin’.” Brilliant.

This was all very eye opening and made me feel connected to you all on a different level altogether.

Moving on. Although, I could talk about this all day.

Last night I got an email from son, Sam, who is 13. Yes, we email from room to room in our house. It said, “Can’t you picture me and George (not his real name) driving around the U.S. in this?” Sam has often expressed his desire to graduate from high school and take a cross country trip with his friends.

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This was a listing on Craigslist for $1,000. To me, it looks like either a sex offender’s haven or a meth lab on wheels (do you watch Breaking Bad?). To Sam it represents freedom, mobility and adventure. I’m pretty sure the adventure would be found in this piece of trash breaking down 2 miles from where he bought it or the sewage backing up so severely the whole contraption had to be condemned.

Parenting is tough for many reasons. You pour your blood, sweat and tears into these monsters just to prepare them to leave you. It is your job to teach them to be independent and to live without you, but in doing so, you are assuring they are going to leave. To fly. To drive off into the sunset in some piece of shit motorhome.

Here’s what I love: his perseverance, his sense of adventure, his desire to include me in the “plan” by sending me this picture. What I don’t love is the reality that he will fly the coop one day. It is a rite of passage, yet I never knew how hard it must have been for my parents. We don’t “get” these things until we experience them ourselves as parents.

My greatest wish is that the travelling meth lab will be off the market by the time Sam is old enough to actually buy it and drive it. Please pray for us.

SUAR

PS: Get your SUAR shirts HERE. They will only be on sale for about another week.

30 comments:

  1. I would love an RV. The meth lab would be just to pay for gas and food and new trail shoes. Sam can ride shotgun.

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  2. PICO and turtling... I am going to have to introduce those terms to my people!

    My husband has a strange desire to drive a beat up RV around... maybe he can chaperone.

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  3. My 12-year old came downstairs crying the other night... "I'll never be able to have a job or a house... I'm just not cut out for that!" He doesn't crave any sort of adventure... did he come from my womb?

    I think the adventurous sorts do scare their moms more in that "OMG... I hope he's okay" sort of way. But the ones like mine scare their moms in that "will he ever fuckin leave?" sort of way.

    It usually works out in the end no matter which type you've got :)

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  4. Some friends of mine actually did that a few years back when they got out of college, they had a blast, and it was so fun to follow their adventures on FB... That said, I could see how, as a mother, that would invoke just a bit of panic. :)

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  5. Yikes. I'm all for vintage RV's but that thing is nasty. Tell Sam he needs to look for his sweet ride at tincantourists.com. Shasta, Airstream, Spartin, Westcraft... Beautiful.

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  6. Real friends let friends blow it up.

    Bahahaha! This is true. When I was moving I had some friends helping me out. I bought them food and beer and fully expected them to take at least one dump while they were there all day. My friend Ashley actually said she was going to go home to poop. I made her (literally forced her) to poop in my bathroom.

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  7. Haha! I'm not sure what's funnier: telling my friends that I know someone who has a piece of shit traveling meth lab or that I would allow any of my runner friends to pop a squat at my house.... :) Thanks for the laugh today! My abs got quite a workout yesterday, but this helps too!

    Sarah

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  8. That one will be gone but another will be there.

    I am saving my $$$ so that I can buy the 5 year old a travelling sh*thome to leave....LOL!


    Turtle poking it's head out is my version of PICO.

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  9. My husband's fav PICO is that he's crowned and dilated. He thinks he's hilarious.

    On your other topic, my son is turning 18 in 2 weeks, and he is thinking in terms of a career college student. I'm afraid he's going to end up fat, bald and 40 and still living with us! Hahaha...

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  10. This made me smile on what has been an exceptionally hard parenting day. As for the poop...I don't like to talk about because I have to wipe it off bottoms all day.

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  11. Hi-larious as usual.

    I have emergency crapped in both a church and a hospital. There is a hospital on one of my routes. Forgot to mention that. I have shit in one breath and then gone across the hall to the chapel for a quick prayer in the other. No lie.

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  12. i would like to discuss the other side of this ...PEE

    myself and many other lady runners have the pee problem, where we pretty much have lost control. some folks are wearing pads. some just let if flow, some only run where they know there are port o potties are ...

    so i am on a mission to create some runner pad, diaper that doesn't chaf but is absorant ...

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  13. Maybe Sam will let you run in the areas where he is RV-ing. Then you'd always have a place to crap!

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  14. Oh Beth, this made me laugh. But don't worry about Sam leaving. I know at this point you cannot even phathom it. But trust me, by the time he is 19-22 years of age you will be so ready for him to go. There will be so many shinnagins (sp?)and stupid things that he will do you will pull your hair out and wish for the day he was 13 again!

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  15. My husband and I are also looking around for a travel trailer. We can share links with your son. We've already built a cabin in Alaska and we're thinking a travel trailer would make an awesome second home in the lower 48. Adventure and creativity is what keeps us alive. And yeah our mothers worry and would rather we stayed nearby. P.S. We're both 36.

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  16. Rock on Sam! I think the traveling meth lab would be perfect for an amazing end of high school road trip. :)

    I missed out on the poop post.. but have you ever heard of hedgehogging it?

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  17. my friend's version of Pico is "it's knockin' at the basement door." LOVE IT.

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  18. I run now after dropping the kids off at the school so don't have the bathroom problem BUT pre-kids, when I lived in Washington DC and ran first thing in the morning.. oh. my. word. I thought I was the only one. Here's what I discovered: UNIVERSITIES. DC is well-populated with universities, and they almost always have free public bathrooms. Student centers are the best bet. Love your blog, btw, just stumbled upon it a few days ago..

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  20. My favorite which is a "Vacation" movie quote is -Prairie Doggin! I hate when I'm on a run and start Prairie Doggin!

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  21. Wow - I never thought in run pooping would happen to me. Now that it has, I can see why people plan around it. I need to bring TP!

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  22. So, your post yesterday inspired me...found some pics of pro athletes gone horribly wrong! Last one is of a dump-on-the-run...

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  23. Having a 21 yr-old son, I admire Sam's desire to plan and take action but I can understand your position on him leaving! We want them to leave and be successful but then again we don't want them to leave for fear that they won't be successful. (Although I know that eventually, "I will feel like "are you ever gonna leave!!" if he stays too long) ;-)

    Sam will need to go out into the world to realize that not everyone talks about poop all the time. Well, I've heard those kind of people exisit.

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  24. love "Breaking Bad...watch it every sunday. My husband and I always say "the piper's at the gates of dawn," whenever a turd is getting ready to escape prematurely. I am sure Pink Floyd would be thrilled. Incidentally, I am running a half marathon this weekend and I am taking your advice and wearing a pair of underwear under my running shorts as a backup layer that can be disposed of just in case the piper breaks through. thanks for the tip!

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  25. Hahhaa awesome. I'm glad he has a plan and he's including you in on it.

    By the way, I say things like "got a turtlehead poking out" to signify that it's happening.

    Code Brown, means exactly how it sounds.

    And going to drop some kids off at the pool.

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  26. Seriously...I think Sam was channeling your poop post and thought of the classic Christmas Vacation ...another line to your issues...simply put...

    *The shitters full!!*

    Spoken with the lovely twang of a guy in his undies, smoking a cigar, and drinking a beer!

    When he drives up in that meth lab one day all you have to say is...Now that's an RV!!

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  27. PICO. Love it. My 4 year old son usually screams (in public) "the poop is coming and I can't stop it!"

    What about using the RV as your SAG wagon - have someone follow you while you're driving so when you need to poop you can just go in there.

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  28. I'll have to tell the sis-in-law that her terminology made it big on the blog! PICO is a key term if you need friendly help!

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