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.

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.