Jackie & Debra: Stephanie Berger

mid-day musing

I'm endlessly fascinated by vanity license plates of all kinds (shout out to bixler's mom). However, nothing perplexes me more than the fact that rented limo services always, always, ALWAYS have license plates that read: "class" something-or-other. First of all, if experience has taught me anything, a rented limo is rarely the definition of class. (Unless, that is, your definition of "class" includes cramped seating for 12 (read: uncomfortable seating for 7), guaranteed late pick up, and a squiggly-mirrored ceiling.) To be fair, however, I suppose that whenever I have been part of a rented limo, the occasion was the antithesis of class and usually ended up with people piled all over the floor in a drunken haze and someone (ie me) playing with the sunroof ala Tom Hanks in the movie Big (and hopefully eating baby corn on the cob; off the cob (!!!)). In fact, its been my observation that the only time it's ever used with sincerity is by people that also loudly chew gum. The irony, and my point here, is that limos, much like the word classy, usually aren't. Don't be fooled by these high brow license plates.

slap you to sleep

The Legend of Poop Mittens

A few years back, I was visiting my then-long-distance boyfriend at his college for the weekend with an acquaintance that graduated a couple years after me in high school. The night started out as most of my nights in college did; fun was had by all and many, MANY, MANY drinks were consumed. After the bar, the party headed back to my boyfriend's apartment where my boyfriend and I proceeded to get into a heated argument about something important like religious and political beliefs (read: he forgot to pay more attention to me). This ended with me proclaiming (slurring; what have you) that I was sleeping on the couch and promptly leaving in the morning. I woke up bright and early the next morning (noon) still drunk and pissed. As such, I rounded up my travel companion and we set off on the trip back to Ann Arbor.

On the short walk to my car, I quickly discovered that a giant booze induced poo was immanent.....I had goose bumps all over my body and yet I was also sweating profusely. Specifically, I practically had sweat dripping down my butt crack since the situation was so dire that I was in "clench mode". Not knowing the girl I was with very well, I didn't feel comfortable making her privy to the perfect storm that was brewing in my bowels. Instead, when I noticed her glance sideways at the beads of sweat forming on my forehead and upper lip, I just said, "I'm not really feeling so great". She nodded and we continued to on to my car.

Literally, within the first 10 seconds of our car ride, I swerved my car into the nearest poop-able place; in this instance, Wendy's. Throwing the car in park outside the door without even bothering with a parking spot, I yelled "park this!" to my passenger as I ran into a packed lunch hour Wendy's. The bathroom turned out to be one enormous one toilet room with no stalls......and the lock to the outside door was, naturally, broken. Panicking, I pulled off the sweatshirt I had thrown on over the bar outfit I'd slept (sequined tank, jeans, and eff-me boots...don't judge me; it was a long time ago) and hung it on the outside door knob to signal that the bathroom was "occupied".

Unbuttoning and pulling down my pants simultaniously as I hurried back to the toilet, I was overcome with the urge to throw up. Just making it in time, I did just that. Unfortunately, the force of vomiting also caused me to shoot diarrhea all over the pants around my ankles and ALL over the tiled bathroom floor. AGH!!! Turning around to finish emptying the contents of my colon I and surveyed the devastation in utter disbelief. To be gentle, the scene before me resembled that of Vietnam. Total. Nightmare. Gingerly, I removed my jeans, threw away my underwear, and attempted to clean my jeans off. It wasn't happening. As it turns out, my body had decided take that opportunity to produce limited-edition-water-insoluble-fecal-matter that literally would NOT rinse out of my pants.

This. was. not. good.

Leaving the pants in the sink to "soak" I turned to tackle the bathroom floor. In an inspired moment, I constructed some ye olde fashioned poop mittens by winding massive amounts of paper towel round and round my hands. I then used said poop mittens to "scoop" poop off of the floor. As I realized that I was only succeeding in smearing the "problem" around more, there was a knock on the door. OMG. OMG. OMG. OMG. In a panic, I squeaked, "Just a miiinute!!" while thinking, "killll me". There was NO WAY I could put the jeans back on. They were poopy and soaked through. As my own viable alternative, I opened the door a crack and snatched my sweatshirt off the door knob and quickly slammed the door shut again.

The woman knocked again. This time aggressively and I could hear her loudly complaining about how long I had been in there and how I "hadn't even parked [my] car". Working quickly, I threw paper towels on top of the residual (read: all of it) organic matter, wrapped my pants in paper towel (...don't judge me for not tossing them. They were expensive and I was poor), and proceeded to stuff my legs into each sweatshirt arm, pants-style. Yes, I was going to wear my sweatshirt as pants.

[knock! knock! knock!]

Tucking my package o' poopy pants like a football under one arm and holding my "pants" up with the other, I opened the door to the persistent woman on the other side. "Well it's about time", she started before registering my outfit and trailing off. "Sorry, it's all yours", I smiled back and headed out into the crowded dining area with the hood of my sweatshirt swaying back and forth like an utter between my legs as I walked away.

Outside, I threw my feces stained jeans into the trunk, and I got into the passenger side of the car. Looking over at the driver I commanded, "We shall never speak of this". To her credit; she never did....not that she had to since I promptly told my harrowing tale to anyone that would listen.