Memoirs Of J

If there was an award for the person with the most sensitivity to bad odors, I think I would win it… easily.

Tonight, J shuffled over to me with a pained expression on her face to tell me that she “tooted, then pooped” in her pants.  Not really news to me since any conscious person within a 40 foot perimeter would have not only cringed at the faint grunts she was making in the corner, but would have sniffed the wafts of horror that were shooting out of her ass at that moment.

I knew she had filled her pants before she told me, of course. I was just waiting for the grunts to cease before doing anything about it.  You’d think that because we’re in the process of toilet training I would have rushed her to the pot and let her at least partially shit into it.  That would be reasonable, except last time I tried that I ended up catching a warm mushy turd in my bare hand.  I’m a little more cautious now, is all I’m saying.

After she told me she was done, I told her to meet me in the bathroom since it was time for a bath anyway.  I grabbed a pile of wipes, sighed, and tried to prepare myself by taking a couple of slow deep breaths in the hallway.  She was lying down on her towel waiting patiently for me to remove the mess.  I took her socks off, then her pants.  I looked at her and said, “You know, you really need to start telling me before you poop so you can sit on the potty.”  She just laughed and said, “No, silly!”

Sighing again, I peeled back the adhesives on both sides of her diaper.  I handled it well at first, despite that enourmous black chunky spattering weighing down the diaper and sticking all over her cheeks in smelly gobs.  I was holding my breath but couldn’t hold it for long enough.  I fumbled around with my left hand trying to pull my shirt up over my face, while holding her legs up with my other hand to keep her from spreading this atrocity all over her Minnie Mouse towel.

It’s really hard to get a v-neck shirt to stay put on your face.  By ‘really hard,’ I mean impossible.  By this time my eyes are watering and I’m audibly gagging and heaving.  She’s giggling as I hastily swipe at her shit-covered ass with a fistful of butt wipes.  She starts mocking me by fake coughing and fake gagging.  I am not amused but am too focused on keeping my dinner down to admonish her for doing this.

After a couple of swipes, I deemed it ‘clean enough,’ wrapped up the defiled diaper and stumbled out of the room.  My vision was clouded in tears and vomit was on the cusp of exploding out of my throat.  After the toxic waste was safely contained in the diaper genie, I took another really deep slow breath and sat down to gain my composure and make sure I wasn’t going to barf all over myself.  This took maybe three minutes, then I headed back to the bathroom  to finish getting her undressed and in the tub.

When I entered the room I found that she had taken it upon herself to hop into the tub, shirt and all.  “What are you doing?” I said, “We don’t wear clothes in the bath!”  She of course responded by giggling and calling me silly.

I was chatting with my friend C recently about an upcoming ‘family getaway’ she is basically being forced to attend.  Her in-laws had the brilliant idea of renting a cabin in some remote area up north (read: they will be stuck there exclusively) for an entire week!  She understandably is not looking forward to it, mainly due to the fact that she is highly introverted and has two young children who are not easy to cart all around as it is, let alone for several hours in the car to drive up north.

So of course we are commiserating for awhile, then she starts telling me about this email she received from her MIL that was addressed specifically to her and the other daughter-in-law regarding how she is giving everyone food assignments (what to bring) and that they will be allocated to prepare the meals on certain days.  Uh, what?  I of course agreed with C that this should have been addressed to the actual sons.  She then told me how nobody there likes her cooking, as evidenced by when she’s asked to bring something to a holiday or whatever and nobody touches it.  I don’t offend easily, but I agree with her here- that’s offensive.  If you ask someone specifically to bring a pie, for example, then expect her pie to be the one served.  Do not go ahead and make your own pie regardless so now there’s too much pie and nobody is touching the pie she made (in vain).  It’s retarded.

This conversation led me to bring up a bigger point, however, and that is that it should not be the girls doing all this extra shit.  It should be the MIL’s own sons being asked to do these things.  Likewise, I would expect that if they were going with her family vs his, then she would be the one expected to help with the cooking or cleaning or whatever; not the husband in this case.

It’s just weird.  I mean if I am at someone else’s house I will not be doing their dishes nor will I be cooking anything in their kitchen.  It’s not my house, I am not familiar with where things are or go and it’s just an awkward situation all around.  Meanwhile, all the guys scurry off and nobody thinks twice about that.  No, it’s rude if you possess a vagina and are not washing up dishes after everyone else like some kind of 19th century maid.  If you have a penis, you are incapable of being expected to wash a dish.  All the passive-aggressive thoughts and glares are cast towards the vaginas while the penises are sleeping on the couch.  Um, no.  Not gonna fly.

I can only assume it’s some weird generational thing.    I really don’t think I will take this position when I am old enough to have married kids.  If I were hosting some event at my house, then I would fully expect my own children to be pitching in cooking or cleaning, not their spouses.  Male or female, I don’t care.  A son can cook or clean or vacuum just as well as a daughter, and conversely a daughter should know how to mow a lawn, for example.

I guess I just think of it like this – your family, your house, you’re doing  it.  I don’t believe in the concept of a ‘woman’s place,’ especially if that place equals the kitchen.  Especially for someone like me who really doesn’t care about having huge meals or varieties.  I’d be happy with serving hot pockets on paper plates.  Formality and generational traditions just do not sit well with me.

It’s totally nuts and has bothered me since I was very young.  I remember going to my grandparents for a holiday or whatever and after the meals, my dad and uncles would all retreat to the pool table leaving their spouses to clean up after the restaurant-sized food preparation that they necessitated because they eat like famished elephants!  Well that’s some bullshit right there.

So good luck to you,  C.  I hope you give a good talking to B before you get there so he knows what’s up 😉