No Shame in my Game

Among the millions of other things I haul around in my car to keep the children safe, happy and subdued, I always have the emergency potty at arm’s reach. Young children and bladder control never seems to coincide with easily accessible bathrooms. Perhaps more often the bathrooms that are nearby aren’t suitable for my nonexistent dog let alone my beloved Kraken. Not to mention the disgusting things my Siren can get into while waiting for her brother to finish. Yuck. Sometimes it is best for all involved just to pull over and let him relieve himself in the privacy of our own van. The emergency potty has saved us from quite a few disasters, and when I say us, I’m not kidding.

The drive to Oppa’s farm is quite pleasant, mostly highway followed by a bit of farmland in the middle of nowhere. Pop a movie in for the kids and the drive can be very peaceful. On one particular drive home however, life was much less than enjoyable. We had eaten Mexican for lunch, and I started home hoping the kids would nap along the way. Shortly after leaving small town civilization and just far enough away from the highway, my belly began to gurgle. I kept driving, hoping for the intestinal distress to subside, hoping for a random bathroom in the middle of a cornfield, hoping for anything other than what transpired. After a couple minutes, I knew I could hold it no longer. I pulled off the road, grabbed the emergency potty, sat in between my little cherubs who were not sleeping and honestly looked a bit dumbfounded. What the heck was momma doing on the emergency potty?

I am grateful for quite a few things that day. Number one, I had the emergency potty. That is after all what it is for. Number two, my adult size bum fit on the emergency potty and so too did the contents of my intestines. I don’t even want to imagine the mess if this hadn’t been the case. That would have severely hurt the trade in value. And number three, my children were hopefully too young to remember the day momma decided to poop in the middle seat of the van right under their noses.