coming clean

We saw a couple grizzly bears in Canada.

A Mountain Lion growled at Connor and Rose.

Katie petted a goat and it was a great visit to the zoo.

Renee and I celebrated our 10th anniversary and at times our motel room was bit of a zoo.

I decided that after 10 years I could unburden my conscience and tell of my one past love. I finally told Renee about my first girlfriend. Tracy Wilson....

We were in third grade together at Linwood Elementary in Spokane, WA. I admired Tracy from afar. I don't really know why I loved her so much. I think it was her eyes, or her glasses.

Mr. Sherwood called me "Big Dan Bartleson" because in third grade I began to sign my papers Dan instead of Danny. I didn't get the joke back then and rather took it as a statement of fact, a sort of compliment by way of simple observation. I had a crush on Tracy (and no obligation to pursue it) and was feeling pretty good about myself until that fateful day. \

It was a Monday. It was math time. I had to pee. I would stand in line at Mr. Sherwood's desk to ask permission until the urge was too great and I had to sit to ease the pressure on my bladder, hunching over my desk allowed my apparently massive abdominal muscles to relax.
After a short rest I would reenter the math question line and endure intense bladder pain in an effort to gain the freedom of the hall and the friendship of one of the full-length-urinals provided by the school as a challenge to small boys to emerge from the bathroom with dry shoes. But alas, I was doomed to repeat this macabre ritual six or seven times until during one wait in the slow moving line I finally advanced to actually face Mr. Sherwood.

"Can I go to the bathroom?" I blurted. "Excuse me?" He asked, eyebrows raised. To Mr. Sherwood this was just another teaching moment - maybe he was trying classical conditioning - good grammar = a dramatic sense of relief in the bathroom. I however, was past the red line. Things were moving along without my consent. It must have showed on my face. "Go ahead Dan!" he urged me.

It was too late. In fact, horrified, and as I lost control completely, I actually shouted, "Oh no, I didn't make it!" After this, I proceeded down the hall in a fashion not unfamiliar to those of you who suffered with poor bladder control as children. That's right, the straddle-walk.

I would like to point out that at this point in the story Renee started looking at me like I used Tracy Wilson and our story of love as an excuse to tell a peeing in my pants story. Even though I would never do such a thing, I hurried the narrative along-getting to the point and not holding it against her.

As I shuffled wetly down the hall to the bathroom I heard Mr. Sherwood from the still open classroom door, "Uh...Tracy! Will you get some paper towels and take care of that?"

Fortunately for Renee, that was the end of me and Tracy Wilson, leaving the road open for our subsequent courtship and marriage (much later of course). Mr. Sherwood had singlehandedly changed the course of history with his "lunch-line learning program". And I got to go to the bathroom whenever it pleased me to do so for the rest of the year - although I paid a high price on the playground a time or two (another story perhaps for another blog).

All this I have come to terms with, but before attempting any calculation, I can become very nervous until I have visited the bathroom. I also have an aversion to waiting in line for some reason.

Peace,

Dan