When Is A Yard Not A Yard? When It Is An Embarrassing Story About A Spaceship! (And maybe a mention about the move)

I'm working on the post that shows the move in all its glory.  The struggles, the up's, the down's, the point where I thought I might have leapt across a desk and started a hostage situation.  But until that post is done, you will just have to make do as I invite you to share a memory from Virginia..

Way back in the day when I was just a wee little boy (I honestly can't recall how old I was 3, 4 or maybe 5?) I always, so desperately, wanted to hang out with the bigger kids.  They were always playing some sort of fun game, and I just wanted to play too.

One day all the kids were playing: "Pretend this yard area, between the houses, is our space ship." Naturally I wanted to join in too, and anyone who knows me, will know I loved playing imagination type games when I was growing up (symptom of a single person?), so this was right up my alley.

It was so much fun!  We had even sectioned out certain trees as certain parts of the space ship. We had the bridge, where we would steer the ship.  We had an engine room where the engines did their things to make us go fast.  We even had a shuttle area where we could enter out into the "worlds" we wanted to explore. We had thought of basically everything, right?  We thought out so much about the layout of our ship, in fact, that we even designated a tree as... a restroom.

That's right folks, our spaceship had a bathroom.  Our technology was that advanced.

Now I'm gonna stop right here because I noticed you were choking on your drink/food/spit/gum/candy.   So breathe in and out because folks, this story is going right where you think it's going.... in a horribly-embarrassing, life-defining, parents-still-bring-it-up direction.  Ready?

So here we are, in outer-space, we had just finished fending ourselves off from the space aliens or something, and we had this bathroom that no one had used yet.  And then... someone used it.  We little boys were like, well  this is why it's fun being a boy, right?  The world is our urinal!  So all of us took our turn to whiz on this poor poor tree. And then it's my turn.  Only I didn't have to go.

I had already peed earlier and just didn't have a drop to drip.  And while I'm sure none of the kids thought anything of it, all I could think was: "I'm being left out because I don't need to pee!  What am I gonna do.  What can I do?"  I didn't want to be left out.  If I chose not to join in this part of the game, would the older kids think I was being a baby?  

Like most of the bad decisions in my life seem to begin, I had what I thought was a brilliant idea.  And what follows is really nothing more than a testament to my ability to commit to an imaginary role.

I realized I didn't need to pee, but people don't just pee in a bathroom... they do number 2 as well!  And I had a feeling that I could definitely do that at least.  I was saved!  God, I was a genius... My parents were sure lucky they had me around to help think their way out of any tough spots.  So I nonchalantly pop a squat, did my thing, and it was over.  Apart from the whole glossed over point that I DIDN'T HAVE TOILET PAPER it wasn't that gross, and everyone else seemed to take it in stride.  Like it was the most natural thing in the world.

Later that day, after heading back home, I think it was my Aunt who told me she had received a phone call.  Apparently, some lady, whose house shared that same yard/spaceship saw that I had taken... creative liberties, and she was very, very upset.  But I explained that I didn't think I hadn't done anything wrong: everyone else had peed and I didn't need to pee, so I went ahead and took a poop.  And the logic behind it, to me was so rock-solid, not to mention absurd, that I think some of that rubbed off on my Aunt (and later my Mom when I had to explain the situation to her too), because I honestly don't remember ever getting in trouble for this.  I just remember my Aunt and Mother laughing... a lot.

To this day my parents and sister like to reminisce about this... normally when there is company, such as unknowing relatives.  After all, isn't that what family is?  People who will invariably remember the things that we really wish they didn't?