Crapshoot

I swore in a Target restroom today. I said the ess-word. You know the one. S-H-I … Yeah, that one. I said it pretty loud, too. I didn't yell it, but it was definitely audible. Now, I'm not a restroom cusser. I'm not even really a cusser. So why was I standing in a handicapped stall in a Target restroom, cussing it up?

Well, mainly because it fit. It was what I was staring at: on the toilet seat and toilet, on the floor and, sadly, on my aged and comfy Converse All Stars, may they rest in peace. Oh, and it was all over my daughter, too, poor thing.

We were picking up a couple of things after dropping sister and mom off at school and the craft show (Going on all weekend! Go get some Sparkle Power merchandise! And yeah, I'm plugging a craft show while relating a poop story. You knew what I was when you picked me up.), respectively. You know, gettin' my Dad on. We looked through the electronics (Claire is not very good at the Xbox), the Christmas stuff and, finally, the toys. Every. Single. Toy.

We were playing with that Disney Princess display, the one where you spin the thingy around and push the pink flashing button and it plays a snippet of a song from each princess' movie.

So Claire's spinning the thingy, pressing the button, dancing around and all of the sudden she stops, makes a worried face, looks at me and says, "I need to go potty." Now this is a problem. See, we're potty training, so that means we're in panties and I reeeally don't want an accident, so I pick her up and run. And if you're at all familiar with the Target we frequent, you know that we're almost at the point farthest from the restroom.

Now would be a good time to cuss. But I don't. I run.

We make it to the customer service counter and I still have a basket with some items and you can't take unpaid merchandise into the restrooms so I ditch the basket at the corner and keep running. My sunglasses are in there and Claire's jacket too, but at this point, I don't care if they're stolen. I just care about getting to the restroom before something bad happens.

At this point, I think we're okay. My arm's dry. That's a good sign, right? We make it inside and into the handicapped stall. I pull down the panties and go to set her down on the seat and that's when things, well, when things go to crap. Or, you know, the other word. The word I said.

I'm a dad, so after a brief survey of the damage I roll with it, trying to clean Claire up as well as I can with the tools at hand (toilet seat covers, wet toilet paper), trying to clean it off the seat (those elaborate toilet paper shields I build before I sit down don't feel so ridiculous anymore), the floor, my shoe (so long, Converse) and I cuss.

I cuss. And in the moment, it fits.