Why, why Layni, why? October 4, 2007

I’m going to attempt this again.  I’ve already typed & lost an entire post.  I don’t want to talk about it.

First of all, I would like to thank my friends & fellow commenters [& by friends & fellow commenters, I mean Jill & Jo] for bringing to light [& by light, I mean the ENTIRE INTERNET] an unfortunate situation involving lumpy boobs.  More specifically, my lumpy boobs.  This story could also fit nicely into a conversation about most embarrassing moments.  But I guess as long as I don’t have to tell the story about the ill-fated time that a toilet wouldn’t flush, or the time when I fell off of the curb at Taste of Cincinnati [Harold loves that one!], oh, oh, or the time I came out of the restroom at The Cell Block with Joann when … oh, well, anywho.  I want you to know that I am only sharing this story because it is apparently on of Jill’s favorites [& you know how important it is to keep Jill happy] and since I have no shame, I give you: One of My Most Uncomfortable Moments EVER.  Don’t judge me.

Okay.  So.  My friend Jo & I organize bi-yearly weekend retreats for our scrap booking peeps & one of our first ones just so happened to fall merely weeks after I gave birth to my second child.  Whom I breastfed.  The end.  Truly.  The story could technically end right here.  Because y’all are smart & you’ve probably already guessed where I’m going with this.  Unless, of course, you’re a guy.  So for that reason alone I’ll go on.  But just for you.  Well, you’re welcome!

I don’t know how much y’all know about the rules for breastfeeding, but one seems to be that boobies* [*hereafter referred to as, "the girls"] become programmed to know when they need to start preparing meals.  Meaning that, whenever your child displays signs that they’re hungry, “the girls” automatically know that they need to produce “X” ounces of milk at that certain time [NOTE:  Occasionally this rule will be altered to include times when you hear a stranger's baby cry, when someone says the word "baby", if you hear the Baby Elephant Walk song being whistled or if you think about a Baby Ruth candy bar.]

Did I mention that I had forgotten to take my breast pump?  Did.

So let’s just do a little math [factoring in only the times that milk comes in when it was conditioned to & not the other random times when it just inexplicably happens -- although, we were at a Scrapbook Event, so indiscriminate occurances of the mention of one's "baby" were highly likely!]  So, ok, a newborn eats roughly 2-3 oz. every 3 hours or so.  I left my house on Friday morning for the retreat center.  By Friday night “the girls” were around 7-9 oz. bigger.  By Saturday morning they were approximately 21 oz. bigger & bore a close resemblance to hedgeapples

Yeah, that’s about right.

It was painful & ugly & my scrap booking peeps found immense humor in it.  In that I was an extremely irritable, somewhat lumpy, occasionally leaky & a less attractive version of Dolly Parton that weekend.  They’re very empathetic like that.

I’m going to be honest.  I don’t remember much more about that weekend on account of the UNRELENTING PAIN!  Except that Jo mentioned something about green stuff [which we will elaborate on NO FURTHER] and I seem to recall going to bed on the top bunk in the dorm fairly early Saturday night [I wanted to pray for a traveling mastectomist to wander by]  - and someone took my picture.  Sorry I don’t have a copy of that one.

So there you have it.  I bet it is way funnier to those who experienced me it that weekend, but it makes me feel special & loved that folks wanted me to share it AND it pleases me that I’m secure enough of a person to be comfortable enough with THE WORLD to be sharing very, very excruciatingly humiliating stories with y’all.  Aren’t you GLAD?

But truthfully, that just really didn’t seem as humiliating as I thought it might.  I almost feel like I’ve let you down a bit.  Like maybe I built it up so much & then bleh.  Nothing.  Swollen boobs.  Psshhhhh.  Whatever, Layni.  But you know what is entertaining?  Poo.  So while I’ve got you here & I can’t stop myself from chuckling about the crappy [ha!] broken toilet story and since I’ve already compromised my dignity.  What the hell, I say.  So, I give you a story about poo.

Back in ’89 [or maybe '90] I was dating a semi-new boyfriend who’s parents lived in an old farmhouse, which was very nice, but about the plumbing?  Not so much.  Certainly not what you might refer to as ‘modern’ or ‘updated’ plumbing.  Pa Ingalls might have installed this plumbing.  Possibly the plumbing was Amish.

So anyway, I went to visit for the weekend & the first morning I was there I urgently needed to use the bathroom.  I was nervous because I woke up in a strange place [does anybody else do that?] AND I suspect there may have been corn for dinner the night before.  So I used this plumbing.  And it did not respond at all well to the flushing portion of my visit to it.  It did the water rising, rising, rising thing also with some gurgling & then stopped just short of overflowing.  This would be about the exact point in which I FREAKED THE HELL OUT accordingly!

There was nothing I could do!  No plunger, not even a toilet brush & there I was staying at a strange house with random parents I hardly knew and a semi-new boyfriend.  Fortunately the parents were out for the morning and semi-new boyfriend was in the bathtub downstairs [this house didn't even have a shower y'all!]  I thought frantically.  Fast!  And this is what I came up with.

1.  I ran to the kitchen & grabbed a Solo cup.

2.  I scooped out the poo.

3.  I ran back down the stairs & quietly out the back door.

4.  I threw poo into their back yard.

5.  I repeated this step about 7 times.

So … yeah, that’s what I did.  And, eventually the water sort of went down & the toilet went back to normal & once again all was right with my world.  It was then and there that I swore myself to secrecy.  I had narrowly avoided humiliation and shame.  At that moment, I decided that this was the exact sort of thing I would take to my grave. 

HA!  Not so much!

So, now I’ve shared & let me tell ya, I feel liberated.  I AM NOT ASHAMED!  Thank you internet for allowing me this golden opportunity! 

This concludes this weeks installment of MOST EMBARRASSING MOMENTS.  Tune in next time when I might discuss times I fell down.  Yay!