The Power of PEE! Last night, while attenting the Air & Art Festival in the clean little St. Louis 'burb of Webster Groves, MO, I had 2 beers. By *no* means am I an active beer drinker, but I do like to have a beer or a glass of wine while schmoozing. Even though this event was less than 8 miles from our home, I decided to use one of the available Porta Potties before I left the venue. I had used one of these facilities a couple hours earlier in the evening, and I noted that for such a large crowd, the waiting time in line wasn't more than a couple short minutes. There was an adequate number of potties per attendee. When I approached the bank of 15 potties (and there were probably a total of 45 for the entire venue), I headed straight for one of the johns before I noticed that, had I continued, I would have been butting in front of an uncomfortably long line. Because I had not seen a line earlier in the evening, I wasn't expecting a line to be formed at this time, either. I noticed my own faux pas before anybody had a chance to speak up and say something about my error, and I politely stepped to the back of the line. And I waited.... And I waited. After an uncomfortably long wait, I noted that out of the 15 green and red 'occupied / unoccupied' indicators on the doors, *all* of the indicators were 'red = occupied', with the lone exception of the first and last potties in this string of 15. The other 13 pottied had the red 'occupied' indicator showing. Anybody that has attended functions with strips of these potties will know that you usually can hear the doors of the potties banging at a consistent rate, and the waiting line continues to creep slowly forward. On this particular evening, only the first and last door saw any action at all. The 13 doors in the middle had NOT MOVED in the 10 minutes that I was standing in line. After making a few comments such as, "I have seen MUCH longer potty lines at Mardi Gras move MUCH Faster!", I decided to take action. Why the Hell the other 15 people in front of me didn't do something about the situation before I arrived sure beats the Hell out of me! I was dressed in my normal garb. I told the man standing behind me, and the sheepish woman standing in FRONT of me, "Hold my place in line! I'm going to check doors!" They laughed to see such a sport! (Remember: I'm a nurse - I've seen every shape, size and color of everybody's everything!) I went to the strip of potties, and I skipped the first potty. I knew a small girl just walked into that one, and it was being used as it should be. FOR THE NEXT 12 potties, I opened the door WIDE, looked inside, and exclaimed to the waiting crowd behind me, "Unoccupied! NEXT!" (opened the next door)... "Unoccupied! Next!", and I continued the process for 12 doors. I knew the last potty was being used approperiately, so when I got to the 12th EMPTY potty, I flung the door open and said, "Occupied? Nope! This one is MINE!" The waiting crowd gasped, then laughed - and then lunged forward to claim their potty. Hindsight being 20 / 20, I firmly believe that, in a moment when no one was looking, a prankster turned all the indicators to 'occupied', just to watch the people staning in line, holding their pee! Why will I forever be the first person that 'gets it', and exclaims, "Nope! That Emperor STILL ain't wearing no clothes!" GEEZ! Such Sheeple! :D
Global Foods and Jay's Foods are the 2 biggest International food markets in the St. Louis area, but we have quite at least 8 other international food markets and many culture-specific stores in the area. Global Foods is about 3 miles from our home, and we go there quite often. At Global, for example, there is an isle dedicated to each ethnicity, with some isles sharing more than one culture. (They have the specific flags flying above the isle, along with the names of each country: Poland, Bosnia, Germany, Mexico, Japan, China, India, Russia, and several more. Many of the foods have their entire labels written in the native language of that particular country, with no English translation on the package. Even though we definitely have our favorite foods from around the globe, each time we shop there, we make a point to get a few of our favorites- and also a few things that 'I have no idea what it is, but I'm going to find out!" With very rare and few exceptions (like a Balut egg!), I will try any and everything. I have a friend that was born without arms - not even stumps - and he has lived his entire adult life alone, with no assistive devices. How does he do it? He never lost the flexibility of his lower limbs that a baby has naturally. (Ever see a baby gleefully sucking on his toes???) This man can comb his hair with a part so straight that is scares me, give himself an impeccably clean shave, button his shirt - AND his pants, play guitar, and drive a standard car with no alterations, whatsoever, etc, etc, etc. When I asked him, "how do you do it?" He told me that if he wanted to remain independent, he had no choice but to maintain the flexibility that we all had since we were babies.. Keeping the senses and the brain equally as malleable prevents one from getting "OLD". I'm not talking about 'old' as the general time that anything that has been on the face of this earth, I'm talking about "OLD", as in constricted, sheltered and narrow-minded, and all-too-willing to defend such a mental status. At 45 yrs. old, there is a good chance that I will NOT become one of those people. :D
(If you want BOTH mental and physical Calisthenics, go to the St. Louis City Museum - but wear a good pair of tennis shoes, and it would behoove you to buy a quality pair of knee pads, and have them strapped on when you walk in the door!) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Balut_(egg)
Now on display in the Liniean House at the Botanical Gardens is the Devil's Tongue, the 'little brother' of the huge Corpse Flower (scientific name: Amorphophallus titanum, translated, means "Giant Misshaped Penis")
The 'Devil's Tongue's botanical name is "Amorphophallus paeoniifolius" - translated, it is "Misshaped Penis Elephant Foot" !!! (The bright yellow 'stem' of the flower IS the actual flowers of this plant, which are actually very tiny, yellow flowers for such a huge, smelly - interesting - plant.
A friend asked me, "I have to ask; what do they smell like? Are they floral at all?"
My answer - characteristically lengthy, of course!: Floral? Nope. More like something from The Bog of Eternal Stench (from the David Bowie movie "The Labyrinth" !)
I never got a whiff of THIS one, because it was freshly open.
Having had maggots eat half of my right foot off then I was 4 yrs. old, I can tell you that, if you are standing down-wind of the Devil's Tongue's cousin, "The Corpse Flower", the odor - and TRUE odor - smells like rotten, dead flesh. Much like the same smell as if you pass road kill that has been on the road for several days. There is a difference between road kill that is STARTING to smell, and one that has had a chance to cook in the sun for a few days.
If I had to make a choice, I would rather smell the one that has cooked a bit longer than one that is freshly rotten. The 'freshly rotten' smell is much more acidic, and stomach-turning for a good reason.
Mother Nature made us revolt - actually get nauseous - at the smell of rotten food to keep us from eating bad things that would make us sick.
I had a BIG, BUTCH nurses's aide that worked under me when I worked as a nurse. I was in a double patient's room, cleaning up a lady that, well, made 'the mess of the century'. The privacy curtain was pulled around her for obvious reasons.
This big, butch, straight man cam in to care for the non-messed lady, and suddenly, I heard him yell to her, "I'll be right back!", as he bolted for the door. Then, I heard horrible vomiting noises coming from the hallway.
Bud came back into the room, and apologized to both me and the patient he was caring for, by saying, "I'm sorry.... I don't know what hit me, but I know I had to get sick QUICK!"
The clincher: Bud was born with no sense of smell **AT ALL**.
It seems that this 'if we smell something bad, we vomit' response is such a instinctual response that hie consciously didn't have to know that there was a hideous odor in the room for the response to work!
You see, I KNEW Bud had no sense of smell, and I was testing him to see if the 'bad smell - vomit' response worked on a person who was not aware that a bad smell is in the air.
When I TOLD him that I knew he would respond that way, he dragged me out in the hallway, and started playfully beating me about the head and neck!
Since that time, I dated a guy that also had no sense of smell. He lived alone, and was seldom home, so the trash in his trash can (in the kitchen) built up slowly. On several occasions, I would go over to visit him, and when I opened the door, a 'bad trash' smell would nearly knock me over. Before I had a chance to say something to him, he would tell me, "I don't know what's wrong, Michael, but I have been feeling nauseous. all day!" I would tell him, "Bill, it's time to take the trash out." I also had to tell him when to change his bathroom towels, and I finally put him on a schedule to change his towels AND his trash. He was a VERY clean man, with a very clean house, but slowly accumulating trash and a one-man towel can be stinky in just a few days!
