A Strange Vision I Had of Pop-Pop a Few Nights Ago That I Still Don't Know What To Think Of

It was towards the end,
in the stillness,
before the business
and shuffling of nurses' feet.

His eyes suddenly flashed open
from their medicated coma
with urgent intensity,
like he had been gathering all his energy
for months
for this final surge of life.

He looked at me,
into me,
with such depth and clarity,
"Have you seen Him?"

Wide-eyed and breathless,
I felt the weight of his entire life
drop in my chest.
I couldn't speak.

He smiled knowingly at me,
and I was looking at a man
now fully alive.
I had never seen a man
fully alive.
He winked at me and said,
"I've seen Him."

My lips could only shiver,
"Who?"

I trembled in anticipation,
because this question
was suddenly
the only question that mattered.

He pulled me closer with a twinkle in his eye,
like a child who could not
conceal his excitement and wonder.

With awe and authority
he whispered his last words,
his only words,
shooting fire down my spine and
giving new meaning to capitalized letters:
"THE INVENTOR!"

Only Part of the Story

So, I overheard two women talking
the other day
as I crossed a busy street.

The frumpy, throaty
fifty-something
with pastor's-wife posture
said that she was
"annoyed with Sandy too."

The shifty-eyed,
mouse-cheeked
librarian-type
shook her round bird's nest head
and mumbled something
I couldn't quite hear
as they click-clicked along
in the opposite direction.

That's all.
I just thought you should know.

The Temple of Unholy Shrines

The thing I can't understand
about automatic toilets
is when there is still pee
sitting in the urinal when you approach.
What the heck?
The previous guy must have either
pissed in record time,
or from a long distance,
both of which baffle
and amaze me.

So I set a wide stance
and pretend like I'm peeing for a minute
just to activate the automatic flush
because I'm O.C.D. about my urine
mixing with someone else's urine.
I'm not biased or anything,
I just don't get into that kind of alchemy.

I back away quickly
to the sweet sound of flushing
with concerned vigilance
for any lingering yellow residue,
when I notice some guy waiting suspiciously,
and I know he's thinking,
"That guy better not pee twice."

So I make my fake escape
before dipping into a stall for slightly more privacy,
when the sight of that shiny bemis seat
goads my bowels into action,
regardless of whether it looks like
the previous participants
pissed everywhere except in the water.

I complete the first half of the term
"drop and flush"
when the absence of a lever
turns me into a strange contortionist,
trying to lean forward and to the side
far enough to trip the automatic sensor,
all the while trying to balance
on feet bound by undergarments
and still keep my sloppy joe buns
hanging safely over the rim.

With the flush conquered,
I can now move on to wiping,
which is made painstakingly tedious
because the 150-grit toilet paper is so thin
that no matter how slowly I pull,
I can only manage at most to keep 2 squares together
before it tears,
which is not nearly enough surface area
or absorption
to perform it's job properly,
all the while worrying that someone listening close by
is keeping tabs on how many squares I've ripped off,
and they are growing concerned that
I'm now nearing the acceptable limit of T.P. etiquette,
and maybe suffering the aftermath
of some absurd assplosion.

My impatient hand sanding begins to produce
a coarse finish
of inflamed soft-tissue areas,
when, leaping Lazarus,
my bowels start to move again
like a colicky baby
from what I thought was put down
for a comfortable nap.

So I try to bed my bowels back down again
grunting a nasally lullaby
with renewed gusto,
forcing premature labor
to a scared brown turtle head,
who nervously retreats back in his shell
when frightened by the impatient size fourteens
on the other side of my insufficient barrier,
who've suddenly come-a-knocking
like I'm not doing my best in here;
like maybe I accidentally dozed off
amidst the comfort of my surroundings.

So I give up on my fruitless efforts,
pull my trousers up from their bed of sticky soles
and beached urine,
and try to retreat from the rogue splashes
spitting at my exit from the
ever-swallowing throat.

I take refuge in washing away the sorrows
and residue from my hands,
which constitute only about 20% of my body parts
that really need a good scrubbing now.

I've heard it said that there is an actual chemical
in the hand blowers
that makes you forget any negative thoughts of your experience,
but I have never met a hand blower
that stayed on long enough
to erase those memories,
or completely dry my dripping hands.

I don't know if my hands get unusually wetter
than other guys' hands,
but I am always left with the cruel choice of either
announcing my wetness problem
to every guy in the bathroom
by pressing the button again in defeat,
or wiping the excess water on my jeans
that were just lying at the base
of an unholy shrine.