Sunday, April 22, 2012

The Midnight Pisser, Who Pisses at Midnight

(This is one of those stories I've been meaning to write for a bit.)

I've got this odd habit where embarrassing experiences from my past just pop into my head. It's just random things where I remember that one class where I taught with my fly open, or the time I walked into the Starbucks women's bathroom, or, well, you get the picture. I'll find myself totally immersed in these painful recollections, memories that are still so embarrassing and vivid that I'll start swearing under my breath-- ironically creating more embarrassing experiences.

So a couple of months ago-- when Gavin was just a few months old and Kat's sister, Sage, had come to help us out-- I was awoken to Sage telling us that there was a man outside our door. I'm usually a calm person (paranoid but calm) but this time--maybe it was because I had just been woken-- I was freaked out. Kat gave me our junior-sized baseball bat and we all crept to the door ala Scooby-Doo style. We could hear the man outside, messing with the door handle, trying to get in. He was mumbling under his breath as he fumbled with the door. Suddenly there was a brief respite with the man's struggles. Then we heard a zip and the sound of water hitting the ground. The man was pissing on the door step.

I thought maybe the man was so cavalier that he figured he'd relieve himself before he broke into the house. Then I realized the man must be drop-dead drunk, and trying to get into what he believed was his house. Then I got angry. Maybe it was because my adrenaline was up, but isn't waking someone up and peeing on their doorstep a pretty big insult? I went to the side window and yelled out in my scariest tough guy voice "Mwo-yea-yo?" ("What are you doing?" in Korean). My problem is that through habit I still keep the polite markers on the end of my sentences-- even when a guy is pissing on my doorstep. The man came out of his drunken stupor and shambled off.

In the morning, there was a frozen piss puddle on the doorstep. I started to get angry, but then I considered the times I've embarrassed myself. The time I mistakenly ran a red light and honked at the people in front of me. The time I was waiting tables and dropped a coke in a baby carrier (there was no baby in there, thank God). Or the time I had too much to drink and vomitted in a radiator (I'm still sorry about that one Eric). I figured for all my cringes, I could suck it up, pour some hot water and salt on the piss puddle and go about my day. No need to get worked up about embarrassing experiences, be they mine or someone else's.

2 comments:

Clint Gardner said...

I see Buddha is really getting to your there in Korea.

Aside from that, I like the idea of polite markers in language. What are our polite markers in English? Upturned vocalizations at the end?

I wonder whatever happened to the dude who pissed all over your doorstep.

Now that's a great first line of a novel if I've ever heard one.

karmaking1111 said...

I think the dude is probably still wandering around, trying to find his apartment, and pissing on other people's doorsteps-- he was that drunk.

Also, we don't need polite markers. We just act polite. Did I go to far?