I must have been about 4 or 5 when I last pooped my pants. The setting was, of course, the church, because the setting was always the church. This time there were not many people around because it was just a late night elders’ meeting. No women allowed. I never knew what happened in those meetings, but I did know it was important.
The One Rule was: don’t interrupt. Actually, the exact verbiage was: “Black and blue or red.” That was the One Rule: unless someone was badly bruised or bleeding, we were to work it out on our own, and even then, probably everyone was getting punished, if we had gotten so injured that we had to interrupt. So it was probably better to die than to interrupt, because whatever punishment you were going to get for interrupting was going to be worse than death.
(Other updates to the One Rule probably should have downgraded bruises, while including vomit, fire, and unconsciousness. But “black and blue or red” is probably more memorable than “chunky, flame-y, bloody, dead-y”.)
I probably decided to go to this meeting instead of staying at home so I could play with whatever friends my parents had promised would be there. In fact, I was having such a great time playing that I was compelled to keep ignoring the mounting pressure at my own back door…until it was too late.
Rushing to the church bathroom, I realized:
I do not have the tools I need to deal with this situation. This never happens, so I don’t have practice cleaning up my own undergarments.
I locked myself in the stall, pulled down my pants and sat, defeated, upon my throne of humiliation. The water below mocked me. We both knew there wasn’t anything else coming out. This is where I should have been, 20 minutes ago.
But now I sat, soiled like a baby, and just as befuddled too. What do you even do? Does the excess go in the trash can!? Can you just throw away poop, like it’s a gum wrapper?
And what about cleaning up? Do I throw these underwear away? Flush them down the toilet? Maybe wash them out in the urinal? It’s kind of like a waterfall…? Would that be smart?
And what about my skin? Surely there was a protocol I didn’t know about for getting rid of skin that had touched poop. I could try to wash it, but that wouldn’t be enough, and might just spread the problem around. There is a sink, and that is like a little bath, but what if one of my friends walks in while I’m taking a mini poop-bath in the church bathroom sink? What if the whole thing collapses when I get up there, and the whole church gets flooded with my poopy sink-bath water?
This was a tragedy.
As I was contemplating my impossible scenario in the bathroom stall, my friend poked his head in the bathroom door, “Jamin – are you almost done?” I was completely stumped. I stared at the silver latch on the red stall, wishing I could stay locked in there forever, or at least until we discovered time travel.
No other good options remained. I didn’t know what fate would have for me, but I knew I couldn’t make this work on my own, so I uttered the three words I never had before, and never would again:
“Get. My. Dad.”
I was aware I would pay severely for interrupting the elders, and especially for taking their leader away during whatever ceremony was taking place in his office. But whatever punishment I would have to endure would be better than unleashing the great poop flood of 1987 on that innocent little house of God, in Boone, Iowa. Jesus had given His life to save me, and I was about to return the favor.
“But he’s in a meeting!” My friend shot back, as if I had temporarily forgotten the One Rule. In the sternest tone I could muster, I replied,
“I. Know. Tell him it’s an emergency.”
I heard the door close. This was it. We were all in uncharted territory now. The next time that door opened, I would be the first kid in history to learn what “or else” really meant.
A couple minutes passed and I heard the door again. “Jamin! What’s wrong?” I was my brother. Son of a..!
“Get! Dad!”
“I can’t. He’s in the meeting!”
“I know. It’s an emergency. Get. dad.”
Jesus Christ! How many times does a guy have to beg for his own execution?!?
I know, guys! I know it’s not allowed. It’s the elder’s meeting. I know I’m going to die! I’ve weighed my options and I choose death by dad.
And so it happened. The door finally opened and I heard my dad’s voice as he approached the closed stall, “Jamin? What’s wrong?” That’s probably what he actually said, but I have no recollection. It might as well have been, “Jamin, do you have any last words?”
Prepared to meet my maker, I said with an ashamed, but resigned tone, “I had an accident.” I could see his shoes waiting at the stall door, and I dreaded seeing his face. “Ok. Let me see.”
Pants around my ankles, I waddled to the stall door and pushed back the lock. As the door eased open, I inched backwards, toward the toilet, ready to accept my fate.
“Oh. Okay.” he said, as he got right to fixing the situation. I stood in awe as, several seconds in, I realized, “I’m going to live!”
I remember being so relieved, I even had the space in my brain to wonder, “What could all the elders possibly be doing right now, without him?” Were they praying for me? Had he given them all worksheets? Were they huddled outside the bathroom door?
A couple minutes later I was good as new, ready to go back to playing, probably sans-underwear, and I realized: I probably could have done this on my own. It all seemed so simple now.
He squatted down to meet me eye-to-eye, and I figured this was where we’d have a reckoning. Placing one hand on each of my shoulders, he spoke the words that still stun me to this day, “I’m so glad you had them get me. You did the right thing and I love you. You can let me know any time you have a problem.”
This was probably the most heroic thing I ever remember my dad doing. In my time of shame and fear, and in the face of pre-determined punishment, he chose to validate my anxiety and team up with me against the world. An emergency of mine was an emergency of his, even if we made God mad by interrupting His elders’ meeting.
We never talked about it again. No one else needed to know what had happened here – not the elders; not my friends.
I would never feel closer to my dad than I did in that moment. As it turns out, he had the capacity to be a patient man; a kind man; and a loving dad. And he had an unmatched willingness to serve, and he made room for endless mistakes…as long as none of them fell under the umbrella of what he considered “morality”.
So I think my long list of disagreements with him would end up boiling down to (1) the size of his umbrella, and (2) what to do with the people whose choices fell under that umbrella.