The other day, Andy, Alex, and I made a plan to stop at the bank and then head back to the park where we would meet up with our friends, H and J. Andy and Alex actually had little to do with devising this plan, although the second I had mentioned the word bank, Andy declared rather bossily that he wanted a sucker. To Andy, the bank is a magical place where women fawn over how adorable he is and then reward this cuteness with his choice of sucker. To me, the bank is the place that charged me ten dollars for going under an arbitrarily assigned dollar amount in my money market. Also, it's the place where I used to spend forty hours a week accomplishing the following tasks: sitting at my computer, poking around other people's leftovers in the refrigerator, and asking if those cupcakes on the table are for everyone.
We were going to the bank because my mortgage lender mailed me a check for over a cool grand. Escrow overage, said the memo line on the check. Can you believe it? Finally, things are starting to go my way. Oh the things that I will spend this money on. Including but not limited to giving it back to the lender once they see how much my homeowner's insurance has jumped. But, alas, we all have our happy moments.
After we left the bank, Andy declared that he had to use the bathroom. What I should have done was walk him back into the bank and ask if we could use theirs. This would have allowed me to glimpse into the breakroom and possibly see if anybody had put a baked good on the table. Instead, I told Andy to hold it and that he could use the porta john at the park.
Already, the planets were aligning in a not so great way.
The whole way there, Andy whined that he had to pee. By the time we pulled up at the park, he was so ready to go that he jumped out of his car seat after being unbuckled and ran off to the porta john all by himself. Yes, I should have stopped him. But, hey. He had to go. Badly. And it takes me forever to get Alex and our diaper bag and our two sippy cups of water and my one mug of coffee and Alex's two shoes that he's expertly kicked off all out of the car. So I let Andy go by himself, praying that he wouldn't touch too much of the interior of the actual porta john. I juggled Alex and our bag and cups and shoes and whatnot over to the park area, where I set Alex down on the astroturf (best park feature ever!) and looked over to the porta john area, which seemed quiet and peaceful and not at all the scene of anything horrific.
Then. Screaming. Sobbing. Something had just happened in the porta john, and my worst fears played through my mind. Andy had fallen into the toilet. There had been a strange man waiting for him in the porta john. Andy was locked in and it would be days before we could get to him. He would have to subsist on one ply toilet paper and his own urine.
But, no. Not those things. I ran over to the porta john, leaving Alex all by himself under the curious eye of another mother (sometimes you just assume that other moms have your back even when they likely don't). As I was running up, the door flew open and Andy burst out, naked from the waist down, little penis exposed to the world and flapping in the wind. Tears streamed down his face. He sobbed, "I dropped my pants and underwear into the potty!" And when I got closer and looked down into the toilet- sure enough, there were his $3 Garanimal shorts and his Spiderman underwear floating in a sea of.... stuff.
Lucky for Andy, I was in a buoyant mood from getting that money from my mortgage lender. So, instead of getting angry or upset, I burst out laughing and walked back over to our diaper bag. Andy trailed behind me, butt cheeks facing due west, eyeballs leaking big fat tears as he struggled to catch his breath. The other mom looked on at us with more interest as she helpfully blocked Alex from climbing up a park ladder and cracking his skull open. But, alas, in the diaper bag, I had no spare shorts or underwear. Just a spare T-shirt. As if the T-shirt is the article of clothing that you need to have a back up for.
So, Andy still crying and half naked, I got out my cell phone to tell H not to bother to come to the park, since we clearly had to go home. There was no way Andy could play pantslessly at the park (right?). On the phone, H listened to our saga and then kindly offered, "I'm already on my way there, but I have some of J's pants Andy can wear. If he doesn't mind purple girl shorts."
Half a second pause on my end. Then, "Sure, those will work."
I hung up the phone, rummaged into the diaper bag for a diaper, which I put on Andy so that his junk wouldn't have direct contact with his friend's shorts. A few minutes later, we saw H and J's car pull up into the lot. Andy ran over to them in his diaper. "I dropped my shorts and underwear into the potty!" he exclaimed to them. He had stopped crying and was starting to feel a rush from the whole experience. H helped him put on her daughter's purple girl shorts, which Andy looked down at with a mixture of confusion and reluctance, and then both kids were off and running, having a super time.
And, yes, that is the definition of a true friend. One who lets you wear their pants.
Thank you, guys! And if you are ever at the Grant Township park and see some homeless looking kid emerge from the porta john wearing stained, poopy Garanimal shorts and Spiderman underwear- you just tell that kid that Andy says he's welcome.
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