The Plumbing Incident: I've Lost That Fresh Feeling

As the experts say, in order to fully emotionally heal from a trauma, you have to put some distance between yourself and the events of the offending ordeal. I assumed this to be sound advice. It seems logical that things always appear to be worse than they really are WHILE you are in the midst of the trauma. The passing of time will eventually reveal and brighten the sunshine. Butterflies will fill the golden air. Someone will sing.

And now that a few days have gone by, I decided to look back on my personal hell to see if the pain has eased. To see if maybe I overly-dramatized things here and there. To see if I might even want to sing about it, even if it's just a trite rap song with only four words in the lyrics and featuring a guest vocalist that you've never heard of before. And I have discovered this:

The experts are liars. The pain is still excruciating. I have not moved on. I am not singing, and I will happily kill anyone who dares to do so within a five-mile radius. I don't think I will ever get over The Devastating Plumbing Incident of 2009. (Cue the violent string music from "Psycho", zoom in on tight shot of Brian standing in an overflowing bathtub, head thrown back in a primal howl of fury and impending dementia.... fade to black...)

It all started rather innocently enough.

I was laying on the bed in the guest room, playing XBOX 360 with the curtains drawn. (Not out of shame, I just like playing in total darkness, makes the imagery onscreen even more vivid and helps bolster the sensation that I am indeed somewhere else, anywhere, where they don't have to pay taxes or look at ugly people.) I was just about to receive the Golden Rod of Power from one of the lesser overlords (well THAT looks interesting once you type it out) when I heard this strange gurgling in the wall.

Gurgling. In the wall.

With irritation, and only a minimal amount of concern at that point, I paused the XBOX and approached the wall. Granted, there is indeed a bathroom on the other side of this gurgling wall. But the sound wasn't coming from DOWN THERE, floor-level and such, where you might expect to hear this type of noise. Besides, no one was using the facilities. And the sound was coming from UP THERE. High. Like where you would point when asking something like "Do you think this is where we should put the Malawi print we got off the Madonna website?"

Then the noise stopped. Like any of the idiot minor characters at the beginning of a Halloween movie, I assumed nothing more would come of it and went back to the XBOX to accept my rod.

A few days later, while Terry is in the shower and I'm doing something meaningless like re-organizing my CD's or pretending to think about doing my taxes, I think that I might be hearing the gurgling again. I head toward the guest bedroom, and realize that not only is there gurgling, but this time we have the bonus feature of what sounds like a catfish flopping around in the guest toilet. An angry catfish.

I alter the flight plan slightly and head to the guest bathroom. Approaching, I can see one of our cats, Scotch, who has an odd, un-catlike obsession with water, sitting on the toilet seat in a near state of rapture. Even before I am physically IN the bathroom, I can see little geysers of water spurting above the rim of the toilet bowl. Geysers. Shooting upwards and falling back. In Disney's "Fantasia", this scene would have been set to music. There is NO music here. There is no Disney. Only toilet water defying the laws of gravity, and a drooling cat about to hit the Big O.


Old Faithful finally gives it up, and the waters calm. It's almost serene. Zen-like. Except this isn't a pristine lake nestled in the mountains of Utah. Or a buddhist temple. This a toilet. And I shouldn't introduce any unnatural qualifiers into the situation. This much I have learned since my journey from Broken Arrow to... well, anywhere else.

I pry Scotch off the toilet, his claws frantically scrambling to retain any type of purchase on the porcelain. (I briefly ponder the realization that if they ever invent Viagra for cats, the world as we know it will end. But I let the thought go. Bigger fish to fry, must move on.) I close the toilet lid, fully aware that this is not over, and wait for Terry to finish his shower.

"What do you mean, with the gurgling. And the geysers," asks Terry, primping in front of the steamed-up mirror, like Veronica Lake with really good lighting and a decent director. Except that he's not blonde, or a woman. As far as I know. "Are you sure it wasn't a weird fluke thing?"

Well, maybe. He could have a point, it might never happen again. (This is where someone in the audience watching the movie would stand up and bellow "You idiot. You DO have a problem. Why are you being so stupid?" I hate those people, especially when they are right.) So I buy into the delusion, and choose to not think about it.

A few days later, and deja vu kicks in with reinforcements. We have Terry in the shower (why does he need to clean himself so much? he's not Catholic), we have gurgling, we have geysers, we have an incredibly aroused cat. For some inane reason, I completely lose my mind and approach the demon guest bathroom toilet and actually FLUSH the damn thing, like a Republican trying to hide the INS papers for his nanny. And of course the toilet water spirals upwards, spilling over the rim. And does not go back down. Great.

Then I realize I can hear gurgling in stereo. Something ELSE is whacked. I trace the noise to a hall closet, where the inside air-conditioning unit USED to be before we paid people to move it to the attic. There's a drain in the floor of this room. Apparently AC units back in the day had to have some place to gush out water. Don't really know the story. Anyway, liquid of some kind is quickly rising out of this drain and flooding the floor. Great, Part II.

I race to our bathroom and inform Terry that he must turn off the shower NOW, no matter how unclean he may feel about his un-Catholic-ness. I can tell that he's not certain if this is some kind of intriguing sex game or if something more important is afoot. I do my best to remain calm and explain the situation, shouting over the noise of water gushing throughout the house and a certain feline critter calling 900 numbers in search of relief.

Clearly, The Devil has entered our house.

There is no turning back.

I muster up all the courage I have and state what has been crystal clear to the viewing audience since Scene 2.

"We have to call a plumber."

Cue the soundtrack of "The Exorcist", zoom in on famous shot of Max von Sydow standing on a foggy corner in Georgetown. There is a feline screech howl and a horny cat races across the screen and into the darkness.



Click Here to Read the Next Entry in This Series.

The Fifth One

Okay, this Facebook thing is fascinating. (I know, I'm late to the party, I'm totally uncool. I grew up with relatives that still had outhouses. With that kind of foundation, there are many mountains to climb.) But I have become something of an addict. And I must confess my sins.

First, the sheer drawing power of this beckoning magnet is a little frightening. I find myself racing to the PC at every opportunity, checking to see what anyone might have done anywhere on one of my pages. Mary Lou took the same quiz that I did! OMG! Agnetha posted on my wall about planting recycled trees in Lower Upper Windthrust Park. Hurray! Horst added a deep and meaningful comment to my photo of the flaming dildo. Woohoo! (Note to self: Might want to hide some of your photos in an obscure folder that you can't find easily. And look up Horst's phone number.)

And this available ability to have update notifications sent to your cell phone? I am refusing to think of even going there, at least at this point. I wouldn't be able to concentrate. I wouldn't get anything done. I couldn't even go to the bathroom and focus on the task at hand. Sleep would not be an option. And yet people DO this. Good gawd.

Second, I am a Facebook whore. Freely admit it, can't deny it, no shame in my game. I have sent friend requests to a few people that I don't really remember from my high school, but their name kind of rings a bell, good or bad I'm not sure. I've sent an invite to a couple folks on OTHER friends' lists that I don't know, but I thought their posts were interesting and fun. These are not federal crimes, no one will be water-boarding me now that Obama is in office, but I have transgressed nonetheless.

But I can at least say, in my defense, that I'm not like some of the TRUE whores in the Facebook universe. You have 1264 friends? No you don't. You have 1264 people on your list that accepted you because they had no clue who you were but were being polite in this odd world where, since most users have restrictions set up, you can't really find out anything about the people who sent a request until you ACCEPT the request. Then these people are screwed (see next paragraph). This is how we end up with someone named "Buford Chumphead" in Tinynut, AL having 732 people named "John" on his list. So I'm not the slutty cheerleader. I'm the slutty librarian.

Thirdly, let's talk about the "Uh Oh" factor. This is when you send an invite, they accept, and then you check out their pages only to find that you have opened a hell portal to someone that you would NEVER want to be associated with in real life. They belong to the "Fred Phelps Is Jesus II" group. They have wedding photos that include shotguns and farm animals. They are one of the Obama haters that can't speak intelligently about why they hate him (concerns I would listen to, because I have concerns of my own), they just spew hate that has no basis in reality and is instead based solely on the unavoidable fact that Republicans/Right-Wingers/Un-Christians cannot accept the fact that they lost the race. You didn't win, people. Deal with it. And now it's time to suck it up and support a president that has the unenviable task of rectifying 8 years of criminal, inhumane activity that has devastated this country. Swallow the bitter pill and move on. There are more important things at stake than your pride.

Again with me spiking on the Right-Wingers. It happens. I just do not understand how a person who waves God on his banner can do things that are so ungodly. Do these people not listen to what is spilling out of their mouths and compare it to scripture? To reality? Seriously.

And now back to a happier place.

Finally, the elephant in the room about Facebooking. Accessing Facebook when you've been drinking, and actually making life decisions while doing so. There should at least be a Lifetime movie about this starring Tori Spelling Bertinelli Baxter. This activity can lead to so many bad choices. Making comments on photos that are no longer funny once the alcohol clears your system. Joining obscure groups that result in 37 daily emails about the genocide in Frangonia. (Where the hell IS that country, exactly? What pictures did they post that moved me to action?) Signing up for Causes that don't make sense in the light of day. ("Society for the Preservation of Lip Gloss"? How did this catch my interest?) And the ultimate: Sending Friend Invites to people that you have nothing in common with, just because your addled brain clicked here and clicked there and found a name that you kinda remember from that one summer in Band Camp.

The madness must stop. But I don't know if I have that strength.

"Hi, my name is Brian, and I'm a Face-aholic."

"Hi Brian. Welcome to the group."

"Thank you. Really do appreciate it. Do I smell donuts?"

Peace out.

The Fourth One

So, dear friends, it happened to me just as it happened to so many newbie bloggers across the world. I burst out of the gate, brimming with excitement and determination, completely convinced that I can produce the most stunning blog that mankind has ever seen. I work feverishly at first, and spew out three posts in a burst of venting. Three posts. Then nothing.

Sigh.

The silence drags on for nearly a year, while I pursue other mysterious but mostly dubious activities. Supportive friends try to lure me back, praising the minimal but interesting material they had perused last May. I ignored them. I ignored my duty, my purpose, my obligation to somehow further mankind in some small way with my incisive dissection of world affairs. The shame was heavy, the failblog factor was high.

But I got over it.

Then yesterday, the astonishing prophetess Tiffany walked me through establishing a Twitter account. My interest was piqued. This was fun. I enjoyed it. Communicating with the world was not such a bad thing. My passions rose, my fingers flew on the keyboard. Then last night I set up a Facebook account. Even more wonders unfolded. People enjoyed talking to me, and OMG, I enjoyed talking to THEM. (Truth be told, not really fond of the human race, just sayin.) I was getting live validation, and validation has always been an issue for me what with all that "growing up gay in right-wing Oklahoma business", so my satisfaction percentages rose dramatically. This was SWEET.

Then I remembered the blog. The neglected, shattered-promise blog. Facebook isn't really conducive to full-fledged blogging. You CAN, but not really, not the right setting. And Twitter? Hello? 140 characters max at a time. I can't even clear my literary throat in 140 characters, much less build up to any crescendo of insight. So it became clear. The blog must live again. Tie it all together, let people click around for the full picture, try to satisfy all. Because we do need satisfaction, in this age of heartless people doing hurtful things to people who are simply trying to get by, and maybe have a nice meal along the way.

So I raise the torch again. Come with me. Let's storm the castle, make it ours, return to the day when basic human kindness was the foundation of all that is good. Why NOT strive for that? I will never understand why some people, especially the right-wing, supposedly Christian, rabid and vengeful hatemongers will stop at nothing to tear other people apart just because someone wants to live their life as their heart and mind says they should.

Got a little deep there. Happens sometimes. But join me anyway. At the very least, you might get a good pic out of it that you can post on Facebook. And then Twitter your friends about it.

Peace.