To Pee or Not to Pee

For all you mothers out there who dream of the day your baby will be potty-trained, I can tell you, it’s not that fantastic. Claire, who is almost three years old, is in her first phase of being potty-trained. “I didn’t know there were phases?” I hear you confused readers saying. Well, there are. Some of you might have children who seamlessly passed from diapers to underwear without any confusion or help necessitated by you, but not Claire.

I’m not sure how often she peed when she wore diapers, but now, she must go every 20 minutes. “Big deal,” you’re saying, “Why all the hysteria? She sits and pees. End of story.”

No. Not exactly. First, she announces it, “Pee pee, Mommy. Pee pee.”

Then I respond, “Okay, Claire. Go sit on the potty.”

Then she says, “Help, Mommy, help.” So, to avoid her going pee in her pants which would mean I have to change and clean her up, as well as the floor, I go with her to the potty.

Sometimes she goes by herself, like when we are at home. But, at the café (she is my café pal) or at the park, it is annoying to get up and go with her. At the café, it’s fairly simple. I just sit her on the big adult toilet and it’s rather quick. Of course it is annoying to constantly get up and pack our things so no one steals everything while we’re gone. The park, however, is agonizing. Why? I’ll tell you. There is no public rest room, which is fine because if there were one, I have no doubt it would be abominable and no one would even go in it.

The park routine is all-around unnerving. First I have to find a little corner which often means my eyes are no longer on big sis, Eva. Then, I have to remove Claire’s shoes, pants and everything and help her squat in a way so she won’t pee on her feet or mine. I kind of hold her mid-air and my arms and legs start to hurt. She just dangles there, poor thing, and wants to pee but for whatever reason, she cannot. She almost never goes at the park but she makes me do the whole pee routine at least three times in one hour.

Considering I can’t see Eva, I feel anxious and say during every pee pee attempt, “Hurry, Claire…Pee pee, psssss,” and I make a pee sound hoping it will illicit some subconscious desire to take a whiz. Why I do this, I don’t know. It hasn’t worked yet. So, that’s the pee pee deal.

Now, we also have the caca deal. At our house, we have a little potty on the floor and also a little seat we put on top of the normal toilet seat. She likes both options and seems to have no problems peeing on her little potty or the big one but when it comes to pooping it’s a different story. And to side track a little, yes, I’m still obsessed with poop considering it is omnipresent in my life. It’s seriously everywhere I turn, in my house, on the street, I can’t escape it. Anyway, moving right along with the caca routine, it’s actually a tad heart-breaking. First, Claire gets this painful look on her face and she starts holding her bottom and walking on her toes, “Poop…poop.”

So, I say, “Go! Go, Claire. Go sit on your potty!”

And of course she says, “Help, Mommy, help.” Then as I attempt to put her on her little potty, she says, “Big potty. Big Potty.” So, I put her on the big potty and she sits for a couple minutes and then says, “Done.” But, she hasn’t done a thing. I help her get her pants back on and try to do whatever I was doing before being interrupted and five minutes later, there’s Claire doing her dance and whining, “Poop, Mommy. Poop.” You get the gist. After many efforts on the big potty and Claire not pooping, it becomes not only aggravating but also a little stressful. For a mother, the only thing as important as keeping your kids fed is making sure they poop everyday, sad but true.

Fortunately, a couple hours later she’ll miraculously go to the little potty by herself and announce, “Pooped. I pooped.” This is great. But, it’s also not so great because she has dropped a big log. I have to empty it into the toilet and it never hits just the water (as French toilets aren’t filled to the rim like the big American crappers) so I’m obligated to scrub the toilet bowl and then take her little potty over to the bath tub and her potty has major poop stuck inside it so I have to clean this out and spray it with disinfectant and then rinse it out. I also have to do the whole clean-up routine when she pees.

So, to summarize all of this up, my days of simply changing her diapers are gone. And, I was able to do that quite speedily. Now, I consecrate unfathomable amounts of time to all her tries at peeing, pooping and my cleaning of the god damn children potty.

I’m not exaggerating; this goes on all day long. I’m considering calling up everyone I know and saying, “Look, cancel this, cancel that, forget dinner, I am on potty duty. I don’t have time to pick-up Eva or buy groceries or do anything.” In fact, sometimes I need to go to the bathroom and while I’m sitting on the big toilet, Claire prances in holding her ass and complaining that she needs to poop…now! And, she wants to sit on the big potty, now!

This morning while trying to get ready, I must have been interrupted five times. I almost forgot to put make-up on one of my eyes. Then, I imagined myself taking Eva to school with one big eye all done up and one little puffy eye explaining, “Oh, Claire had to pee this morning…fifteen times.”

On a daily basis, I find myself aimlessly turning in circles like an old senile dog thinking, “Now, what the hell was I doing before I got interrupted?” I can already see myself at 80 years old with Alzheimer’s mumbling to no one in particular, “Claire? Did you poop? Can someone go wipe her? Hurry!” Or worse yet, I’ll find myself dangling in the arms of my adult children in the corner of a park, hearing them say “Hurry, Mom… pee pee, psssss.”

The Heat Is On

Everyone has moments when they are forced to improvise in a trying situation. My sister, Diane, is one of those people who can rely on her wits but she is also irreverent and uncensored. When we're together, this personality combination often gets us into trouble.

During my years at ASU in Arizona, Diane and I would do a yearly road trip from Arizona to Colorado where our folks lived. It was roughly a 13 hour drive and we’d usually stop half-way in New Mexico for the night. For our trip, we’d stock the car with a jug of water, hardy pretzels and our favorite processed squeeze cheese. We’d top the pretzels high with the smooth orange spread and take turns passing this sophisticated snack back and forth.

Diane would always start out the road trip by saying, “If one of us gets a ticket, we’ll split it, okay?”

And I’d agree. So, as we came to our fifth hour of driving in an endless flat and unchanging scenery in New Mexico, Diane behind the wheel, the speed began to slowly rise. Soon enough, we heard sirens and a big Ford police car was tailing us.

“Oh, shit!” Diane said glancing anxiously in the rear view mirror. She pulled over. I pulled my sun visor down to peak at the police man. We both saw a strong Mexican cop, young and good looking, approaching our vehicle. New Mexico is highly populated with a Latino community. Diane had an idea. “Quick! Quick! Put the Gypsy Kings on!”

“Good plan, sis!” I thought. It would be an attempt to show our cop we loved Spanish music. Maybe he’d empathize with us if he knew just how much we had in common with him. As he walked up to our car, “Bombalero” was blaring from the stereo, Gitano clapping sounds ringing out.

“Hello, ladies,” he smiled at us with bright white teeth.

“Sorry,” Diane mumbled. “How fast was I going?”

“You were going about 85.”

“Oh,” she paused, “sorry.”

“Yep. That’s a little too fast for a warning. I’m going to have to give you a ticket. Please keep your speed down,” he said.

“Okay,” she replied, “How fast can I go?” she asked.

“Keep it around 75 and you’ll be fine,” he handed her the ticket.

“Okay. Thanks a lot,” she said.

“Take care,” he started walking away.

“I can’t believe you asked him how fast you could go!” I exclaimed.

“Why? He was nice. You see, we can go 75.”

The rest of our road trip we stayed within a reasonable speed. At one point, we needed gas and a small break. The only place to stop was this mega gas and convenient store complex complete with a free movie theatre. It looked like a mall.

Inside, they sold Kachina dolls, Indian beaded jewelry and dream catchers. It was packed with Indians (or if you prefer “Native Americans” though I’ve never heard a Native American refer to himself as anything other than an Indian) Anyway, back to my sister Diane. We were strolling through the complex with cherry Slurpees when out of nowhere, Diane started singing rather loudly, “Cherokee People…Cherokee Tribe…”

We both looked at each other shocked at her outburst and laughed uncontrollably. I finally caught my breath, “What the fuck, Diane?”

“Oh, my God,” she said still laughing, “I swear that song just popped into my head!”

“You’re going to get our asses kicked!”

She bent over and started laughing again. “I didn’t mean to do that. It just came out!”

“Time to get you out of here,” I grabbed her hand and we headed for the parking lot. Diane, my un-politically correct sis. But wait, it gets better…

During my junior year abroad, I lived in Nice. Diane decided to visit me over Christmas vacation. I happened to be staying in a very strict dorm where the cleaning staff was especially mean. The rooms were tiny and had one small single bed barely big enough for one person. My friend who left for the vacation had given me the keys to her room for Diane.

Unfortunately, this convenient living arrangement quickly came to an end. One day, Diane was about to go into her room when she heard a man cry out behind her, “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!”

Gripped with fear and also unable to communicate in French, my sister pretended not to hear him. He approached her and tapped her shoulder, “Mademoiselle! Mademoiselle!” He showed her a photo of my friend, “Où est la mademoiselle?” he asked her. (Where is this young woman?) Diane, not wanting to be in trouble decided to play deaf and began signing the few words she knew in sign language hoping the man would feel overcome with pity. But, he grabbed the keys from her and said something mean. Diane fled to my room knocking frantically. “I got caught! I got caught! Hurry! Let me in!”

I let her in and she came into my room breathless and scared. “That fag dude took my keys!”

“Huh?” That “fag dude” was François, the meanest of the cleaning staff.

“I pretended to be deaf so we have to pretend I’m deaf, okay?”

“What? Why?” I was dumbfounded.

“I don’t know. I thought it would help.”

“Oh, great!” I said. We left my room in search of François. He was in the office sitting smugly behind a desk.

“What’s going on?” I asked him, Diane stood innocently beside me. “My sister said you took her keys? She’s deaf, you know.”

He didn’t seem to care. “You need to pay to use that room,” he said.

“Why? It’s my friend’s room and she is away for Christmas.”

He turned and looked out the window. He ignored us.

“My sister’s things are in that room. At least let us get her bags,” I pleaded.

He shook his head enjoying his omnipotent position in the situation.

Frustrated, I began crying and left the room. Diane followed me and began doing a stupid deaf routine in case François was listening. We couldn’t blow our cover, not that it had helped a smidgen. Several minutes later, François walked over to us.

“Look, we need the keys, just let us get our stuff,” I asked again.

After several minutes of contemplation, François looked at my sister and said, “I’ll go with you and let you get your stuff. But, you cannot have the keys!”

Then he turned to me and announced, “Your friend is in trouble!”

Relieved he was willing to budge enough for my sister to get her things, I looked at her and pretended to translate everything he had just said. After a couple farcical gestures, I topped it off by mouthing “Let’s go,” and I did the fist-on-top-of-fist, thumb over one shoulder, thumb over the other shoulder, essentially the “hand jive” straight from Grease.

After we got my sister’s bags, we were back in my tiny room, sitting on my bed quietly.

“Nice,” Diane raised her eyebrows at me. “Let’s…go” she said and she mimicked my ridiculous hand jive number.

“I didn’t do that!” I stammered.

She shook her head, “Yes, you did! You did that!”

“I did? Oh, god!”

Now, whenever we want to leave a place, Diane will say, “Hey, sis…let’s…go” and she’ll do the duke upon duke, over the shoulder routine.

I can't always keep up with her, but damn, it's a fun ride.

Pantyhose Man

When we lived in Toulouse, I had my own yoga studio. I had never had any strange encounters with my students. They seemed to understand the protocol of a yoga class. They would arrive on time and in appropriate clothing. I never had to tell anyone to stop coming or to change their ways, until Pantyhose Man arrived.

He called one evening to ask about my classes. I explained a little to him. He had an effeminate voice and asked if he could come to class in stockings. He said he wore them in dance class and preferred to wear them. It seemed like a strange thing to where to yoga, but I couldn’t see the harm so I answered, “Sure.”

By coincidence, I had lots of new students trying my class the next evening. The room was packed to the gills. I even had to turn one student down as we had no more room. All of this just to give you an idea of how closely we were doing yoga to each other this evening.

Everyone arrived and was ready. The man who called me previously arrived looking normal. He wore jeans and a jacket and went into the changing room. Several minutes later, he came out wearing a dark brown sweater and brown opaque tights without pants or shorts on top, just tights. He wore glasses and was tall, pale, bald and muscular.

All of my students, new and old, tried to digest this exotic character. No one said anything but everyone noticed, as you will soon find out. Didier Sage (sage which means “well-behaved” in French) slightly grunted as his feet, trapped in stockings, slipped in most of the positions we did.

As we moved onto the floor and onto our backs, one of my student’s faces was dangerously close to his bulging crotch area. I saw her turn her head and try to act composed. That evening, the only new student who signed up for more classes was Didier Sage. All the other newbie’s had an excuse. One girl said, “Oh, my allergies acted up in your studio tonight.” An English couple shyly said, “We’ll come back soon,” and months later, after never having come again, the woman confessed via email, “We enjoyed your class but my husband was freaked out by the man in tights.”

The next class, one of my students, Bridgette, arrived early. She was a clever English girl with a wonderful sense of humor. She said to me, “Oooh! I can’t wait to see what Pantyhose Man will wear tonight!” Bridgette began to look forward to Didier’s appearances. That evening, he entered the studio in his usual jeans just a tad late. He went into the dressing room while everyone else patiently waited on their mats.

He exited in a rather graceful manner adorning a sheer black negligee that fell around mid-knee. Tiny spaghetti straps exposed his pale muscular shoulders and shaved body. Tonight, he did not wear brown opaque tights, he wore sheer black pantyhose. He took his place rather confidently on his mat.

When we began our sun salutations, I caught a glimpse of Bridgette biting her lip and furtively staring at the ceiling as if praying to keep her composure. I felt my lips quiver and almost burst into laughter but managed to quickly reorient my gaze. Even my voice shook a little as I spoke to the class. I had to shut that smile off fast and act normal. The vision of myself completely losing control right there was enough to regain my senses.

As we moved smoothly in and out of different positions, I realized Didier was clearly not wearing any underwear. His genitals were as bald as his head. When I first saw his naked bits, I thought I hadn’t seen properly, but he was exposing everything. I hoped more than anything everyone was concentrating on their own moves and didn’t see what I saw. Did he think no one saw it? Would he have been embarrassed had he known? I figured he hadn’t thought it through, maybe he had forgotten we’d be lifting our legs high in the air.

After class, Bridgette ran up to me cackling, “Oh, my God! That was a killer. I almost lost it in class!”

I wondered if I should say something to Didier Sage who wasn’t acting so sage, definitely not living up to his name! Was his dress inappropriate? Yes, but he seemed so innocent and no one had mustered a word yet about his bald genitals smiling at the world. Wasn’t yoga about being open-minded?

The next class, Bridgette rubbed her hands together and said, “Ooooh! I can’t wait to see what Hoseman has in-store for us tonight!”

Didier arrived and did his perfunctory scene opener while everyone sat quietly waiting on their mats. The door opened and he strode across the floor wearing a yellow sleeveless turtleneck and black pantyhose, this time nothing was covering his thighs.

As we sat on the floor that evening doing lotus, no one missed the sight of Didier’s shaven parts. I shortened the exercise and quickly moved to something more prudent and discreet, like a nice seated forward bend.

After he left that evening, two students approached me. One was a very serious and disciplined woman who said, “I will not come to class next time if Didier is there. He either covers himself and respects the other students or he stops coming!”

Another woman added, “I agree. He is an exhibitionist. He gets a high out of this! You have to say something to him.”

“I agree,” I said. “I’ll talk to him. Don’t worry.”

“We all know how to dress properly. You don’t see any of us coming without underwear. He has a total lack of respect!” my serious student continued. A flash of my student wearing no underwear and lifting her leg up high entered my head and I momentarily felt a wave of nausea.

“I’ll talk to him,” I repeated, “Don’t worry.”

That evening, I asked my husband what to do.

“Tell him he needs to dress correctly or he can’t come back.”

“But can I dictate what people wear? Should I tell him instead that people are complaining?”

“No, no,” answered my husband. “Your other students know what dress-appropriate clothing for yoga is. He knows! He knows what he’s doing! He’s trying to see how far he can go.”

So, I called Didier. He didn’t answer so I left him a voice mail that we needed to talk in person before his next class. First he sent an email asking, “What do you need to talk to me about?” I told him again we needed to talk in person. He avoided me for almost a month sending me various excuses and then one night he finally showed up before class.

“You wanted to talk to me?” he asked shyly with an almost sly grin.

“Do you want to continue doing yoga with me?” I asked.

He paused, “Well, actually I’ve been having back problems so I think I’m going to stop.”

“Okay, then,” I said. There was nothing further to say considering he wouldn’t be coming anymore.

He stared at me anticipating something more.

“Well, good evening and good luck,” I said (In French it doesn’t come out like the movie line.)

He hesitated and then said, “Bye,” he left the studio. That evening, he sent an email: “I’m disappointed you didn’t tell me the reason why you wanted to talk to me.” I didn’t respond, but that was enough to tell me he had wanted some kind of reaction or reprimand for his behavior. Maybe that’s how he got his high, people’s shock and reaction and he hadn’t elicited any from us, at least not in front of him. What a downer that must have been for him.

His outfits did progressively get skimpier each class. If he had continued yoga, would his outfits eventually have dwindled down to nothing? I still don’t get why he did this. Was he a sexual pervert? Was he an exhibitionist?

“Don’t look for reasons,” said my husband. “No one knows. We’ll never know. It’s better he doesn’t go to your studio. He’s bad for your business.”

After that, we never saw Didier Sage, AKA Pantyhose Man, ever again. Whether he knew it or not, it’s fair to say he didn’t leave unnoticed.