Current Events in the Connor Home

I would like to transcribe, as close to the truth as I can remember it, the conversation at our dinner table tonight, starting after the prayer over the food.

Dad: Alright, Sarah I know you had your eyes open for the prayer, so you are going to get served last.

Sarah: (Moan of disappointment).

Dad reached across the table and pulled the lasagna away from Sarah, placing it in front of himself. Suddenly his motives for punishing Sarah became all too clear. I reached across the table and pulled the lasagna away from him. Sometimes exacting justice becomes the duty of average citizens. I served myself and then passed it along to neither Sarah or Dad.

Joseph: I have been finding a lot of nibbled-on cheese sticks all around the house. And I don't, like, it.

Dad: (eyes bugging) Yes! Do you know who's doing that? (points accusingly at Sarah.)

Sarah: What!

Dad: Sarah, let me ask you something. Who is the one who takes a bite of an apple and then leaves it there?

Joseph: And, who took two bowls of macaroni and cheese and only ate half of one?

Sarah: (looks guiltily at her plate).

Jacob: And who eats all the Jasmine rice?

Sarah: ....that was you, Jacob!

Jacob: Oh. Yeah.

Dad: I have a solution for this. From now on, Sarah, you are only allowed to eat at mealtimes. No snacks for you!

Sarah's mouth dropped open in shock.

Mom: You know, Sarah did something really nice today.

She went on to tell a story about a conversation Sarah had on the phone with one of her friends. She had told her all about FHE and how our family does it. At this point in the story, everyone else had been served, so Sarah was allowed to get her lasagna.

Dad: (interrupting Mom) Hey hey Sarah!

Sarah: I know, Dad!

Dad: Only get how much you're going to eat.

Mom: .....So then, Sarah asked if we could invite her friends over for FHE and I said we could one time.

Sarah sat there, beaming. Finally, someone was saying something nice about her.

Joseph and Jacob: What!! No! (Cries of outrage.)

Mom: I think that was really nice.....

Joseph: Mom, NO. They are not going to invade our house again. They are always over here! They like, lived here last year!

Dad: Sarah, I have another thing I need to talk to you about. I think it's fine that your friends want to call you and talk to you. And I think that's nice that you talk to them on the phone. But I am not going to be your little answering service.

Sarah: Why is everyone being so mean to me tonight??

Dad: No one's being mean to you!

Sarah: No snacks, no friends, no phone calls.....

Mom (anxious to say something positive about Sarah): I think that was a really nice thing that Sarah did tonight. We can just have her friends over while you guys are at, Scout Camp. Or something.

Dad (anxious that his point has not been driven home): Ok! That's fine! But for now on, I'm not going to answer that phone anymore. When it rings, and someone's calling on that 2nd line, I'm going to let it ring. (Five more minutes of that. Mom finally cut him off.)

Joseph (for some reason trying to keep this conversation going): But! What if it's a stranger and they come and kill me?

Mom: Awesome.

Heather: All the better.

Mom: How about, everyone says something that they learned today.

Jacob: I learned, that I was constipated today.

Disgusted looks in his direction.

Sarah: What's constipated?

Heather: Do you want to know?

Sarah: Ooooh.....no.

Dad: Alright now, I learned something today. Do you guys know what a current is?

A few people made some feeble guesses. Distraction quickly prevailed. I have no idea what Dad said next; it was something about electric currents. I started listening again when he said,

Dad: So, for the next 24 hours, no one in this house is going to use anything that requires electricity.

Mom looked at him sideways, quickly decided that this wasn't something that needed to be taken seriously, and went back to eating.

Julie: What! Dad!

Her voice strained as she listed off the things that she had to do in the next 24 hours that would require electricity. She alone seemed affected by this declaration. Everyone else continued eating in a distracted silence, having already decided that Dad wouldn't enforce his decision for even a half-hour. Maybe in a few months or years, when he'd had time to think it over, he would, but for now, it was an idle threat. Dad grinned, interpreting our quiet as tacit compliance.

Dad: Until you know what a current is. If you can come to me and tell me what a current is, you can use electricity.

He listed off two other words, but I can't remember what those were either. Julie argued with him a little bit more, just enough so that he felt powerful, but not so much that he got angry and really turned off the electricity.

Mom: Alright, can we go over the calendar?

Dad, who seconds before had been thrilled with the feeling of authority he had been building up all dinner, must have realized that going over the calendar would push him right off his new throne. He glanced around restlessly, looking for another mandate he could issue. The perfect opportunity was right at the end of the table, where Julie, who had just gotten up from a nap before dinner, was pushing uneaten hamburger meat around her plate.

Dad: Julie, you have to eat that. It's good stuff.

Julie's head snapped up, her eyes enraged.

Julie: Dad! I don't. Like. Hamburger meat!!!

Mom: Julie, can you go get the calendar.

Julie got the calendar. We made it through about a week and then everything dissolved again. Nothing can clear a room at our house faster than the promise of productivity, and we were whizzing through the calendar. By Saturday, May 21, the children had scattered.

Chopin and Show'n-a-shan

Before you start to read this, I should warn you: this is going to be a really weird post. I'm just thinking a lot about bathrooms at the moment, and this post definitely reflects that.

OK.

When we were younger, my sister Kelly told me that every time she flushed the toilet, she thought in her head the following chant: "Show'n-a-shannnnn-ba-da-dam-bam-bammm-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw! Boom, ba da doom boom. WOO!-bang." Try and say it. That's what a toilet flush sounds like. Ever since then, I have also heard this chant in my head every time I flush.

Today, I went to the bathroom in the library. Fourth floor, outside of the LRC. For those of you that aren't aware, the front room of this bathroom can be a magical, posh room of luxury if you want to take a nap, and is completely furbished with couches, pillows, and arm chairs. I myself have been there on many occasions between classes to catch a quick snooze, and I've always had a pleasant experience (barring the time I was rudely awaken by someone with explosive diarrhea). However, if you are not going there for a nap, and instead to use the facilities, you might feel like you are walking into an important audition, which you will give from a confessional booth instead of from a stage.

I was going there to use the facilities.

I walked in to find three of the couches occupied with sleeping girls, one of the armchairs occupied by a girl studiously doing her homework, and the other armchair invitingly unoccupied. Duly noted. I made my way to the confessional booth bathroom stall, acutely aware of the heavy silence. As I walked in and closed the door, not a sound could be heard other than the irregular scratching of pen on paper. I'm sure all the girls in the heavenly foyer area were concentrating on their own activities, but I was squeamishly diffident to the idea of four utter strangers knowing exactly how I spent the next minute or so.

Let's just be clear: I've never had a shy bladder. My sister cannot pee in a cup to save her life, contrary to sound science that states that the contents of four water bottles all consumed in quick succession must come out one way or another. I, on the other hand, apparently have a closer relationship to camels than most people and don't need much water. This is nice for many reasons--for example, I hardly ever get thirsty, and I don't have to carry a water bottle around with me. However, there are also a few downsides, the most relevant being that pretty soon after I do have a drink of water, I had better be on the lookout for a bathroom. So I've never really suffered from Kelly's complex.

But today, as I sat in my stall, wishing the girls in the foyer would kindly put in their headphones for a minute, I would like to think that I at least felt some of her pain. It wasn't all bad, though; because of this, I thought of a wonderful idea.

Classical music should always be playing in the restroom. I mean seriously....why are bathrooms so quiet anyway? No one wants to hear everyone else doing their thing. I appreciate such innovations as loud hand dryers, clunky paper towel dispensers, and over-eager automatic flushers that help eliminate some of the awkwardness. But day after day, because none of these modern conveniences exist in the primitive bathroom by the LRC, girls are forced to shuffle abashedly from their stalls past four or five girls who may as well have been in the stall with them.

If classical music was playing throughout the bathroom, this would no longer be such an ordeal. You could time everything perfectly. Cymbals would benevolently cover up every unseemly sound that might come from your stall. Gone would be the days of awkwardly waddling past your unintentional audiences. Classical music would put the pleasure back in peeing.

Now I'd like to go back to the anecdote I brought up earlier about "Show'n-a-shannnnn-ba-da-dam-bam-bammm-aw-aw-aw-aw-aw! Boom, ba da doom boom. WOO!-bang." When I thought of this idea of having music in the bathrooms, I thought it was brilliant. Now that I have thought about it a little more, I've come to the conclusion that I associate music with going to the bathroom. Here are the reasons I have come up with for why this might be:

1. This whole "show'n-a-shannnnn" chant. I've thought it ever since I was little. Is it anything, really, other than adding music to a typical bathroom routine?

2. The "pee-pee in the pot" song. When we were potty-training, my mom would sing the following song:

"I am learning how to pee-pee-ee in the potty,

Pee. Pee. Pee. Pee! In the pot.

Pee. Pee. Pee. Pee! Go right in.

Pee. Pee. Pee. Pee! Do it again."

There's another bathroom-music connection.

3. One time when my grandparents were visiting, my grandma spent 5 minutes to describe a "lovely, musical" episode of flatulence she had recently experienced. So I guess it runs in the family to connect the two.

4. When I was in orchestra in high school, my director, Mr. O'Bryan, would frequently tell us that our performance had sounded like poop. In one particular case, he told the oboe that she should embrace her role as "the kid who comes along and pees in the sandbox and ruins it for everyone." (In other words, she was supposed to play as obnoxiously as possible.) Well, well. Music and bathrooms.

5. I remember one FHE when I was about 7 or 8 years old, and I left to go to the bathroom. For some reason, as soon as I got in the bathroom, I had to sing. I hadd to. So I sang my little heart out for the entirety of my visit, and when I was done, I went out to see that my whole family had left and hidden in the laundry room. It was a funny experience and yet another reason why I associate the bathroom with music--it just seems natural.

So in conclusion. All I'm trying to say is, if elevators can have music in them, shouldn't bathrooms, too?

And just while we're on the subject of bathrooms, I'd like to make a note for the boys, too. Apparently, there are three unspoken rules of using the men's restroom. I've heard that they are:

1. Don't talk to each other.

2. Don't look at each other.

3 If there is a urinal open that is not immediately next to a urinal being used, use that one.

Here's what I think they should be:

1. Don't poop in the urinals.

2. Don't urinate anywhere other than in the urinals (i.e., on the walls, ceiling, etc.)

3. No racing. Everyone should be allowed to comfortably go at his own pace.

Of course, I have no authority on the matter whatsoever. I'm a girl. I've been in the boys bathroom a few times, I will admit, but never to use the urinal. I never plan to use a urinal. These rules are just things that I think sound good, and if I were a man, I would appreciate everyone adhering to them.

I think I've touched on enough awkward subjects for one post. Good night :)