The Secret

I have a secret. A secret that I have never told anyone. Not my parents or my wife or my siblings. It has haunted me since last week when I remembered it.

As of late I have been experiencing some weird changes in my life. My voice is getting deeper and I’m growing hair in places that…just kidding. That all happened last year. The recent changes include things that are less explainable like crying during sad movies, washing my hands after I pee, and listening to a lot of Billy Idol (I really can’t explain that part). But, the real big change I have noticed is that I care a lot less about what other people think of me, something that hasn’t always been the case. I really noticed this the other day when my wife made fun of me for wearing hiking boots with calf-high socks, workout shorts, and a zip up fleece…all at the same time. Whatever.

The point is, with this new apathy towards other’s opinion of me I feel like I can share my secret and finally get the burden off my chest. So what is my secret?

It occurred about 7 or 8 years ago when I was a junior or senior in high school. I was standing in the courtyard of my high school with a group of friends prior to going to what we liked to call our “Advanced Placement” Team Sports class. As all good high school students do, we stayed in the courtyard as long as possible between classes in order to, well… not be in class. So as we were standing around, I realized I needed to pass gas. Not a problem. As I always do when I need to break wind in public, I ran down my mental checklist and evaluated my surroundings. Outdoors equals good ventilation- check. Standing equals no violent noise reverberations- check (you have to be careful if seated, especially on plastic chairs). Large group equals no way to pinpoint the source- check. Everything appeared in order and it looked like I was good to go. So I assumed the position- feet spread apart slightly farther than shoulder width, back straight, tensed butt cheeks- and prepared to initiate a “squeaker.” I had no reason to suspect that anything other than gas would be making its way into the atmosphere. Oh, how I was wrong! Like a lightning bolt out of a cloudless sky, I was struck. Not by 200,000 volts of electricity, but by something far worse, a Hershey Syrup-like substance running down my leg. This is the only time I was ever thankful for our school’s no-shorts-dress-code. If it hadn’t been for the fact that I was wearing jeans, this story would have ended there, with my suicide.

But the story didn’t end there; I now had to extricate myself from a very (literally) sticky situation. One thing I have always been good at is improvising myself out of trouble. This would take everything I had. I immediately went into damage control mode. I knew I had only about a minute until the bell rang and I would have to go to the locker room full of my friends to change into my gym clothes. That seemed like a viable option. I could change out of my soiled clothes into my gym clothes. But I would have to change back into my other clothes for the rest of the day. I couldn’t wear my gym clothes because of the no-shorts-dress-code. I finally decided that before I made any decisions I needed to assess the damage, maybe it wasn’t that bad. I decided to make a bee-line for the locker room bathroom. It was usually mostly empty and I would need to be in the locker room anyway if things turned out to not be that bad. Any other bathroom and I ran the risk of being late for class and being stopped by the “Courtyard Commandos” (one of the rent-a-cops that patrolled the school).

I silently extracted myself from the group and hurriedly walked to the locker room trying to keep the movement in the affected region to a minimum. No need to spread the pain. Upon reaching the bathroom I locked myself in the stall and inspected the carnage. It was bad, oh, it was bad. Words can’t really describe the sinking feeling I experienced.

Teenagers are in a fight for freedom. Freedom from the restrictions of parents and school and all the limitations of society, and I was no different. And in an attempt to gain as much freedom from any type of restriction as possible I wore boxers rather than briefs. How I wish I had slipped into something more supportive that morning. Had I chosen anything other than boxers, the Hershey squirts would have been contained at ground zero. But I didn’t and they weren’t. In fact there was nothing contained about them and the openness of my boxers and the angle of my legs apparently was just perfect to allow them to reach… my sock.

At this point I knew that staying at school was no longer an option. I was going home. By this time the bell had already rung and my classmates were in the locker room dressing for class. They were coming in and out of the bathroom on a pretty regular basis and I couldn’t be risk being seen and having to explain why I wasn’t going to class. So I stayed locked in the stall until they had all gone to the gym. In this time I was able to clean up and plan my escape. I would make my way to the nurse’s office where I would feign sick so I could go home. However, to go out the front door of the locker room would lead me right past the coach’s offices and the open gym door. This wasn’t an option. My only escape route involved the back door of the locker room that led directly outside towards the heavily patrolled student parking lot. I had no choice. I made my way out the door and around the back of the school, knowing if I was stopped I would have no good explanation for being there. I made it back into the school and like a ninja I hugged the shadows until I got to the nurse’s office.

My next obstacle was coming up with an ailment that was bad enough to get a ticket home, but not too bad as to arouse suspicion. What did I come up with? Vomit (write that down, I promise you it will come in handy sometime). I put on my best “I just threw up” face and staggered into the nurse’s office. She bought it, hook line and sinker, and almost instantly I was dialing home. My only hope was that my mom was at home. I knew that my dad could be reached at work, but based on a previous experience I figured I only had about a 50% chance of going home if I called him. You see, in 8th grade I got pushed out of my desk (Whoops, there’s another secret, I told my parents I tripped so that the popular kid that pushed me wouldn’t get in trouble (I thought people wouldn’t like me if I got him in trouble)). Anyway, I split my head open and called my dad to see if I could go home and he decided I could stay at school. The best bet here was to reach my mom, which I did. And I got my ticket home. Luckily I had my car and could leave immediately. Fifteen of the longest, grossest minutes of my life later I was home and nobody had a clue. Even my mom for some reason was remarkably unsuspicious, even when I went straight to the shower when I got home.

Well, there it is. My secret is out. I thought sharing my secret would have some type of cathartic effect and I would feel a weight lifted, but the truth of it is… I’m really just afraid that people are going to make fun of me now. I’m pretty sure I am going to have nightmares about people sending me adult diapers. Life changes or not, I guess some secrets are best kept, just that, a secret.