ooops...

I am not sure if this is a cautionary tale which will provide you with some sort of moral lesson in the end, or if it is just a story to be filed in the "Too Much Information" annals of history. Either way...

It is my turn to come down with a head cold. It's fairly minor right now, consists of a scratchy throat and post nasal drip. And some sneezing. The sneezing is important, I'll come back to that in a bit.

Combine the minor head cold with the fact that our mattress sucks and my neck and back are killing me. I don't have full range of motion in my neck, even though I've used heating pads and begged the spouse to rub my neck and back this morning. He grudgingly obliged and I felt better at 7am, but I'm right back where I started pain-wise. We need a new mattress. I know.

So I am not in the best sorts today to begin with.

I took Geoff to the bus. When I walk outside most mornings, I sneeze. Geoff does too. The bright sun, the snow, the glare, all add up to a glorious sneeze. This morning though, I didn't get my sneeze. It just wouldn't happen. We went to the bus, waited, and after Geoff was gone I headed back to the house. I stopped at the side of the road to enjoy looking at the pond. I also looked through the trees directly at the sun. When I need to sneeze and it won't happen, I sometimes think about the movie "Gregory's Girl" from 1980 or so, and how he's in the cafeteria trying to impress the ladies with his mad scientific knowledge and he starts talking about how fast a sneeze comes out of your nose. The chicks aren't digging his mad skill (and now that I think of it, "Gregory's Girl" is the Napoleon Dynamite of the early 80s, don't you think?).

Anyway, I looked at the diamonds on the water, I looked through the tree branches, I looked at the ice and the snow, and got my sneeze.

It was a glorious sneeze, powerful, from the belly outward up through the schnozz. And when I sneezed this glorious sneeze, this wonderful, stupendous sneeze, I pooped my pants.

Yes I did.

I shat.

Somehow, this most powerful of sneezes managed to knock the crap out of me, literally. It also caused several huge pops up and down my spine, one of which I am sure should have severed my spinal cord. But it didn't. Instead, I stood there, across the street from my house, suddenly aware that I was carrying a load.

Quickly, I managed to get across the street and into the house. Gloves off, boots off, coat off, cursing the whole time. Sweater off, pants and skivvies onto the porch. I got my body into the shower for the second time in less than one hour.

This just ain't right.

The laundry is washing and now the truck is pre-heating. All I have to say is that I may not go fishing the sky for a sneeze in the near future. I may just have to start wearing Depends or "Oops, I crapped my pants" brand adult diapers.

With this, I go. May your skivvies enjoy a crap-free day.