Bowel Movements and other fairy tales...

Several years ago, my friends Mike and Linda were expecting their second child.  If it was a boy, they wanted to name him Brandon Michael.  However, they had concerns about such a name.  Mike feared children would make fun of his initials:  BM

Now I thought that not to be a problem.  I knew school kids could be cruel but BM was just too easy.  Most children had to be more imaginative than that.  Names like butt mustard came to mind but you get the idea.

Then I related to them how in the seventh grade, hating my name, I decided to go by my initials:  RP  By the end of the first day of signing my assignments RP Jensen, I was known throughout school as "rat piss" Jensen.  Of course the next day I was back to "Randy."

That brings me to Verby.  Verby was one of my second grade classmates.  Now I know you're asking yourself, who the hell names their kid "VERBY?"  What is it short for, "Verbiage?" or "Verboten?"  We never knew.

1960's Urinal

Now Verby had a peculiar habit.  Hell, he was a peculiar kid.  At least once a day he asked permission to go to the little boy's room.  After he had been gone for sometime, Mrs. Elliott, our second grade teacher, would sent ME to go get him.  

    

The first time I carried out this task, I was shocked.  Too shocked to tell anyone.  There was Verby buck naked in the boy's room dancing a jig, his little anteater wiener flopping up and down to some strange rhythm only Verby could hear.  He had shucked his overalls and I guess his underwear, though I never noticed any and I damn sure didn't hang around to look for any.

    

We all knew something was wrong with Verby, someone named him "VERBY" after all.  And you don't do that to a normal kid!  Verby was, as we said in those days, "Husky."  He wore thick glasses which failed to mask the rather dull expression that seemed to always be on his face.  Verby rarely bathed, and he washed his overalls but once a week.  Verby rarely talked.  He was one of those kids who sat in the back of the class and was mostly ignored by the other kids.  No one picked on him, it was no challenge, besides they had me, the preacher's kid for that.  All I knew was it was my daily task to go get the little perverted bastard.

    

Now being raised a good Baptist preacher's kid, we were taught to have compassion on the less fortunate.  So I guess those thoughts are un-Christian, but Verby was a sick little fart.  What was to become of him?  He was one of those kids John Prine described as "living in life's in-betweens."

    

Then one day Verby decided to elevate his nude dancing experience by preparing a burnt offering to the god's of disturbed naked second grade jig dancers.  Mrs. Elliot had sent me to the boy's room to retrieve Verby as was her daily practice.  I opened the door and low and behold, there was Verby, naked as usual, dancing around the trash can to which he had set fire to the paper towels contained there in.  As smoke and flames rose, Verby seemed more excited.  Not wishing to find out how excited, I ran back down the hall to tell Mrs. Elliot.

    

I could no longer keep Verby's daily little private perverted ritual a secret as he was about to burn the school down.  Imagine the headlines the next day.  "Nude second grader found dead in boy's room."  "Tens (it was a small school) die at hand's of naked seven year old."

   

From that day on, Mrs. Elliot was very tight with the bathroom passes having been sorely reprimanded for allowing Verby's nude pagan worshiping ritual to be carried out in the bathrooms of the elementary school in a good Baptist God fearing community such as Martha, Oklahoma.

    

One day I raised my hand to go and I was denied.

Martha School

Now my dad was the principal of the small school I attended and in essence Mrs. Elliot's boss, and one of those to reprimand her for allowing Verby to stray from the straight and clothed.  That very day I was denied access to porcelain, I got into dad's 1953 Chevy truck.  The truck I first heard Hank Williams in but that is another story.

   

Dad sort of sniffed.

What is that?

Earlier in the day, when I had asked Mrs. Elliot for permission to go to the boy's room, I was serious.  But due to Verby's over use of  bathroom dance privileges,  I had to shit my pants.  It was one of those shits that was loose but not so loose it ran dawn your pants, but loose enough you just couldn't get a grip on it to hold it in.  But there is that moment of inevitability, the point of no return when you know you're screwed.

    

1953 Chevy Truck

So there I sat in my dad's pride and joy 1953 Chevy pickup with a now cold damp turd gluing my Montgomery Ward white cotton briefs to my seven year old ass.  Dad could not ignore the stench, asking,  

    

Son, did you have an accident?

My dad, bless his heart, a part-time Baptist preacher, could not bring himself to say,

   

Son, did you shit your pants?

    

Embarrassed as never before, and not having shit my pants since giving up diapers, I reluctantly nodded yes.

    

How did it happen?

    

Well, I asked Mrs. Elliott if I could go to the bathroom and she said no.

I see.

    

Unbeknown to me, I had just gained great power over my second grade teacher, for from that day on, all I had to do was look uncomfortable or merely begin to raise my hand, and I was given unconditional permission to go to the bathroom.  An advantage I made much use of as the second grade progressed.

    

Matisse Dancers

After the fire, we never saw Verby again.  No one ever told us what happened to him.  We thought they sent him to the reform school for naked seven year olds, envisioning rooms filled with naked Verbys dancing about burning trash barrels.

    

And as for naming your kids, don't worry about his or her initials.  Kids are cruel and will make fun of it no matter what you name him or  her.  I would avoid Fred Uker, or Sam Oscar Baugh though...   And for God's sake don't name him Verby!