The (Brown)Eye of the Storm

I’ve always tried to avoid planning too far into the future, because it rarely leaves me with any room to improvise. Each step depends entirely on the success of the one before it, so even the smallest of setbacks sends you scrambling to get back on course, lest it derail the entire operation. It forces you to assume that everything will go smoothly, and your plan will run it’s course unmolested, despite the fact that each new turn provides a fresh set of holes through which the Universe* can bone you. And while the U rarely takes advantage of every opportunity to screw us over, he seems to have made an exception in my case. It seems like every time a hole opens up in my game plan, the Universe pops one of his greasy digits in there just to mess with me. Dude’s fingering all of my holes.

It started with snow. Not out of character for a story starting in Cleveland, but snow led to delays. Delays rerouted me to Japan. Which wouldn’t have been a big deal, but apparently nobody told the baggage handlers. Then there was the kamikaze cab driver, who took advantage of the language barrier to hussle me out of another 20 bucks, but at that point I couldn’t be bothered to care. I was tired, dirty, angry, and I had to take a dump. Bad. So I got my key and pucker-butted my way up to the room, only to find that this toilet came with a detailed set of instructions—-instructions that I could not read.  The language barrier, the luggage, the isolation, and disorientation: these are things I can deal with. But if I had known that I would need a translator just to sit atop the porcelain throne and drop a little heat—that this place was capable of sullying even this most sacred of American sanctuaries—I never would have stepped on that plane.

Now, some might say that everything that could go wrong did go wrong, but I disagree, because those people have shitty imaginations. There are so many more horrifying ways this could have gone wrong, and saying things like that is just begging the Universe to bring some next level voodoo down on me–ya know, maybe find a few more holes to finger, a little more vigorously this time around. I still had my wallet, my passport, computer, both eyebrows, and I didn’t die. These are all victories in my book.

I’m not saying that this quick succession of shit luck hasn’t been humbling and/or deeply discouraging. Quite the contrary.  I was super bummed, questioning my entire reason for being there. As I sat there on that foreign toilet, poised in the most vulnerable of positions, the dark clouds of self doubt began to creep across my conscious mind, casting my previous confidence in shadows. But then. By some force of divine intervention, my hand slipped to that illegible instruction panel, and I realized for the first time that it was more than just a toilet. It was a bidet.  I tell you this, Dear Reader, when that lightly pressurized jet of water found its target betwixt my cheeks, those gloomy skies parted and a bright ray of hope shot through the clouds and found my soul. It found my soul…through my hole. And then filled it to the brim with music, laughter, and joyous wonder of children on Christmas morning.  It was then, that I thought, “maybe this won’t be so bad,” “maybe I’m supposed to be here, after all,” “maybe this storm is behind me, and it’s all blue skies and bidets from here on out.”

Then training week started. And the storm resumed.

*The universe, karma, god, or whatever all power force you believe is watching us–maybe just plain fuckin’ luck–doesn’t matter. You know what I mean. Don’t be a dick.