Canadian Toilets: A Symbol of Quality, and Other Stories

Canadian Toilets: A Symbol of Quality

The last refuge of a sub-par blogger: Bathroom humor.

Housemate Chris was in Canada this past weekend. He returned Monday evening, and promptly clogged our toilet. I thought there was something wrong with the flushing mechanism, or the water pressure, or something else unrelated to human waste. Chris put paid to my innocent theories by nonchalantly informing me that the blockage was due merely to the fact that he had just returned from Canada. The items in question needed some time to "soften" as he put it. Canadian food, it would seem, has a higher iron content... or something.

Fortunately, we have another bathroom in our house, so calls of nature could be heeded unimpeded. And true enough, when I got back from class the next day, approximately 18 hours after initial discovery, our toilet was as clean as can be (well, as clean as can be in a house of three male graduate school students). Apparently, poop is harder in Canada. They must have stronger, sturdier toilets too then... maybe with reinforced titanium and high pressure suction. Canadian toilets: A symbol of quality. Who would have known?

The Bluegrass Concert... Or was It?

While Chris's digestive system was getting reacquainted with its Canadian roots, I was in Salyersville, Kentucky with Tif visiting people she worked with over the Summer. One of the townspeople told us about a bluegrass concert in a town 20 minutes north of where we were. Hmmm... Rural Kentucky? Bluegrass concert? It seemed like the ultimate Southern experience. Banjos, harmonicas, fried chicken, toothless old codgers with war stories, right? Certainly not a Democrat running for Morgan County Judge Executive or anything of that nature, right?

Wrong.

It so happened that our "Bluegrass Concert" was actually a "Political Rally" designed to "Drum Up Support" for "Democrat Mike Gevedon" as he takes on "Republican Incumbent Tim Conley" for the seat of "Morgan County Kentucky's Judge Executive" in the November elections. The "concert" part was 4 slightly overweight fellows singing songs that no one really paid any attention to. It was bluegrass though, I'll give you that, with banjos no less, but still a far cry from a "concert." I guess it might have been a bit of a PR spoof to get unsuspecting idiots (like me) to convince the people with them (like Tif) to attend the rally. So that was that. It wasn't a total loss though. We got to use their facilities. And I came away with a "Mike Gevedon Democrat" nail file. Very handy. Very handy indeed.

Forgot My Lines & Covered My A**

So this goes back to my time as Leo in The Producers. We were on 10 nights (11, if you count the three scenes we did for the press) and I only forgot my lines once. But it was memorable. Not only did I forget my lines, I didn't realize I had forgotten them.

It was the middle of Act 1 Scene 2. I was supposed to say, "So is he good... I mean is he bad?" and cue Aly (Max) to say his next line ("Bad?? He couldn't direct you to the bathroom!") which in turn cued Mikail (Franz) to knock loudly on our door. But I didn't. So Mikail waited patiently off stage, Aly stood patiently on stage and I sat on a couch facing the audience wondering what the hell was going on. 300 pairs of expectant, just-paid-800-rupees-for-this-farce eyes watched our every move.

After about 5 seconds I realized someone had missed their cue (of course it couldn't have been ME) so I looked at Aly and, without thinking, said the first thing that came into my head: "Was there something you wanted to say?" Now Aly, being the better actor and the quicker thinker, covered my gaffe quite well. The scene got back on track, and we ended it as planned. As soon as we got off stage though, Aly shared with me his deepest feelings:

"You (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted) (expletive deleted)!! You NOT ONLY forgot your lines, but you managed to make it look as though I had forgotten MINE!! (Expletive deleted) (Expletive deleted)!!

Which, in retrospect, though completely unintentional, was quite true. Aly, being on the whole quite good natured, got over it (at least I think he did) but I'm probably not going to be allowed to forget that shining moment as long as I live no matter how often I apologize. The perils of being a superstar... alright fine, a medium star... minor star... never mind.