Accelerated Adolescence

Can I Borrow a Cup of Sugar?

A lesson in embarassing social situations with your neighbors

Usually, it isn't too much of a burden on your neighbor to call on them and ask for that missing ingredient that you need but, either, don't have the time or are feeling too lazy to run to the grocery store to replenish. In many cases it is eggs, flour, or sugar. There are times when it is better to simply go to the store and not ask your neighbor for the missing ingredients.

Occasionally, you will stumble upon something that you realize you should have just gone to the store for; this recently happened to me. Maybe I didn't really need those eggs.

Because kristen and I are fasting our diets currently consist of too much processed grain, too much fiber, and too little water. Such a diet leads to what can be referred to both literally and metaphorically as "backed up plumbing." Let me tell you about it.

I am not particularly ashamed of my bowels, when I write about them with blind anonymity on the internet. However, having to ask another person, face to face, to use a tool that will come in direct contact with fecal matter (and has already come into contact with theirs) is a bit challenging. The topic of a friendly neighborly conversation rarely migrates to such mutual fecal experiences, this only serves to make the topic more awkward when deliberately brought up.

There you stand, facing your neighbor, asking to borrow their plunger. Doesn't sound too bad. Try making eye contact, though, and you'll find that you are in a different situation. Making eye contact establishes the tacit understanding that both of you have made poos large enough, at some point have, plugged the toilet, backed up the waterworks, stoppered the whirlpool by Circe, Odysseuss would have been so lucky. There, you neighbor is handing you the tool of fecal extracation. As your neighbor gives you the plunger, you know what they're imagining. The same thing you would be imagining, how vast the size of the poo must be to warrant borrowing a plunger! Look at the guy, he's well over six feet tall! It must be the size of Mt. Rushmore.

Then, of course, there is the matter of returning the plunger. You only need it for forty seconds, but if you return it too swiftly, there are concerns of cleanliness. In fact, simply returning it acknowledges a certain risk of taint. If you take too long to return the plunger, well, what are you imagining now? Repeated use? So was I. In my paranoia, I washed and boiled the utensil before returning it. I thought about going to the store to get some hospital disinfectant to sterilize it. I then spent the rest of the evening paranoid about how much E. coli was growing on my hands. When I returned the borrowed concave fecal exterminator, my neighbor, of course, asked me, "So, did it work?" Oh no! She acknowledged the purpose of the plunger. I responded with some stammers and blushing and a little joking about its effectiveness. But the two of us were visibly awkward with the subject despite relative maturity. I still wish that I had just run away.

In retrospect, if I ever need a porcelain avenger again, I'll just go to the store and buy one. This whole ordeal has caused me to imagine scenarios involving borrowing other awkward items, like toilet paper.

Posted by Mendon at March 18, 2006 6:24 PM