Waste not want not
Alexandria, Virginia I sit on bathtub’s edge, back spasming, left leg numb, inner cheek bitten raw — pain that must be endured if I am to triumph over fatherly futility. #5 is only twenty months old but understands that in a household of eight people the toilet is the optimal, if not the only, place for contemplation. I am reflecting, too, on an event that occurred three years earlier, one that will be with me on my deathbed. I was in a rush for reasons I cannot recall as #4 sat lost in thought or perhaps the fiftieth reading of Yertle the Turtle. I grew frustrated. “Go pee! Go poo!” She looked up at me and said with the calm gravity befitting a statesman: “Go Mets.” Only then did she poop.
