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The Proof Is In the Pooping
A hard lesson you never want to learn from experience is “Always use the bathroom before you get in the car.” I offer my testimony about how I learned this fact is true.
My family would take the New Jersey Turnpike to visit our cousins, 47 miles away. There were two rest stops along through the route (in Woodbridge and Ridgefield), which generally took an hour to traverse.
When I was nine years old, my three younger brothers were seven, five, and three. We were all toilet trained and instructed to speak up well in advance if we needed a bathroom break on a family road trip.
On this particular visit, we were slated to arrive at lunchtime. None of us were quite sure when we were going to leave that morning. Our father had run an errand to the hardware store. When he returned, our mother informed us, that would be the time to grab our shoes and jackets and make our way to the car.
I was drawing one of my homemade comics and sipping orange juice. I heard the front door slam and heard my father say, “Let’s get going, guys!”
I emptied the dregs of my drink into the sink and put the cup in the dishwasher. The house had three bathrooms, and each of my brothers had claimed sole custody to clear their systems before embarking on the journey.
