Tuesday, November 06, 2007

x365: 32 of 365: jimmy

Who are the people that never flush the toilets in elementary schools? Why do they do it? Why must you walk in to a bathroom and see a whole pile of somebody else's grits sitting in a toilet? I only ask because the non-flushing percentage of the population must be low, such that each school likely has no more than one or two. And yet they are a zealous people.

In elementary school, Jimmy, you were my prime suspect for membership and maybe even presidency of the No Flush Club. I never had proof, but the truth was that you didn't seem to be very familiar with the twentieth century, or even the Enlightenment, except as it applied to lying about knowing Tae Kwon Do. I'm pretty sure that you washed your hair - or had it forcibly washed - about once a month. Every so often you would show up for class with a fluffy bowl of auburn hair, the light shearing off the grain like a blade for our morning eyes. Then the slow thickening process would set in, the hair getting darker, denser and duller as the days dragged by.

By the third week clumps would appear, hanging in ropes from your skull, behaving like thick collective locks. People would start to give you a berth in the hallways, parting to avoid the swinging greasy hair and the mushroomy smell. Then a school dance would come around, and you would show up with shiny soft hair and a tan shirt with a brown velour collar. But you danced like you were scooping through a pile of dirt to find your dinner. Yeah, you were the one who never flushed the toilet. I just know it.

4 comments:

Rebecca said...

I went to school with a Jimmy. Only in my case, he was a Kevin Stuckey.

Hi Kevin!

Bruce Johnson said...

Parenting skills on display for all to see. You know his parents didn't know who Martha Stewart was either.

Gwen said...

We had a Jimmy and his name was Jimmy! He was our little Pig Pen. Jimmy Edwards. Man, that kid smelled like poo.

palinode said...

Everybody gotta Jimmy of their very own!

Lotus07 - Where I grew up, there were people who lived in the woods and had barely left the eighteenth century. There were some seriously scary folks.