How Others See You

I've wondered for nearly all of my life just how others around me see me. Do they think I'm funny, witty, useful, gullible, retarded, or spectacular? The way that some people act around me makes me wonder if they think I'm a floor mat that is sitting there for the only necessity of them wiping the crap off their shoes.

Speaking of wiping, and crap, it brings me around to the actual reason for this post. See, how others view me, along with wiping and crap, tie into one enormously embarrassing moment for me that I so cannot understand, even years later, how it came about, and how I wound up in the midst of it.

It had to have been almost 2 years ago exactly that this incident worth mentioning happened. Buckwheat was maybe a year old, so yeah.. 2 years ago sounds good. Living in NY state at the time, I was returning the soda bottles that I had collected under my sink, in my pantry, under the seats in my car, off my computer stand, on my headboard to my bed.. you get the picture.. at a local grocery store. They have those machines that you feed your returnables into, it crushes, tallies, and prints out a receipt when you are done, all for your convenience. Well, here I was with Buckwheat in the front of the cart, while I fed those cans and bottles (all Mountain Dew related) into those forsaken machines that would break down every 3 or 4 cans so that it made returning them lousier than having to wade through the plastic and aluminum that was knee high around your house because you were avoiding those machines specifically. At some point, I saw an elderly lady scoot around the corner to use the employees only restroom that was across from the return machines.

I thought nothing of it, the elderly have a hard time controlling their bodies, and if she had to go, then I wasn't going to hold it against her for using an employees only restroom. I was just finishing up with my cans and bottles when I heard someone sniffling from the doorway of said restroom.

I looked around, and there stood the lady that had glided in a bit before. She was flapping her hands in mid-air, while crying copious tears. Instantly, I was worried that there was something terribly wrong with her, health wise, and asked if she needed some help. My first mistake.. right there.

She sniffled loudly, moaned about how this just can't be happening, and asked me to follow her into the restroom. My brain must have had reasoning turned off at that point, because I made sure that Buckwheat was secured in the cart, and pulled him closer to the employees only restroom.

As I entered the room, my nose was assaulted with the vicious aroma of feces. I held my breath the best that I could, as I asked the lady if she was okay, yet again.

She started crying harder, and I was getting ready to bolt for the nearest phone to call 911 with. Then, through her tears and sniffles, she manages to tell me the following...

That she had been sick, and just HAD to go to the bathroom, but somehow she missed the toilet, and it wound up going up her back, down her legs, and nearly all over her clothing. At this point, I could do nothing more than stand there as she told me how she managed to get it off the toilet, and she thinks she got it off her legs... but that she was pretty sure her backside was still covered in it and that there was no way she could continue her daily errands without being cleaned up because it would get all over her slacks and then everyone would know.

And then she asked me to see if I could help her clean up her backside. Now, living in a small NY town, I somewhat knew this lady. SOMEWHAT. And here she was asking me to clean her shitty ass as if she were a 2 year old. I didn't know what to say.. my mind churned with a million reasons why I shouldn't be doing it, and a million reasons why I should just leave, but one look at her heart broken face and none of it would come forth and spew out of my mouth so I could deliver the excuse.

I sighed, steeled myself, and grabbed the wipes out of my son's diaper bag that was sitting under the cart. With all of the willpower that I had ever had, I assisted this old lady in cleaning her backside of feces. I held my breath, choked down vomit, and worried about the days when my ass was going to look like that, and tried to veer away from any conversation with this lady.

It took less than 2 minutes to clean her, and assure her that she was fine. She rambled on the entire time I was cleaning her about how embarrassing this was for her. Lady, she had no clue. My 26 year old body was cleaning its first old person hiney. I purposely never went into being a CNA for this reason specifically. I couldn't bring myself to face the nether regions of an older person. And here I was, doing just that, and not getting paid for it.

I went home that day mortified, in a daze, wondering if I had really just cleaned an old lady's ass at the grocery store. Each time the thought would pop up in detail, I would gag down the vomit that threatened to rise, and remind myself that good things come to those who help others in need. That what goes around, comes around.

So, please.. if.. in 50 years or so.. you are confronted in a grocery store with a little old lady moaning about shitting herself and needing help.. do us all a favor.. shoot me and put me out of my misery. I don't think I could live with myself for causing someone else the emotional damage that it did to me.

Tying in to what other people think of me.. did I have the kind of look on my face that day in the grocery store that gave this lady the impression that I liked to wipe shitty asses that I wasn't familiar with? It haunts me, even to this day, that I might be the type of person that when others look at me, they see me wiping their asses in the future.

I think I need to go out and make a new name for myself. I need to rectify what I've started, I need to stand up for what I believe in, I need to assert myself! Then again.. I'm just not that mean. I think that I will forever be an ass wiper.

So... what do you think others see when they look at you??