When I was a school nurse, not all the kids that visited me were sick or hurt. Some just would pee or poop whenever the urge would strike and off-the-cuff…rather in their pants. Regardless of having a perfectly functional bathroom, some of my kiddos would just still poop in their pants.
I’d be at the middle school and happy as can be when the phone would ring and the principal from the elementary school would call, “Nurse Kevin…we have a code brown…Nurse Kevin…STAT! NURSE KEVIN!!!” When you clean up poop for your principal and occasionally take crosswalk duty or sit in a classroom so a teacher can take a breather, things go very well in May during evaluation time. My evaluation would be fairing fairly full of five-stars in all the fields, “You know what I like about you Nurse Kevin? You just do whatever I ask you to do.”
For our young-uns who would not let the teacher know that nature was calling, we would set up scheduled potty times for those kids. Sometimes the kids would leave to go pee or poo and not come back. It’d be a bit and the teacher would wonder where that child had gone off to. We’d scatter about our school grounds in search of the child to find them out on the swing set, tucked in the corner of the library with a pile of picture books, or asleep in the bathroom under the last toilet stall…and…with wet pants.
This happy little young-un…always smiling and giggling and doesn’t know how to be sad…comes into the office for potty training each day at different, scheduled times. Today, he’s proud to show off his new little Mohawk haircut that…to be honest…looks like a squirrel that has long since passed-on and its remains lay there perpendicular atop his little, skinned, knuckleheaded noggin.
He comes in giggling and with his jumpy and sporadic gestures. He’s got more energy than a pack of puppies that just enjoyed a nice warm bowl of double-shot espresso. “If I ‘go’ (to the bathroom), what will you give me?” Usually, a peppermint is enough incentive to go “turn the water yellow,” as I’d say. The “yellow water” was what I asked for as proof of their completing their assigned task. You’d be surprised at how many kids would come down for training and leave back to class with a trail of wetness down the hall…or a call from the teacher letting me know, “there’s still a smell!”
But, for some reason, a second form of payment-for-pee is necessary to get this job done and that kid back to class.
The little boy runs next door to the vice principal’s office, “Hey! Mr. Kincheloe, what will you give me?”
“For what?” Mr. Kincheloe knows “for what.” He’s playing along.
“To go pee!” the boy says as he’s already doing the peepee dance. Odds on bets for a clothes change are ever increasing.
“How about I don’t keep you in for recess?”
This kid didn’t care. Just being at school was like an entire day of “recess” to him.
His peepee dance has now turned to quadrilles, reels, jigs and I’m sure he’s about to start a bit of round dancing. Mr. Kincheloe is watching this commotion almost emotionlessly as if he’s a laboratory guy measuring the kid’s wherewithal to hold his pee before starting a bit of Irish tap dancing.
“Get out the Bodhrán and your fiddle there Mr. Kincheloe, and I’ll get my tin whistle and a pack of wet wipes for when the show’s over.” This kid’s smile turns to more of an anguished look as his dance starts looking an awful lot like the first steps of the Riverdance. He’s about to pop! If he doesn’t get in there quick and spend his penny, those cents will be spilling all over that floor.
“I’ll draw you a pretty picture!” I plea. I really don’t want to have to clean up what would otherwise just be a pee-in-the-potty deal.
“Of what?” He squeals through his baby-teeth in a smile-like grimace.
“Of you. Now go peepee!”
Three seconds later and with dripping wet hands (hopefully from the 2.3 second hand-washing he did before coming over and hugging my arm), “Draw me a picture of me!”
I open the paint program on the computer and try to capture his little smile, his little freckles, and the squirrel-mullet thing he’s got going on the top of his little head. As I am drawing the little boy picture, a little bit of the brown from the “mullet hair” ends up near the ear of the little boy in the picture. “What’s that on my ear?!”
This is a happy soul; genuinely happy.
Why can’t I be as happy as this kid? Some folks would say, “poor so-and-so. I feel so bad for his parents.” Yeah, yeah…is it that you feel sorry for them because he’s got so much energy and drives them nuts some days. Or, do you feel sorry for them because he will likely not share in the woes and worries of our poor old troubled first-world society. Yes. I want to get the “poor kid” part, but then again…I just don’t.
This child is happy. I think the only time I saw him unhappy was when he got hit by a stick. But, the other kid will deny he hit him with a stick. “No Nurse Kevin. I didn’t hit him with a stick. That was my X-989 Magstorm; it has almost zero recoil and the firing rate…”
My interruption is abrupt, “CHILD! This is a stick!”
“Nu hu, Nurse Kevin, that’s my X-989 Magstorm; it has almost…”
“Okay, okay. Why did you hit him with your X-989? What did he do to you that made you want to hit him with your X-989 thing?”
As calm as can be, he offered his most reasonable rationale, “Well, nothing. He didn’t do nothing.”
“So, Child! For all that is good and holy in this world, can you pleeeease tell me why you hit him with the stick…um…I mean the X-989 then?”
“Because he’s a cyborg Nurse Kevin!” He says this as calm as he can be and with as much “Duh!” as he can muster in his tone.
Needless to say, we faculty would “police” the school playgrounds for any lost or lying around X-989 Magstorms and especially after a night of wind or rain. Money may not grow on trees but cyborg thwacking X-989s do.
That was the only time I saw him upset and crying. Not mad at the other kid; just crying because he felt pain and didn’t understand why? He didn’t take the severe thwacking personally. He was just a happy kid regardless of how few marbles he had in his proverbial bag of marbles (broken or otherwise). And smart too.
He’d come into my office with his pants full of “mud”…on the inside. I’d get him to take care and pay attention to detail and with clear instructions that he does not touch me with the mud from “in there” (there’s a reason for these preemptive instructions and it’s not a pleasant story to remember).
He didn’t understand why I’d ask him to throw those muddy undies away, he wanted them to take back home so his mamma could wash them. Na, mamma knew that I was doing her a favor and they would find themselves in the trash with a “thud” when they hit the bottom of the garbage can. I’d hold up a new pair of superhero Underoos (I just dated myself again, didn’t I?). Pointing at the picture on the underwear, I’d ask the half-dressed, no-shame child, “Who’s this?”
He’d squeal out, “Superman!” and start running around the bathroom with a fist in the air and his little hoo-hoo dangling in the breeze. I guess this is what Superman would look like without his tights.
“And does Superman look tough and does he look happy?”
“YEESSSSSS! Tough! Happy!” He’d sing out.
“Don’t poop on Super Man…he does not like it when people poop on him. Poop is like Kryptonite to Superman.”
Later that day he and I would have a talk about why the Hulk doesn’t like to be crapped on.
Just happy. Few cares in the world and one-hundred percent, genuinely happy. Why can’t I be like that (except for the pooping in my pants part)? It’s likely because I take things personally. I see injustices; I see the on-purpose, meanness of others in this world. There’s always a mentality of things being in short supply with people fighting over the scraps of crap they likely could live just fine without. Why is it then…with empathy being in such short supply…why aren’t people fighting over more empathy? I feel responsible to mind the limits and rules of my community. And I don’t understand how others disregard these foundations at their discretion and just get away with their behavior.
I see people take, take, take and have no regard for others. And, it makes me sad because I take it personally. But why? No, not why do I take it personally. Why can’t I go up and thwack them with my cyborg thwacking X-989 Magstorm with almost zero recoil? Only mine would be an asshole thwacking X-989 Magstorm.
But then again…because I take things personally…maybe I am the source of my unhappiness. I can’t change folks and thwacking them will only get me in trouble. Maybe folks say, “poor little so-and-so” because they see him as being “different.” And they should feel sorry for him. He’s a happy, happy little boy living around a lot of sad, sad people. Maybe he is “different” but really and truly he may be what a “normal” human being should be (except for the wet and dirty pants thing). Maybe those who seem to feel sorry for him are the abnormal of our species regardless of their majority…I know that does not really define “normal,” but geez Louise folks; there are some real mean and unhappy folks out there.
How is stealing, hurting, lying, burning, and being completely oblivious to other’s needs be normal? Maybe…but my mind keeps seeing them as not being oblivious but being intentional and aware and THAT’S why I take it so personal. Hummm. Maybe I am seeing them all wrong. Maybe they are the ones with the few marbles in THEIR proverbial bag of marbles (broken AND otherwise).
Many of the children in the school would just soon hit you in the head with a stick if they could have more recess, more dessert, more TV time, or the toy of another child. They behave this way because they are children…they are learning how we should behave and act when they grow up one day. The problem is, many of those who are responsible for “getting these children grown” have never grown up themselves and are teaching them the same way they behave. It’s like 25-, 35-, and even 45-year-olds who have drugged their adolescence with them over the decades are “teaching” their kids how to be shitheads like they are.
This child is one of my life’s teachers on how to be happy. And I can’t help but notice that his happiness is not dependent on other people and the dyed-in-the-wool need to seek their approval. The hardest lesson he’s teaching me is the ability to not take things personally. This has been one of my life’s biggest challenges and I struggle with it every day. How does one remain in a general state of happiness and just take the abuse of the world? What do I do the next time I am thwacked by someone’s X-989 Magstorm and not be the recoil I think I should be after being thwacked-ed? If there’s anyone in the world that can take Jesus’ teachings to “turn the other cheek,” it’s this child; I am sure that I will continue to struggle. Does that make me bad or part of the “normal,” disregarding majority? No…I don’t think so. There’s a difference between continuing to struggle versus just saying “to hell with it” and start thwacking back all the time. Yeah. I’ll continue to struggle…continue trying.
But, for now there’s this happy child in my office and he’s watching me paint his picture on the computer as if I am Bob Ross painting a masterpiece. His eyes are wide. His hands clasped together in anticipation. He’s bouncing…literally bouncing with excitement…or is it the continued peepee dance (he better have went)?
As I am drawing the little boy picture with a brown squirrel laying on his head, a little bit of the brown squirrel “hair” ends up near the little boy-in-the-picture’s ear. “What’s that on my ear?!”
“It’s your squirrel hair with some of it coming out of your ear,” I tease. “It’s a picture of you in the future and what you’ll look like one day when you are all old and really hairy.”
He’s so happy…even happier and jumpier than he was when he came into the office. I printed the picture and gave it to him. He runs next door to Mr. Kincheloe’s office and holds up the printed picture, “LOOK! There’s a squirrel on my head!” He dances and giggles then spins around to the ladies at the front office desks a few feet away.
“Look at my picture! Look at my picture! I got a squirrel on my head, and I got hair in my ear…just like Mr. Kincheloe!”