http://www.artmojos.com
This is not a story about fish. It’s more about toilets, but we will get to that.
It’s true that the kids are overwhelmed by the fish.
Loch, who is five, is fascinated by all the rows of multi-colored dead fish on ice. He is exuberant about the live blue crabs which keep waving their legs in the air while trying to crawl out of their tub. Most of all he is mesmerized by the live lobsters and various swimming fish in tanks, waiting to be plucked for someone’s dinner.
Nine-year-old Lexi is impressed by all the severed fish heads with their frantic bulging eyes and festive teeth, while in another long case I am disconcerted by by all the animal parts. Tripe, brains, knuckles, tongues, stomachs, spleens and splintered bones are laid out in haphazard ways.
I gulp and feel suddenly intrigued by vegetarianism. The animal parts strewn about have made me, a Primitive Meat Eater, go kind of glinzty.
Aside from the fish and the bloody animal piles, there is lots of other stuff, foreign to our American eyes.
Row by row with our rolling cart, we all wander and look at unusual products.
I toss fish powders and some seaweed soup mixes into the basket.
We get a few fresh but unknown vegetables that we won’t know what to do with when we get home with them.
The store is dirty.
The kids are excited and curious as we wind our way up and down the aisles between fire crackers and bags of various dried mushrooms and jars of fish paste.
Then he begins (and won’t stop singing) Hanuaka songs in a loud voice…and we are not Jewish.
The store is dirty and packed with people and suddenly I have to pee.
Another fish at the market. http://www.artmojos.com
I make my way to the bathroom with some trepidation. If the store is dirty, what will the bathroom be like?
It is dirty.
But, what catches my attention is the sign in the stall I choose to use:
‘Don’t stand on the seats. If you squat on the seats make sure you look for any droppings you may have left behind on the seats and wipe them off.’
O.K.!
I squat.
Which means you hang over the seat but you don’t touch your butt to it. I don’t want to slap my quivering butt into any of those loose, dirty droplets.
A few weeks later I am at my art class at Carol’s house. We four have been meeting for ten-plus years, so we are comfortable with each other.
While we are discussing the complexities of life and art, Carol says something unusual.
“I’ve been thinking a lot about something…I’ve been wondering lately how many times have I sat on the toilet in 84 years?”
We don’t know what to say.
After a long pause, I ask, “Do you have an answer to that question?”
“No,” she says, “but I’m still thinking.”
Because of my fish drawings, you may have thought this essay would be about fish in an Asian market, or that it might have some redeeming quality; maybe something educational or some biblical or metaphysical truth that would make you feel better about yourself or your life.
No. In my mind it is more about toilets and what we do on/in them according to our culture.
Not that defecation is that interesting. Everything does it.
And it’s not consuming my life, like it is Carol’s. (Pooping is kind of a weak side note for me.*)
I drew fish because I like to draw fish better than I like to draw toilets and I did find the bathroom sign amusing.
So take what you want from this essay, something or nothing…however it suits your life at the moment.
I simply see it as one of those interesting Adventures or highlights that dot a life as we live it.
______________________________________________
* I wrote a popular book about pooping and various health issues. “The Herb Lady’s Notebook.” http://www.amazon.com. Or you can read a part of it for free on my website. See below.
An idea: If you like my posts, please consider emailing them on using the Email a Friend link above. Or share it on Facebook. I am doing my best to add a little cheer to the world. (Ok, well, with the unsuspecting help of my family and friends!)
*January is a great time for a phone reading with me! Visit me at www.GodIsAlwaysHappy.com for rates and availability.
Comments: Each month I choose a comment I like and the winner gets a FREE ten minute phone reading with me. The winner is announced here with the first blog of every month.
Tags: Asian, bathroom, fish, kids, Lexi, LOCH, summer, toilets
Leave a Comment...
Click here to Leave a comment through Facebook social network.Click here to Leave a comment through the blog.
Oh Venus! Your blogs don’t all have to have higher truths! If you are looking for one, though, “everybody poops” is kind of profound, when taken with Loch’s questioning of race (brown vs white skin).
We may have different skin colors, but we all use the toilet, LOL!
I love fish and would much rather SEE fish than toilets! Ha Ha! <3
I actually read that, and am writing this, whilst on my own, personal toilet.
I know what you mean Venus, but I never had to go in an Asian market! HELP!
Hi Venus! ,
On my lunch break Laughing Coffee went up my nose ! . Well Let me share Some simmilar thoughts on that subject .
I Have been in the School District maintaince Dept for over 25 years now Cleaning up After Kids . I Just moved back home to Sacramento California and Was Hired In the Sacramento School District . I Was really excited to start my new position Only to find out It was an Adult Education , Which There are alot of Immigrents here . Not to mention The reabilitation Traing Program for Prison Attendies and can’t get a Job that are being retraind as Truck drivers and forklift Drivers. Dont get me wrong I am thankful That I have a Job But What They do to the Bathrooms I Never seen In all my cleaning ! . I Had to have all the tiolet seats replaced Broken because they stand on them ! .They Tie Knot a long slice Of Toilet Paper in the the stalls So no One can peak at them in the cracks . And not to mention Spitting loogies Or the occacional Gum spitting on the floor . Well for the poopies We provide Toilet seat covers That Some Think it’s TP ! Well Enough of The grose stories .
Some of the Cultural Differences are real Apparent If We could only explain Thats what we use seat covers for . So go ahead and Sit down Nothins gonna Bite Cha! LOL!
Thanks for making Me Laugh today!
Donna Genovese ~
Venus – Hey, many a creative idea has sprung from moments spent pooping . . . I think! Love your fish paintings – very mojo-esque!
Lift seat with shoe before you hover over the toliet and droppings are eliminated. LOL
Venus, I have your herb lady notebook! I love it. Thank you so much for writing me back a couple of years ago when I emailed you questions. I love that in the book you encouraged readers to contact you. Any chance you will do the Herb Lady’s Notebook 2 and tell us your thoughts on omega-3/6 fish oil, flaxseed oil or vitamin C, B vitamins? I really want your opinion on fish oil and flaxseed oil…actually everything but I’d settle for just those! Love your blog…and I still listen to Summer’s flow dreaming CDs weekly.
Oh, dear Venus!
You make me laugh!
Once, a long, long time ago, on the week before my first wedding, several members of my family (many from out of town) went out to dinner.
Many of us hadn’t been together in years so there was a bit of posturing and formality going on. -At least until the second round of cocktails.
We went Chinese, one of the more upscale Chinese Places in Chicago, a lovely white-tablecloth kind of Chinese place.
I ALWAYS have to pee! I excused myself to go to the powder-room. The restaurant was dinner-rush-jumping, I stood up, straitened out my little skirt and began my stroll to the powder room, Mama, w/sherry glass in hand, screams out to me from across the room…”For heaven’s sake Monique don’t sit down! SQUAT!”
The place took on a silence that still rings in my ears!
After dinner, as we all were filing out of the restaurant, we ran into my very first pediatrician. Dr. Sheinberg. He looked just as I remembered him! He congratulated me on my upcoming nuptials, and praised my mom for her attention to my well-being and exquisite concern for my personal hygiene! HA!
Hope you are well. thank you for this early morning laugh and stroll down memory lane. xo
Venus, it sounded like grandson has not been around many brown people ??? that would be a shame. i wish i were down there so i could hang with summer.
do love you and your blogs talent and energy. E
Funny story! Here’s another little cultural bathroom anecdote for you…
My friend just told me the bathrooms in the far southern California, southern Arizona, and Texas – all near the Mexican border – have trash cans in the corner of the stall due to the bad plumbing in Mexico. Apparently the immigrants are used to throwing the paper products in the trash rather than the toilet to protect the plumbing, a habit which continues when they move to better-plumbed areas.
I’m going to take a guess the Asian market you were in attracts a lot of Chinese… their native bathroom situation requires squatting over a hole in the floor. I guess that’s a habit that’s hard to give up when you come across a toilet.
Me? I’m all for the public toilet “hover” (what you did). No need to touch the seat for any reason, or waste a perfectly good paper seat protector. LOL
Oh BaBa! Wasn’t that funny? I mean I didn’t see the sign, but everything else was so weird! I could not understand anything!