IT’S ALL MY FAULT…
A Milestone, a Men’s Room & Mr. Cell Phone
By Duane Scott Cerny
I turn 65 this month, and I’ll be happy to have reached this milestone for one odd reason: I can finally tell everyone hawking Medicare supplements to stick it up their AARPs. Pushy telemarketers will now receive faster hang-ups. The avalanche of emails will turn to deleted trash faster than a John Waters film festival. And all the postcard mailers, unwanted brochures, and oh-so-unhelpful promotional letters, will meet the blades of my much-abused paper shredder.
FYI: After one particularly manic paper slicing evening, my shredder actually asked if Dr. Kervorkian had ever assisted home appliances.
I suspect many of you never thought you’d reach your present age for a myriad of reasons. Heck, maybe you once had a nasty myriad addiction? Remember staggering through a 3 am. Washington Square Park drug run in search of your myriad fix? Or was it MiraLAX?
My memory, as of late, is not so great. I have over-the-counter Prevagen, but often I’m under a table, and then forget to take it.
But I digress, wandering down a lost memory lane in search of what? Oh, yes! Another all true short story to tell.
The Men’s Room, Chicago’s O’Hare Airport
I’m finishing up my personal duties in a bathroom stall. I hear a loud, one-sided conversation — some guy on his cell phone. As I exit to find an open sink, I notice the room has emptied of all bladder-control losers.
Strangely, a tall, hip-hoppish young man now stands multiple feet back from the urinal, his baggy pants around his ankles, a cell phone at his ear. “I don’t know where I am, man!” he says. Turning to me, he shouts, “Hey, little buddy, what airport is this?”
Stuttering — Why are his pants around his Nikes? — I say, “O’Hare!” He repeats it back to his most important caller. I scramble with a paper towel dispenser, fast flapping my hands like Marcel Marceau working the tarmac.
“Bud, what city?” he yells a tad louder, half turning, and to my eye, clearly traveling commando today.
“Chic-ago!” With hands still wet, I turn heels over roller board toward the door and…
“Buddy, man! Can you help me out here? I can’t put down my phone…” He gestures with a point of his finger. “And these gotta get pulled up. I’m gettin’ cold.”
“Um, yea!” I shake my head, more in agreement that his pants should return to being worn vertically ASAP. Has he some odd medical condition where he can’t bend down to pick up his own pants?
Mr. Cell Phone continues to debate his locale as he energetically shuffles toward me. A dozen scenarios flash through my mind… the literal “flash” being both endowed and obvious. Still, the sexual element did not immediately occur to me. Shades of Larry “Wide Stance” Craig would flash later.
While I’m a bit shocked/disoriented about what might next happen, Mr. Cell Phone simply scurries beside me — still yammering on the phone — and nods down to his low-riding pants that can’t possibly ride any lower.
Why hasn’t someone/anyone entered the men’s room during this weird wardrobe malfunction? No other passengers, cleaning staff, understanding TSA officers? Is there suddenly an air traffic controller’s strike? And how can I flee when there is clearly a fly in need?
Let me address what’s going through your mind: Why am I reading gay porn? The fact is, you’re not. We’ve all encountered a traveler in need. Was the Bible’s Good Samaritan ever pressed into putting a man back into his pants? Clearly a vague biblical topic.
While trying not to see or unsee his privates, I quickly bend down and find the loops of the young man’s pants and hike them up knee-high. Mr. Cell Phone casually reaches down with one hand — still talking — wiggles his hips like a lost hula girl, then hikes his trousers up over his trout.
(Sorry! Always fishing for a laugh.)
And then, like it was just another day at no airport in particular, he nods an appreciative hipper-than-hip adjusted nod. It was as if I had just pulled a thorn from his paw. Or something from somewhere.
If I’ve learned anything in these past sixty-five years, it’s that every milestone begins with a first step. After that, it’s best not to be too specific.
Duane Scott Cerny takes the blame for most everything in his monthly satirical column “It’s All My Fault.” Best selling author of Selling Dead People’s Things, he is the co-owner of Chicago’s Broadway Antiques Market and reluctantly appears most Sunday nights on AmberLive.TV. E-ThanklessGreetings@yahoo.com.
