Somewhere West of Cleveland, on the Great Monotony known as the Ohio Turnpike, nature called. She didn’t just call: she commanded me with Shakespearian urgency, “Get thee to a crappery - go!” And that is how, in a nameless I-90 service area, I came to appreciate the nature of space travel.
I dodged the usual collection of minivans and parked. Then, I did “The Dance of the Fully-Geared Motorcyclist Desperate to Get to the John.” Up went the visor, off came the sunglasses, off came the helmet, out came the earplugs, and off…dammit…off…grrrrr…OFF came one sweaty, too-tight glove and then off…dammit!...off…FINALLY!...OFF came the other. Zippers flew open like an Erica Jong novel as I tried to move with both speed and dignity on the way to relief.
Entering the building, slaloming between clueless tourists and children enjoying their all-too-short parole from the back seat, I headed for the pictogram of a Flat-Stanley man forever sculpted in stainless on the back wall. I entered the dude-side and, turning to the aisle where serious people go, I saw what I thought was salvation: light streaming from an empty stall.
Stall Five beckoned like the furies and I obeyed her siren song, popping the buckle on the Dariens as I went. As luck would have it, the accommodations were visually sanitary and free of…Klingons, thanks to the infrared valve that automatically takes care of such things. Little did I appreciate what the presence of that device portended when I turned and placed my corpulent, but tender posterior in the proper position.
Sweet relief engulfed me as I sat there, doing what all men without a magazine do in such situations: checking my email, texts, and FaceBook on my phone. With all due respect to this fine publication, when in dire need of distraction, smartphones are the new magazines. I must say, things were going quite well and I was feeling most secure in my own private Ohio. I should have known that fate has a way of sensing self-satisfaction.
Once satiated, I leaned forward ever-so-slightly to retrieve the lovely, single-ply, recycled, sixty-grit sandpaper flecked with real wood splinters that passes for toilet tissue in such institutions. When I moved, the little roving, red Cylon-eye of the infrared valve decided that Elvis had left the building, because the next thing I knew, the equivalent of a Saturn Five rocket erupted from beneath my behind: BAAAHHHWOOOSH!!
The resulting vortex was so strong that little bits of paper and dirt from the stall were sucked into the maelstrom taking place beneath my buns. All the exposed hair on my body was pointed toward the source of the vortex, so strong was the air current coursing through Stall Five. I daresay that, were I not so well fed, I might have been sucked into the ceramic Stargate, never to be seen again. Had I been experiencing any eliminational reluctance, it would have been cured by the maelstrom.
Finally, after what seemed an inordinate amount of time, the launch window closed and the vortex subsided into the placid lake it had been upon my arrival. Cautious, I now carefully reached back to finish what must be done in such situations and…the second stage lit off with equal gusto to the first. BAAAHHHWOOOSH!! Even though I was more prepared than the first time, the sheer violence of the thing still gave me the willies. Fortunately, I was able to complete the mission despite being in the middle of a sub-orbital burn lasting multiple seconds.
Steeled by the first two occurrences and, knowing what the infernal little infrared bastard had in store for me, I ended my association with that device by abruptly standing up so it could do its encore presentation without me in close proximity. Predictably, the third and final stage lit off, sending whatever remained of my presence well on its way to lunar orbit.
I hurriedly exited Stall Five, but chanced a look back just to make sure I’d left nothing in my haste to leave. The seat seemed to give me a gap-toothed grin and when I looked at the infernal, Cylon-eyed infrared valve, I swear to you: he winked at me. His cousin in the faucet spat tiny, ill-timed gouts of cold water at my hands above the sink before I left to take flight again into the great nothingness of space that is I-90…and Toledo.