Please don't read this... Mrs. Simpson and the PEE-PEE incident!

In my Blog, I’m still talking about my first week in fifth grade where I ended up in Sr. Godzilla’s class. She did not fail to live up to the terror her Saint Marks’ grammar school nickname invoked. 

So far (if you have tuned in and read some of my stories) you realize that our family was just NOT normal.   

We lived in what many would consider a GOOD CATHOLIC neighborhood and felt that between the Dahlins and the four other Lennon families nearby - our wonderful and obedient parents did everything they could to fulfill the Dominion Mandate of Genesis chapter 1 “Multiply and fill the earth.”  Between those five homes (alone) we had something like 53 kids and could have populated a small city all by ourselves (Wait...we did have a small city all by ourselves).

My mom had a baby a year and the Lennon Family (on the corner) are in Ripley’s Believe It or Not for having 11 kids (all of whom are born in different months – statistically, that’s an anomaly).

The only problem with the Dominion Mandate in Genesis Chapter 1…( besides the command to have lots of babies) is also the command by God to “Subdue and Rule over the world.”  That was probably a good idea at one time, but then after sin entered the world that’s where everything went wrong and Vikings were invented to pillage, plunder and terrorized the civilized world i.e. "to take dominion"

While the Lennons were obediently having children and appearing on TV every Saturday night on the Lawrence Welk show, my older brothers were busy wreaking havoc - also obediently keeping the command to subdue and rule i.e "to dominate" our little corner of the world.

Being something like 7^th or 8^th or whatever number I was in birth order (the last male child), I imagine that I was left to change my own diapers and feed myself from scraps that were either thrown to me in the corner or food that had fallen off the table.

I was like Mowgli, the lost child, being raised in the jungle. Our house was literally a jungle not only with kids and strangers who lived with us… but also the four legged creatures, reptiles, and birds that we brought home. Just look at that picture above... there I am in diapers holding a piece of 2 day old toast that I probably found on the ground...yum... yum!

I don’t blame my parents one bit for checking out, but that might be one reason it allowed the Wolf-Pack to reigned holy terror at Saint Marks (as well as in our neighborhood).  This might also explain the reason why the nuns at Saint Marks School felt they had to take out revenge on me.  By the time I came along, those poor nuns had enough of the Dahlin infestation that plagued the school for at least the last ten years.

Back then I didn’t know why I felt hated even on the first day of every grade I moved up to, but have since figured that out (at least that’s a hypothesis I’m floating as a theory), which leads me to the embarrassing story that happened in the third grade at the hands of Mrs. Simpson. 

The Lennons: The best Catholic Family in the history of the world.(see Blog Post of 4-28-2013: The Best Catholics in the World ).

The Dahlins: Well, let's allow this picture to speak for itself.

If you have had a chance to follow this blog, then you're well aware that my poor parents checked out and let my brothers (the inmates of the Dahlin house) run the asylum… By this time, our family had let the monkeys out of the zoo, reeled in the old grouch next door in a horrible prank, left me behind at Salton Sea that ended in a highway patrol chase… and the Wolf pack lured me into a death chamber that used to be a diaper pail  for an extreme "twofer." It doesn’t take a rocket scientist, to see that our family was unique, creative, diabolical and totally in touch with our inner-Viking (that followed God's command to subdue, take dominion and rule the world). 

A year after the JFK assassination when the cold war with Russia was at its zenith, Miss Sims – turned Mrs. Simpson was the substitute teacher in my third grade class.  She was going to give a test! I had to go pee and should have gone when we came in from recess. I didn’t and needed to go real bad...REAL BAD!

The mean substitute, Mrs. Simpson stood on top of Sister Shawn’s desk and declared that the floor  was like water and swarmed with angry and hungry alligators that loved to eat Third Graders… especially blonde-haired boys!

Since I learned to live in my imagination as a way of escape… I actually saw the alligators swimming around my feet and snapping their sharp teeth at my Keds sneakers. Dramatically, Mrs. Simpson barked out shrill warnings as to the demands of her test requirements.

There was to be absolutely no talking, “What-so-ever!”

There was to be no cheating, “What-so-ever!”

AND nobody – not one person could, at any time during the test, -could  never, at any time, -ever-ever raise their hand “For any reason, what-so ever!”

Look  up gullible in the dictionary and this is what you will find.  Gullible [ˈgʌləb^əl]  adj Markie D i.e Easily deceived or duped.

I looked around to see if any of the other normal kids saw the ferocious alligators.  I was terrified, BUT HAD to go pee-pee really, really bad. However, Mrs. Simpson (the Sub, the one in authority) said that if I raised my hand for any reason the alligators would eat me. I was afraid and spent the entire time of the class set aside for the test contemplating as to whether her hungry alligators would eat a kid who raised their hand - if that particular kid just wanted permission to use the restroom!

Everyone was busy taking the test… I was busy watching for alligators and trying to hold back my bloated and pressurized bladder.  
      10 minutes of torture – not one answer put down on the test. 
      20 minutes of torture – not one answer put down.

I was holding my popo...and doing the pee-pee dance in my seat.  Feet wiggling, behind squirming, hand pinching! I sat for 30 minutes of torture – still contemplating whether a kid could raise their hand in order to go to the bathroom or if that meant it would upset her hungry alligators. 

40 minutes of torture and I just couldn’t take it anymore.  I eased up (just a bit -on the grip on my fire hose) and decided to relieve some of the pressure.

Pssst...Psst... went small amounts of warm yellow fluid that ran down my leg. UGHhhhhhhh! That didn’t make my bladder any happier – NO! Instead, it made matters worst and hurt even more.  Bad decision!

By the time a kid got to third grade – no kid in the history of world ever PEE’D their pants - No…that was something for Kindergarteners. Without one answer on my test I was feeling helpless and stupid like a 5 year-old.

Pssst-Pssst – went more of the yellow liquid.  “Leak over the starboard side captain!”  I shouted in my head! 

I couldn’t hold anything back anymore and let it all go!  I managed to do a controlled sinking and let everything do down the right leg and into my right shoe.

There I sat in a giant puddle of yellow pee… and luckily for me, no one noticed....so far! 

Could I get out of this alive or would Michael Boyle point it out to everyone.  Someone had to smell the sea of urine that flooded the entire area around my desk – but at least I didn’t raise my hand…I won!

Sure, I would get another F on a test, but at least I might have beat Mrs. Simpson and her third-grade-eating-alligators.

Only problem now was: could I escape this mess undetected? I decided to run home for lunch and change pants hoping that Ronnie or Pat or Rick Arredondo wouldn't spot the yellow ocean I left behind and call me out in front of everyone.

The test was over and I discretely tried to pretend that nothing had happened…I tried not to draw attention to the man on the grassy knoll… and that there was no CIA conspiracy in this episode of Markie D and the embarrassing incident of the third grade PEE-PEE.

Clop… slosh, clop…slosh, clop…slosh, went one dry Keds and the other sloshing wet shoe filled with pee-pee that left a trail down the long narrow hallway. 

I was almost all the way to the front door when a second grader slipped in my oil-spill and slid into a group of first graders like a bowling ball that knocked down a bunch bowling pins. The incident triggered an investigation to see where the spill took place… I ran home, hid my pants, checked under my bed for the rattlesnake that went missing yesterday, hid in my room and never came back that day.  

This will go down as the day that Markie D beat Mrs. Simpson and her alligators. I WON! 

If you've read this blog post share it with a friend, but please don't tell Marilyn or Theresa or Andrea...or any of my grammar school friends - because it is still embarrassing! 

Until next time...