Chapter 2

Being stranded changes the entirety of your routine in ways I didn’t anticipate. I’m sure most people would smack their head and say, “Well, duh, Bob.” But I doubt if those people, judging me from their lofty un-stranded position, would think of all the ways being unable to go anywhere alters life.

Take, for example, going to the bathroom. You’d think that would be exactly the same, snowed in or not. But it wasn’t.

I had to go number two and when I sat on the throne, either my body knew there was no hurry, or my mind did, because I ended up sitting there for an hour. I guess my outlook on all this was, ‘If you don’t have any place to go, then why get going?’ I didn’t even realize how long it was until Emma opened the door and said, “Are you okay in here?”

I was positioned like all men are positioned in that situation, knees spread, strong hand pressed between my thighs, fingers holding my penis in position. That’s how all guys prosecute a number two. Everybody knows that.

Except that, quite possibly, half the population doesn’t know that, because my niece stood there, outrageously invading my privacy, and asked, “What are you doing?“

“I was going to the bathroom, before a woman disregarded centuries of social norm by barging in here without knocking,” I said. I tried to close my knees, but my wrist was in the way.

“Why is your hand in there ... like that?” Her voice communicated that she had some idea what my hand was doing, and that it made her slightly nauseous.

My brain got over being shocked, and realized that half the population doesn’t have a penis when they sit down to go number two. Or number one, for that matter.

“I have to point it down, so my pee doesn’t shoot forward and come out all over the place between the seat and bowl,” I explained.

She stood there, staring. My privacy meant nothing to her. That much was clear. What I didn’t understand was why my privacy suddenly meant nothing to her.

“Point it down,” she murmured. “Really?”

“Yeah, really,” I said.

“Doesn’t it point down in the first place?”

“As fascinating as this discussion is, perhaps we could continue it after I’m finished?” I suggested.

“I’m sorry. You were in here so long I thought something had happened to you.”

“Happened to me? What could happen to me? It’s not like I can fall in.”

“Thanks,” she said, her voice as icy as it was outside. “I was worried you’d had a heart attack or something, and you joke about it.”

She turned and stomped away.

Without closing the door.

I realized I had finished a long time ago, and had just been sitting there thinking. I couldn’t remember what I’d been thinking about. I suppose I’d been woolgathering, as my grandma would have put it. My teachers called it day dreaming. It was differences in language like that that made me love words, and then books.

I got up and pulled my pants up. I flushed and washed my hands. The water was still working, and I silently thanked modern plumbing for surviving blizzards. I didn’t thank God. He was the reason I was stuck here in the first place.

I went to find my injured fawn. She had put water in the coffee pot without grounds, and was waiting for hot water to drip out of it so she could make a cup of hot chocolate. We had a variety of tea bags and a can of hot chocolate mix. We had coffee, too, but we used the same brewer to produce all of them.

That’s a good example of how being stranded can change your perspective. I just spent an entire paragraph explaining what we drank at our library.

See there? My mind went back to that time when we were snowed in, and resumed thinking like it did then. It’s as if we’re still stranded as I write this. My memory supplies the sound of the wind howling outside, and of Emma, talking about digging a tunnel to get to the street, since it’s the streets that will get cleared first.

Of course we’re no longer snowed in, so I’ll get back to my post-toilet faux pas. It was my faux pas, somehow, but I wasn’t going to quibble. I did what intelligent men have done for centuries when faced with a thorny problem, involving a woman, and which is of no fault of their own.

I apologized.

And she did what women have done for centuries, when a man expresses regret for some imagined fault.

“It’s okay,” she said, graciously accepting my repentance with a carelessness that made it clear she still thought I was the miscreant, in this situation. “I’m just glad you were okay.”

I decided calling her on barging into the bathroom like that wouldn’t advance the cause of détente, so I moved on.

“Why did you think I might have a heart attack?” I asked. “Yes, I have a bit of a beer belly, but I’m in fine health. I’d have told you if there were any issues.”

“You were just in there so long, and you were so quiet,” she said.

“I guess I was just woolgathering,” I said.

“At first I thought maybe you were doing something else, but I put my ear to the door and there was no noise.”

“You put your ear to the door?” I could feel blood rushing into my face. Not only had she just opened the door while I was sitting on the pot, she’d listened through the door before that?

Détente or not, she needed to be corrected.

Before I could do that, my brain caught up with my ears.

“You thought I was doing something else?” I stared. I started to ask what else one could do in a bathroom that had no bathing facilities (don’t get me started on whether it should be called a bath-room, or a rest-room, or a wash-room or a lavatory) but she interrupted me.

“I thought you were ... you know.”

No, I didn’t know.

“You thought I was what?” I insisted.

Never assume your daughter is ignorant of the adult world. And yes, I know she’s my niece, or ward, or my charge, and not my daughter at all, but I’d had her for nine years, and as The Bard is often misquoted as saying, “A rose by any other name is still a rose.” I thought of her as my daughter most of the time, and, usually when I was mad at her, was the only time I remembered she sprang from my brother’s loins. The irony in that springs from the fact that she invariably addressed me as “Uncle” Bob.

“You know,” she said, her voice suddenly soft. Her attitude was no longer accusatory. Her hand came out in front of her and curled, as if she were holding some object. The shape of her hand suggested this object was round, and longer than her fist.

Her hand moved toward her, and then away from her, and then toward her and then away from her.

You could have knocked me over with a tiny puff of air.

“You thought I was jerking off?“ My voice reverted to that time when I was about thirteen, and went from being a soprano to a baritone. My choice of verb was also from that time. My mind registered both of these things and I felt foolish. In order to re-establish my dominance as an adult, I lashed out.

“What do you know about masturbation?” I thundered.

Okay, maybe I didn’t thunder it. Maybe it was just loud. And she wasn’t intimidated in any way. She might be painfully shy when it came to outsiders, but she wasn’t shy with me in any way, shape, or form.

“Everybody knows about masturbation, Uncle Bob,” she sighed, like I was the village idiot.

And maybe I was. Did everyone know about masturbation? Did the term flow easily at the diner, while coffee and the news of the day was discussed? Was it bandied about at tea, between the silver and blue-haired ladies? Was there a class in school I didn’t know about? Were the various techniques and tricks of the trade ... traded ... during poker and bridge games?

I decided it was a class at school. Emma didn’t go any of those other places, and do any of those other things, so she couldn’t have learned about it anywhere except school.

And what grade did she get in that class? Were there labs? And if there were labs, did she get paired up with a boy or a girl?!

My mind whispered for me to take a reality break. My eyes cleared and I looked at her. She was staring at my groin.

I looked down and saw my slacks were advertising that I had an erection.

Erection?

Where the heck did that come from?

My knees got weak when I realized my silent question ... hadn’t been silent at all. I’d asked it out loud.

“I could explain it to you,” said my niece.

My mind was jerked - no pun intended - back to reality. Emma was teasing me!