The Source Of The Problem

It was the Fourth of July, we were at North Topsail Beach, and it was hot.

My wife, Donna, took Jack, our mentally handicapped son, to the pier at nearby Surf City so they could sit in the shade. 

Jack doesn’t know very many words but he knows some sign language and he signed to his mother that he needed to go to the bathroom. Sometimes when he asks to go to the bathroom he really does need to go. Sometimes he doesn’t, he just wants to walk around. Or, maybe, he wants candy. He knows we’ll take him to the bathroom –don’t want to take a chance, do we – and on the way he might snag some candy.

Jack and Donna
Jack and Donna

He kept asking and she finally took him to the bathroom on the pier, too late. By then Jack, who was an adult in years, had what my wife called an “upset stomach” and on the way to the bathroom he left a trail.

The bathroom was very small,” Donna told me. “I took off his bathing suit and washed it out but Jack wouldn’t put it back on – it was wet and cold. I didn’t know what to do. I didn’t have a towel with me, and I couldn’t march him to the car naked.”

That’s when the man who worked there knocked on the bathroom door.

Donna said she asked him what he wanted and he said he was “looking for the source of the problem.”

I told him the source was in here with me, and I asked him if he would do me a favor. I said, ‘I’m coming out and I want you to hold this door closed while I run to my car and get a towel.'”

So that’s what happened. He held the bathroom door shut and kept Jack from coming out wearing – nothing. Donna got a towel from her car, wrapped it around Jack, and off they went.

Jack was not embarrassed, he never is. Donna was pretty laid back too, all things considered. This was not her first rodeo.

Coming Friday: Everything Weighs Something

 

Donna, Will You Please Be Quiet!

It was “meet the teachers” night at an East Wake High School [near Raleigh, N.C.] PTA meeting and the class was full of parents, many of whom my wife, Donna, and I knew.

We were sitting near the front, listening to one of our sons’ science teacher.  He was talking about drugs and he mentioned a new one that helped control the herpes simplex virus.

Donna immediately turned to me and whispered, loud enough to be heard by everyone for several rows, “Pat, did you hear that! They found a way to control herpes! Isn’t that wonderful!”

According to the studies in Elisakit.net Herpes simplex virus types 1 and 2 can cause sores on the mouth [type 1] or in the genital area [type 2]. Donna was talking about type 1, fever blisters –cold sores–  which one of our sons, Jack, had from time to time.   Fever blisters are spread by sharing a fork or a toothbrush, or kissing.  Other people may have suspected that Donna was talking about the other kind of herpes.

I ignored her.

Donna must have thought I didn’t hear her because she raised her voice: “Oh, Pat, isn’t that great news about herpes!”

Jack Stith
Jack Stith

Everybody in the room heard her.

I kept looking straight ahead. No, no, I don’t know that woman blabbing about a drug to control sexually transmitted infections.

And then, suddenly, Donna understood.

“Jack, I meant good for Jack,” she stammered. “He gets fever blisters.”

Yea, sure, lady.

Coming Monday: River Music