I’ve got a nasty case of The Pits I’ve known that I have this condition ever since I didn’t grow out of bedwetting at the age of six or seven, or twenty or thirty for that matter. The Pits are the uncanny knack for unseemly behavior. It’s the awkward ability to spoil situations with one’s pitfalls and flaws and moral flexibility. It’s about being “that guy” or “that girl.” And while these misfortunes manifest in untold numbers of ways, if you ever find yourself locked in the bathroom at a party, blow-drying your shirt because the Maxi-Pads you had fastened in your sweaty armpits aren’t working, well then, you’ve definitely got The Pits.
My particular strain has led to the aforementioned calamity, as well as a horde of others, like the loss of my virginity to a hooker named Honey. And it’s how I became the first kid ever impeached in the long history of New Jersey’s “American Legion Boys’ State” political camp. Not only are The Spoils embarrassing, they can be expensive. Like that spring of 2000 when my Day Trading decisions were guided by some “really trippy signs” from my Peyote journey, eventually leading to what my Subaru salesman called, “the lowest credit score I’ve ever seen.” Oh, and not only can The Pits be pricey, but they kill trees every time I need a box of Kleenex to get through Dove's sappy self-esteem commercial.
And so it’s a wonder that I’m still living with The Pits. In fact, when my girlfriend Naomi read some of my early stories she took my hand and asked, “How can you possibly live with yourself? I can’t believe you haven’t thrown yourself under a bus by now.” She’s got a point. I mean, when you find yourself secretly grooming in your friends’ bathrooms with their nail cutters and Q-Tips and other toiletries, you have to wonder if your life is really worth your carbon footprint.
Now once you get past the fact that I’m the kind of guy who walked onto his college football team one semester and was stoned and sewing hippie clothes in his dorm room the next semester, you may wonder why the hell I would ever admit to it. Well, after a lifetime of living in secret and shame and tiptoeing through the night with pee-stained sheets in hand, I simply had to come clean. Laughter is the only riches that come with The Pits and I suppose I write in hopes of finding an underground railroad or network of people who all feel shackled by shame and insecurity. I am seeking solidarity.
Not that I expect to find too many other chronic bedwetters with sweaty pits and a big nose that gets in the way of a yoga pose, but I know we all have those things we’d rather keep in a bombproof bunker beneath our beds. I know this because at one time or another, we’ve all been that person. Life is just too damned serrated to slip through unscathed by the The Pits.
posted by Scott Keneally @ 12:26 PM
1 Comments:
Well, do you have "The Spoils" too?
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