If I could be anything in the world (other than a writer), I think I’d want to be a Bathroom Etiquette Specialist. I can hardly think of a better way to spread peace and good will among the people of the world, bringing civility to the public restrooms of such places as Bangkok, Berlin and Bartonville.

If I were lucky enough to have this gig, traveling the world, teaching potty protocol, I would cover these logical, albeit, under-used basics:

– picking the right stall
– efficiently creating your toilet paper seat cover
– the impracticality of the touted squat method
– employing emergency tactics for high-volume restrooms
– utilizing effective hand-washing function
– and tips for opening a bathroom door without using your hands

These lessons are necessary to creating a well-rounded, well-mannered public pottier. But the most vital lesson in my program, if I were in fact a Bathroom Etiquette Specialist, would be the courtesy flush.

The psychology behind not courtesy flushing (or discourteous non-flushing) may be one of man’s (and woman’s) most mysterious enigmas. Scientists as well as those who apply the courtesy flush can’t quite figure out why anyone would want to sit for any length of time surrounded by the stench of their own…well, you know. And furthermore, we haven’t figured out why they want to subject everyone else to it.

But the fact remains: it is time for a courtesy flush revolution.

The first half of this lesson would involve changing the way people think about flushing; lots of theory and research. For example, some studies have shown that people don’t flush because of childhood fears about monsters in the toilet. Others site the urban legend about intestines being pulled out from the suction of the flush. Still others have told us it’s about marking your territory, an animalistic instinct. Those myths and attitudes would be debunked and extinguished in the first part of this essential session, a critical move in the fight to end non-flushing.

The second portion would focus on practical techniques (i.e., when to flush and how to avoid backsplash).

You’d think the courtesy flush would be natural habit for we highly-evolved, anti-bacterial wiping, 21st century brainiacs, but somewhere along the way, these most fundamental of lessons did not get passed on to a large majority of the population.

And that’s where I would come in, were there such a profession. Taking a stand. Bringing decency back. Confronting the yucky gross state of public restrooms everywhere. And, as always, flushing the good flush (as many times as it takes).

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I don’t know if my eyes have been blind all these years, or purposely closed, but now more than ever I am seeing the brokenness in our world. I was at Border’s yesterday afternoon and, in about 30 minutes, encountered a boy with cerebral palsy, a man with shrunken hands the size of a child’s, and an old woman with a hunchback bigger than I’ve ever seen.

Their deformities reminded me that this is a sad world we live in. Unfairness surrounds on every side. None of these people asked for physical handicaps that impact every moment of their lives. This isn’t like the drug addict that’s brought on her injury. Mercy is for her, too, but this is pure and simple injustice.

Still the thing that struck me most as I watched them was not their dejection or defeat. It was triumph. Beauty in ashes. The palsy boy limped with agility behind the counter, aptly creating caffeinated concoctions for a room full of customers. The overweight man with child-sized hands picked out magazines and fervently flipped through the slick, thin pages. The hunchbacked woman ate her biscotti and sipped her tea with a smile on her face as she read the Sunday paper.

As I caught their eyes, I smiled at them, offering these passing strangers what I could in the way of kindness and acceptance. But it wasn’t until I glanced at the girl in the corner that I realized it: we’re all broken. We don’t all have a gimp, shriveled hands, or a hunchback, but we all bear scars on our weary selves. Many of us just have an easier time masking them.

As Bob Dylan sang from my iTunes, “…knocking on heaven’s door…” I glanced again at the perfectly-made-up, beauty-queen teeny-bop at her table-for-one and smiled. She didn’t exactly smile back, but it’s okay. She has a gimp, too. It just doesn’t show.

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Some twelve years ago, when I got my first job as a sales clerk in the shoe department at Famous Barr, my dad told me a story about his days as “The Ratman.” He and my mom had just gotten married and he had a job at the local factory. As low man on the totem pole, his work included, among other menial and disgusting tasks, a third shift spent setting out rat traps and then cleaning up the decapitated vermin.

“Everyone called me ‘The Ratman’,” he said with something like a smile on his face.

“Ewww,” I remember thinking. How disgusted, degraded and undignified that work must have made him feel. But something in the way my dad told it sent a different message. There was a hint of pride. Not the arrogant kind of pride, but the satisfied kind. The satisfaction of hard work done well. The fulfillment that comes with earning your keep.

I thought of dad’s “Ratman” story today as I drove to my own new gig: cleaning houses. Unfortunately, undiscovered novelists working on brilliant manuscripts aren’t in high demand, so I’ve been brainstorming a small “day job.” Thanks to my mom, I have a natural knack for cleanliness, (and I’m talking serious cleanliness…just ask Jason) so cleaning homes was a no-brainer when it came to seeking out part-time work.

But even with this inherent skill and the advice of experienced cleaners, it was a hard day. There’s just something humbling (and sort of gross) about cleaning someone else’s toilet, scrubbing their baseboards, breaking your back to mop their floors.

But dad’s story rang in my ears. And then it got me to thinking about the future: one year, five years, ten years from now. How I’ll look back on this season and have my own “Ratman” story to tell. How I’ll experience that same sense of accomplishment I remember in my dad.

In fact, I already feel it; the sweetness of aching muscles in the wake of hard work completed. Odd as it sounds, I drove away from that spotless house holding my head a little higher. I had just paid some dues. And it felt good, damn good.

So, when I’m a famous author someday, sitting on Oprah’s couch, talking about my latest best-seller, and she asks, “What’s the most disgusting job you ever did as a starving artist?” with a smile on my face I’ll be able to say: “Oprah, I cleaned toilets.”

*For my mom and dad, who taught me everything I know about honest, hard work.

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retreat – (verb): to move back or withdraw, to remove oneself from a difficult or uncomfortable situation

Hundreds of bright-eyed, chattering, giggling women congregated in small- to medium-sized configurations in the lobby of the state park inn. Pink-and-blue Vera Bradley luggage bounced on their shoulders as they giddily discussed the latest Oprah episode, whose children were sick, and which Weight Watchers plan was working.

Enter the introvert.

Fifteen minutes into my first women’s retreat ever, I needed a retreat from the retreat. The out-of-placeness I felt throughout the first day was painfully humiliating. Everyone seemed to know each other and know their place in the mass chaos. As a card-carrying member of the fringe club, I typically notice others like myself, in need of someone to talk to, uncomfortable, awkward, alone. I didn’t see a one like that this weekend. I was it.

As a result, the retreat was one of the more painful events of my life. But a little pain is good. It brings things to the surface, refines, sharpens, transforms, moves us to places we wouldn’t have gone on our own. It teaches.

And in the time I spent beyond the furthest reaches of my comfort zone, I learned two things: it’s not about me and women are special creatures. I also learned that women can be way grosser than men (bathroom etiquette, ladies…the power of a courtesy flush). But I’ll post about that later.

Ultimately, I learned about love. Love for all sorts of women, especially those not like me: the brazen broads, the tom-boys, the prickly ones, the nervous talkers, the know-it-alls, the pity-partiers, the conversation-dominators, even the anti-courtesy-flushers. And I’m learning how to love them because, for the first time, I see them for who they really are: my sisters.

Sisters who are the way they are for a complexity of reasons I can never begin to understand in just one weekend. Sisters who come in all shapes and sizes, in the middle of messes and maladies, hefting the broken pieces of themselves, wearing insecurities and defenses and deep wounds that will not be fully healed this side of heaven. And it’s their shit getting all over me that causes this inner wrestling, this discomfort. Not just my introverted-ness.

I’d rather not collide with their judgments, their harshness, their arrogance, their pride, their toxicity. But I think maybe that’s what I’m called to do. Collide. Life is made up of all sorts of head-on wrecks, oftentimes unintended, because we’re all just doing the best we can with what we’ve got, hoping somehow to connect, to give and receive something that feels like the love of a sister.

Thirty-six hours later, I was back in my introvert’s dream world: cuddled up with Jason, engrossed in a movie, cozy in my favorite jammies. And as good as it felt to be home, I’d like to think the warmth wasn’t just from the fuzzy blanket draped around my shoulders, but from experiencing love’s richness even in dry and foreign territory.

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The dreams I typically remember are bad dreams, sad dreams, dreams that involve the death of my sweet little dog, Izzy. Odd, I know. Even more typically, I don’t remember my dreams, waking to nothing but a blank slate.

But this morning, I rose with the warmest sensation and tears in my still-unopened eyes. As the clouds of grogginess parted, I realized the source of this lingering warmth: a dream. Even now, I still feel it.

We all have these dreams that seem so real, so tangible, that we wake up wondering, “Did that really happen?” We know full well that it couldn’t have happened because, in fact, we were roaming around Mars without a spacesuit holding hands with Scobby Doo and eating green cheese from our trip to the moon. “But it felt so real,” we tell ourselves all morning. That was the kind of dream I woke to this morning.

In this messy conglomeration, this land between reality and fantasy, I found myself in a rustic banquet hall, the kind of banquet hall you might find in the mountains of Colorado. Pristine, but earthy. Not only was I there, but I was the hostess, a master of ceremonies. But I don’t know what the ceremony was about, I never got around to it. I was too busy flitting and buzzing, the social butterfly of this event. And it wasn’t strangers I greeted, mixed and mingled with; it was my family. Hendryxes. Askews. Cousins. Great uncles. Everyone was there.

Then I saw them and knew this was a most precious and unique family reunion. Not only were the living chattering and laughing around me, the dead had shown up, too. Just as alive as ever. Gram. P.A. Junebug. I stared at them, unable to move (a common characteristic of dreams). I was cemented in place, struggling to believe they were here, in the flesh. They had come to my reunion.

Then my eyes fell on Grandpa Arlie, and I could move again. I ran to him, climbed into his lap, and hugged him tight as I could around his neck. He’s been gone the longest, you see…nearly 17 years.

Grandma June just smiled and patted my back while I stayed in Grandpa’s lap. A little later, I whispered something to Grandpa – I don’t know what – and he smiled, never saying a word. But his smile said enough.

And that’s what I woke to…his smile and happy tears on my pillow.

I don’t know what it means. I’m sure Freud and Jung could tell me. I guess it has something to do with a deep aching, missing someone, just longing to see them for a minute. Or it could be something more.

I don’t know much about heaven. I’ve heard the sermons, seen the books, read the verses, but there’s still so much mystery, so much unknown. But maybe my dream was a glimmer of what a moment there will be like, where we get to see them again, whisper a secret and feel them smile.

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