DEBRIS.COMgood for a laugh, or possibly an aneurysm

So I’m at a party where I know literally one person, my wife. I’m standing at the sink drawing a glass of tap water when from a dark recess of my attention I realize that the hostess’ teenage son is huddled near his mother, surreptitiously pointing at me and whispering. I glance in their direction casually, to see the two of them look away with a hint of alarm around the eyes, but as I return my gaze to the sink, I sense them again motioning and staring.

OK, this is time for a quick personal inventory, I think. Most-embarrassing-moment fantasies and worse-case scenarios need to be addressed first: I haven’t left home without my pants. I haven’t inadvertently advertised recent digestion in any way. But my pants are white, so there exists the possibility that I’ve sat in something messy, such as barbecue sauce. Hmm.

It is unlikely I’m trailing a loop of toilet paper all the way back to their bathroom, because I haven’t been there yet.

From where they’re standing they can’t see my fly, so that’s not the problem. Ditto with stuff hanging from my nose or teeth, or hunks of greasy roasted animal glued to my chin. All in all I think I’m OK, BBQ sauce notwithstanding — must check that out immediately.

So I turn to them, smile inquiringly, and as they realize they’ve been insufficiently subtle I wait with some tension to figure out what the hell they’ve been staring at. Whereupon the boy weighs his options and decides that the truth of what he was doing would be less damning than an empty denial. He points at the back of my head and says aloud to his mom, who apparently hadn’t understood all his motioning and whispering yet anyway, “I want to get my hair cut just like that.”

I had to laugh. Steeped in delusions of the grotesque, I had in fact been the subject of a sort of compliment.

So you can imagine how really dumb I felt when, a bit later, I farted out loud and spilled barbecue sauce all over my crotch.