The Bucket

Thursday, January 25, 2007

The bucket in my grandmother's car.

My grandmother was a strange cat.

My wife and I were just sitting here talking and all of a sudden, I remembered this. My family can comment and confirm the existence of this bucket and the story.

My grandparents decided to move into the woody northern reaches of Pennsylvania, sometime in the 70's. She's always been a bit..... insane.
That being said, one of the absolutely most bizarre things she ever did and trust me there's a fucking laundry list of shit; is "the bucket".

"The Bucket" is the embodiment of what is truly wrong in my family. It was blue, older than anyone of the grandchildren and... well, I don't want to ruin the suspense.

"The Bucket" is something we uncomfortably laugh off at family get togethers, something that gets those "shared experience half-giggles" followed by a long pregnant pause of discomfort where you want to itch your brain because it's so embarassing.

I don't know of anyone else in my life that had "the bucket"; nor have anyone I known ever made use of it, save one.

You see, "the bucket" was this blue plastic container of repression. You just quietly looked at until my Grandmother picked it up and threw it in the backseat or you just picked it up with the end nub of your pinky and sat in the front seat uncomfortably staring at it until you could get to a sink.
You see, Mr. Bucket of Therapy Material had a partner... Mr. Toilet Paper.
Mr Bucket and Toilet paper were for the "long ride" and they apparently were very... busy? Or at least, it certainly looked busy from the insides of it.
Yes, my grandmother carted around a shit bucket in her car for at least 20 years and never cleaned it out from what I saw. Whenever you complained.. about anything really, she'd say "Use the bucket."

Need to stop because you're sick?

Have to pee?

How long until we get to your house?

How come I'm being sent to this gulag for 2 weeks in the summer?

"Use the bucket" was your answer until you got up there.

I don't know of ANYONE ever squatting over this monstrosity except for her. The really strange part of it was, the few times you even *considered* using it while careening around country roads in the dark... she never slowed down. Nope, you were expected to go in the car, in this bucket, right in front of her.

I always tried to figure out the logistics of taking a dump in a shitty little white Nissan when there's obviously no where to put it under your ass.
The worst was when you got in the car and you just KNEW from the smell of the car that she'd drank 3 gallons of pepsi and finished it off with a healthy dose of aparagus right before you got in it.

She'd leave it on the drivers seat and you'd just flash in your mind visions of the absolute worst things you could imagine one human being doing with a dirty old bucket.

If that was not enough... you know.. visions of your grandmother squatting over this thing and then sharing a front seat with it... was the pure logistics of it.

What happens if you have to jam on the breaks? Ooooh this bucket of shit will make a nice place for my face to land as I'm sitting in the passenger seat.