(please read Part 1: It’s Potty Time before reading this)
While Anyu and I sat down for dinner, Nagymama walked out of the bathroom, holding an orange McDonald’s Jack-o-Lantern Happy Meal bucket. It also happened to be the bucket they placed underneath my little potty to, uh, “catch everything”.
“There’s nothing in the pail today,” Nagymama said in Hungarian.
My mother looked up from her plate, “Stephie, did you dump out you sh*t bucket?”
I shook my head, “No,” and nervously nibbled on a piece of hot dog in Nagymama’s famous Hot Dog Paprikas.
Anyu sighed, “She probably constipated from eating hot dogs all week.” Nagymama always cooked a “vat” of food at the beginning of the week that we had to eat for 4-5 days straight.
Nagymama stood with her hands on her hips. “Hot dogs don’t make you constipated, it’s the crappy Mac-Donald food you always feed to her!”
“Whatever, it doesn’t matter, I’ll just get the kúp.”
In case you don’t know what a “kúp” is, here is the definition, straight from the mouth of my amazing friend, Lajos: “A kúp is something that you put into little childrens’ buttholes when they got fever or something. It is some kind of medicine which is absorbed through the muscular tissue of the anus. It can have a laxative effect.”
In other words, it’s a horrible, horrible thing. Hasn’t anyone ever heard of freaking fiber? Prunes?! Bumpy car rides?!?!
Needless so say, I didn’t like the word “kúp”, so I ran and hid in the closet. When they found me in the closet, I hid in the hamper. I got so scared, I’m pretty sure I peed in both places.
After about 20 minutes of these shenanigans, my mother called the neighbors over for assistance. Now, imagine getting this phone call at 9 pm: “Hallo, Margitka? My dodder, she isn’t pooping, and she von’t let me put the kúp in her butt. Can you and Jimmy help?”
After a few minutes, Margitka arrived on our doorstep. She was the old Hungarian babysitter from across the street that always forced me to eat squash soup and owned way too many doilies. Not long after, Jimmy arrived, the tall skinny neighbor that reeked of calamine lotion and always gave out crappy Mary Jane candies during Halloween.
Anyu instructed Jimmy to grab my one arm, she would grab the other, Nagymama would hold my legs, and Margitka could “do the honors”. After some screaming, crying, and carrying on, they finally wrestled me down. As the horrible kúp inched towards my bottom, I screamed, “Noooo! I never want to poop again! The man will get me!”
Jimmy looked concerned, “What man?”
Margitka’s eyebrows shot up, “Is there a bad man bothering you ‘down there’?”
I sniffed. “Nagymama says if I poop, a man in the toilet will come and suck my butt down forever!”
Margitka shook her head, “Stephie, there is no man in the toilet.”
“YES THERE IS! Nagymama said so!”
Nagymama muttered something under her breath.
Margitka put the kúp down, “I think I know what the problem is.”
All of the adults left the room and started whispering angrily in the kitchen. I pulled up my pants and sat in the corner to play with Barbie. Throughout all of this, I’m pretty sure I was still covered in pee.
The adults finally returned to the room and Margitka sat down next to me.
“Now, listen, Stephie,” she said in her calmest voice, “I want you to sit on the big potty and poop like a good girl. We’ll be there to protect you.”
“No, I don’t wanna!”
“Just do it for us once. Jesus will be there to protect you, too.” She pointed at the rosary around the neck.
We walked to the bathroom hand-in-hand and I hesitantly sat on the big potty. The rest of the group watched from the hallway. Margitka showed me her rosary and told me to repeat after her, “Dear Jesus, Lord and Savior.”
I shut my eyes and concentrated, “Dear….dear Jesus Lord and Saber….”
“Savior,” she corrected me.
“Saber.”
“No, SAVE-YOUR. Save-YOOUR.”
I opened my eyes, “Save your butt from bad men in the toilet?”
“Yes, Jesus will save your butt from all evil, Stephie. A-men.”
“All-men.”
PLOP!
It worked! Everyone was so proud of me.
Even Jimmy came over to give me a hug and said, “See, Stephie? If you are ever afraid of things like men in the toilet, monsters, or the Boogie Man, all you need to do is pray to Jesus and he will protect you.”
“Okay. But…what’s a ‘Boogie Man’?”
My mom chimed in without thinking, “Oh, dats the monster that supposed to live in dah closet.”
“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!”