My second week of work this school year has come and gone. The kids were great, but some of them leaked. I had to clean up vomit three times. None of these were as bad as the poop incident. A boy came back from the night hike and managed to make it within five feet of the toilet before disaster struck. I see this a lot: Kids tend to hold things in past the point of no return, and then make a mad dash for the nearest toilet. What often happens is the minute the stall door closes, a small, localized explosion occurs. In this particular case, absolutely none of it actually made it into the toilet. The boy, along with his poopy clothes and poopy self, didn't want to come out, but eventually he was coaxed into the shower by a helpful teacher, leaving behind more poop than I would have thought a small child could contain. Needless to say, lots of cleaning and washing needed to happen. Another kid had a similar problem, but his cabin leader handled it by bagging up his clothes and making him shower. At least this second disaster was contained by pants.
You'd think that fifth graders would be able to make it to the bathroom in time. Thankfully, most of them do. It's the exceptions we remember though. This is the downside of my job. It sometimes seems that the fifth graders of today are like the toddlers of yesteryear. The increasing infantilization of America is an interesting yet worrying phenomenon. A lot of the skills of yesteryear seem to be being acquired later in life, if at all. You'd think that being able to get to the toilet in time would be one of the skills considered mandatory after the age of 3 or 4, but you'd be wrong.
Later that night, it rained, and it was beautiful. The sound and smell of rain more than made up for all of the frantic cleaning earlier in the evening.
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