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Upon Reading on a Flight from Atlanta the Latest Slang Term for the Act of Defecation
- University of Pittsburgh Press
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59 Upon reading on a Flight from Atlanta the Latest Slang term for the Act of Defecation My wife and I begin to laugh, individually at first, then in tandem, and then alternately, like Didi and Gogo, our own little Theatre of the Absurd. We are caught short momentarily, set loose by the use of the phrase, each word in its place, throats tight, faces flushed, and then, because we are on a plane, we become aware, each seated on our little throne, our fitted chair, that others are listening, tittering, and we laugh harder still, helpless now, like wedding guests, lit, so shit-faced drunk we are howling now, so effulgent and contained we are a small country, a Liechtenstein of loopy laughter. The flight attendant smiles at us, helplessly, a little afraid we will actually laugh our asses off, trigger the seat cushions as flotation devices, the people around us now laughing as well, a wispy, gassy rebellion, as if we were Canterbury pilgrims, horsing around, on our way to some stand-up cathedral, some heaven of ha ha’s and wheeze. And how do we tell them, wiping our eyes, back up and start over, our cacophonous offertory, our comic scatology, our laugh till we die? We don’t die. We shuffle, adjust, do as we must, dust ourselves off, return to the serious world. We stifle ourselves, like accordions dying, like bellows left open. A phrase all it was, for going to the bathroom, what kids say these days, dipsticks and dillweeds, and we so much older, too old, each of us, to be laughing like this, like geezers, like silverback fools. They say what we would say about taking a dump, grunting one out, laying some cable, as if we were young again, as if we were cool. They say it in perfect imitation of the parents they will become. They say they have to drop the kids off at the pool. ...