Scats and Shirts

Have you ever done something so moronic that it becomes astounding to even yourself that you've survived 21 years of living in Western civilization? Perhaps it was a routine act, like tying your shoes, which this time around took you eighteen tries and half as many minutes to perform (sober). Or otherwise, maybe when talking to a member of the other sex, you tilted your head forward into your dominant hand -- the intellectual's pose to indicate that he is searching for a most elevated item of his vocabulary -- only for the word to never materialize. And when you got home, the word at last presented itself to you: "trough."

Well, I suppose that today I had such a folly. Luckily, it didn't take much time out of my day, nor did it ruin a chance I might have had with a girl. Since no one but I witnessed the act, I suppose I cannot say that it was embarrassing, either. But certainly, it still -- hours after the fact -- haunts me with a feeling that I can only call shame.

The incident was this: I was in a hurry to get to work, and since around the house I generally wear the same holey, stained T-shirt, I had to change into something more presentable. So I grabbed a nicer shirt out of my closet and, running into the bathroom where the laundry hamper is, stripped the old shirt off and confidently tossed it into the toilet. I then spun around, so far unaware of what I'd done, and left off for work as quickly as I could.

During the school year, when I live in a Tempe apartment, such an act would go unnoticed, and I would either return home later in the day to find out about the rather foolish thing I'd done with my pajama shirt, or otherwise assume that my roommate Patrick was trying to tell me something by scatologizing my wardrobe. But during the summer I live with my parents to save money, and so an hour or so after arriving at work I received a text message from my mother: "Shirt in toilet. Give to Goodwill? Y/N." After staring at my phone for a few seconds, I at last realized what the matter was, that I had in fact become confused in my rush to get out the door (Oh God, did I shit in the hamper?, I wondered). I didn't text her back, and when I returned home the shirt was wet but no longer dripping, draped over the shower curtain rod.