I've Been Pooped All My Life.

You probably don’t want to face it, but it's a sign from above.

“This is Judi? Oh for landsakes! She looks just like Phyllis when she was a child,” my mom’s Aunt Ann said as she placed both hands on my shoulders to keep me from running out the door of our Detroit Lakes, MN cottage. Aunt Ann and Grandpa and Grandma Quigley had just arrived for their summer visit.

“Did anyone ever tell you that you look exactly like your mother?” Aunt Ann continued, looking me in the eyes. I stared into the face which probably looked ironically like my face today, almost 60 years later. Maybe the word ironic has a touch of un-irony—because of the beautiful life-earned wrinkles Ann wore on her face.

Still, it wasn’t facing my future that unnerved me, it was her assertion that I looked exactly like Mom.

“Do you think so, Aunt Ann,” Mom said with a laugh. “I guess you would remember how I looked at her age.”

“I certainly do. And she’s Phyllis' spitting image, isn’t she Edith,” Aunt Ann said, drawing Grandma into her crazy talk.

“Oh, she really does,” Grandma replied and gave me a pat on the head, simultaneously checking if I needed a haircut, and then leaned in with a kiss.

“Well, it’s natural. Phyllis you always looked like Ann,” Grandpa offered from the cheap seats. All the seats were pretty cheap in the cottage.

I looked up to Mom, then back to Aunt Ann. There was my mom standing 5 foot 7 with her black hair pulled back in a headband to beat the summer heat. Then there was Aunt Ann, standing inches shorter than mom, with her snow-white hair and glasses. Then there was me. At age 9 in 1967, I was pushing 4 foot 4, and my black hair was styled in a short, unkept bob. Mom was mom. Aunt Ann was old. I was me.

With nothing to say except I don’t understand you people, I shrugged my shoulders and started to back up. There were others who needed to be greeted.

The unrehearsed, but oft acted ceremony of 8 Stoa kids lining up to receive relatives peculiarly resembled horse trading, complete with ruffling our mane and checking our teeth. Chomping at the bit, we were released one-by-one from the gaze and hands of Aunt Ann and Grandma, free to bolt out the door like short-changed quarter horses.

“Wait up,” I yelled to my brothers who were launching our dad-built paddlewheel boat.

Barefoot, I loped down the grassy hill toward the water. Although I yearned to be wearing my swimming suit, I was pacified knowing I rocked my neon-colored striped pair of shorts, which harkened to the Beetles uniform for their newly released Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band. However, somewhat anticlimactically—instead of the bright yellow sleeveless shirt that usually topped my ensemble, I wore a white t-shirt. So what looked totally groovy on the bottom, crescendo-ed to a black and white drag, because the white shirt was topped by my Irish-Norwegian-German lily-white skin and black hair. You know. Kind of a party on the bottom, business on top kind of thing.

Or. Perhaps a target kind of thing.

Think about viewing me from above. Envision a target—black circle in the center, lily-white in the next ring, then multi-color stripes in the subsequent outer rings. Now hold that image, and you will probably understand what happened next.

“Hey guys wait for mmm—” I yelled, stopping mid-sentence as something kerplunked on my head.

“Heyyyy,” I thought. I reached up and felt something moist. I looked at my fingers. In addition to the normal dirt and grime of a 9-year-old spending the summer at a no-tub-or-shower lake cottage, I noticed a milky white and grey substance. As I rubbed my fingers, it dried quickly.

I freaked, knowing that I had probably, inexplicably, just been pooped on by a bird.

“Noooo. Come onnnnnn. How could that be,” I thought. I wanted reassurance that I wasn’t sporting bird-poop on my head. I ran up to the cottage in search of my maternal doppelganger.

“Mom. Mom,” I whinnied insistently, pulling her away from the final participants saddled in the grandparent reception.

“Whoooaa, Judi. It’s not polite to interrupt.”

“Mom, do you see anything in my hair,” I asked, not wanting to pollute her research by revealing that I suspected she was investigating a feathered fecal matter.

“No, there’s nothing there,” Mom said, relieved that she hadn’t spotted a bloated wood tick on my scalp. “Now go out and play so I can visit.”

Quietly, I ambled down to the dock and dunked my head in the lake.

So that was it. My first bird pooping incident. Here, could be the end of my post. But full disclosure, I was the target of numerous bird droppings throughout my life. A flurry took place in California in the 1980s where I lived with my partner Kathleen.

1986. At the San Clemente Fisherman’s Restaurant. Sitting with Kathleen, and my sister and her boyfriend at a pier-side outdoor table, we watched seagulls fly over. While the rest enjoyed local fish fare, I had an excremental treat flown in especially for me.

1987. Sitting on Newport Beach with Kathleen and my mom. They walked away with pretty seashells; I walked away with a nasty seagull shelling.

1988. This is a two-fer that you may have difficulty swallowing. Kathleen and I were at Disneyland with our niece in a 30-minute long, Disney-invented-snaking-back-and-forth-line, waiting for a 4-minute ride. Inspired by a large flock of birds flying over the park, I began telling my bird stories to pass the time.

“I’m cursed I tell you,” I said.

“Yeah, right. Maybe you should be careful, Judi. That flock of birds is heading our way,” my niece snickered.

As the birds flew over us, I laughed nervously.

Kerplunk!

“No way!” my niece screamed and put her hand over her mouth when we realized that, out of the thousands of people around, I had just been bombed.

“Oh my gawd,” I said as I wiped my head.

“Look out!” my niece squealed through her tears. “They’re circling back!”

“Yeah right!” I said. “Getting hit twice would be like winning the lotter--.”

Kerplunk! This time the plunk hit me partially in the mouth. Gak!

Twice. Among a field of thousands.

Okay. So how the heck could there be any life lessons from this story? Well, see how this lands on you:

1. Always be on the lookout for messages from above. Believe me, they will come to you on a wing and a prayer.

2. While you will be tempted to prophesize as you look for gifts from above, it’s best to keep your mouth shut.

Judi Stoa’s Donchyaknow Life Lessons to see and bring out the best in yourself and others.

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Sgt. Pepper’s Lonely Hearts Club Band

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