The Truth is in the Wine (14 page)

“Finally, I get myself free and I position the can between my legs and—I'm sure you know the relief you feel when you've got to go really badly.”

Paul started demonstrating behind the wheel his actions. He
feigned closing his eyes and throwing his head back in relief. “I had saved myself and the relief felt so good,” he said.

“But then I started feeling something. My butt got warm. I looked down, and the can I was peeing in had holes in it. It was the first can I bought, not the second one. So all that pee that went in the can came right out in my seat.”

The women howled, they laughed so hard. Paul was laughing hysterically, too, Then he started reenacting the moment. He pulled himself from his seat, as he did that night.

“I lifted my butt up so I wasn't sitting in a pile of pee,” he said, and they burst into laughter again for several seconds. “It was a total mess. And once you start peeing, you can't stop.”

Madeline and Brenda were falling all over themselves. Ginger was in tears. Paul, too. And he kept them in stitches.

“So I emptied my bladder and was sitting there on the highway in my own pee.”

“Stop, Paul,” his mother managed to get out between laughs. “You're crazy. I can't take any more. Please stop. Oh, my God.”

But he wasn't finished. “So I was relieved in one sense, but soaking wet and pissy in another,” he said, and Ginger buried her face in her hands, laughing so hard she could barely catch her breath.

“Paul, I don't believe you,” she said.

“I'm serious,” he said. “So now I have another problem. And we're still sitting in the same place; traffic had not moved. So I've got to do something. So I pop the trunk again to get some towels I have to wash the car out of the trunk to soak up some of all the pee on my seat.”

The ladies again are doubled-over in laughter.

“I hurry up out of the car, hoping no one can see the big piss stain that covered my whole behind. I get the towels and place
them on the seat and jump back into the car. I had about four towels, so they sopped up the urine pretty good.”

He stopped to join the others in laughter. When he composed himself, he said, “So, I solve that crisis. I have gotten the pee off my seat. But my pants are soaking wet. Traffic starts to move a little bit and I almost swerved into someone because I was taking off my pants as I was driving.”

Once again, there was laughter among the women. “You're killing me with this one,” Brenda said.

“So, I use my feet to slip off my shoes and squirm my way out of my pants and drawers. I'm literally riding up 85 with my naked butt on a pile of pissy towels.”

The women roll down the windows; they laughed so hard they got hot.

“So,” Paul continued, “I've got about fifteen minutes max to get my underwear and pants dry.”

“Oh, Lord,” Ginger screamed.

“So, I turn the heat on blast and hold my drawers up to the vent.”

“Ha, ha, ha, ha, ha, ha,” the ladies howled.

“After about five minutes, they get mostly dry, but I'm sweating like a pig because it's burning up in there. Finally, we clear the congestion point and traffic starts to really flow. My drawers aren't quite dry, so I somehow get them to suspend on the vent so I didn't have to hold them up there. I roll down the window when I get past downtown and now I'm driving at about sixty-five miles an hour.

“So, I grab my pants and hang them out the window so they can dry as my drawers are drying.”

Again, an eruption of laughter from everyone.

“I can't even imagine what that looked like: a half-naked man driving on the highway with his underwear stuck in a vent and
his pants hanging out the window. The heat in the car worked good because my underwear got dry pretty quickly. They weren't fresh, but they were dry.

“I pull my pants from outside the window and position them so the wet area could take on the heat much of the way up 85 and all the way up Highway 400 to Lenox Road. By the time I get off at Lenox, the pants are not totally dry, but close to it. I put them up to my nose and was like, ‘That's not good.' So, I park in the mall—you had called me twice but I couldn't pick up the phone with all that was going on.

“While sitting in the car I somehow got my stinky drawers on and pulled my stinky pants over top of them. And the only way I could think of to try to muffle the odor was to take off my sweater and wrap it around my waist.”

“Oh, no,” Ginger said. “I remember that night. You came in there looking crazy. And I asked you why you had your sweater around your waist. I remember.”

“Well, I couldn't say, ‘Because I pissed on myself and I don't want you or Helena to smell it.' I don't know what excuse I gave you and I knew I looked crazy, but I had no alternative. It was a Harry Potter movie, maybe the first one, and Helena was so excited about it. I had to be there.

“You had already purchased the tickets and I went straight to the bathroom to wash my hands. I remember Helena wondering why I didn't hug and kiss her when I first saw you all, as usual. I made sure she sat between us because she would be so into the movie she wouldn't think about any odors. When the movie was over, you suggested we go somewhere for dessert. I was like, ‘You and Helena go. I'll meet you at home.'

“And that's my embarrassing story that I had never told anyone.”

The women shook their heads. “I don't think anything can top
that,” Madeline said. “I give you credit: I might not have
ever
told anyone that story. But it was hilarious. Oh, my God.”

“And the way you told it,” Ginger said. “I didn't realize you had that kind of comedic timing. Just hilarious.”

“It's like you've been waiting to tell that story,” Brenda said. “And it didn't take a buzz from wine to get it out of you.”

“You know what else I remember about that night,” Ginger said. “I found it curious then, but didn't say anything.”

“What was that?” Paul asked.

“When Helena and I got home, you were taking a bath,” she said, and they all burst into laughter again.

“Yes, I was,” Paul said. “I needed a bath that night.”

They all laughed some more before catching their breath.

“I will never look at you the same, son-in-law,” Madeline said. “And I mean that as a compliment. You have way more of a sense of humor than I ever thought.”

“I'm a funny guy,” he said. “Well, maybe not funny, but I appreciate a good laugh as much as the next guy.”

“That has to be one of the funniest stories I ever heard,” Brenda said.

“I'll drink to that, literally,” Paul said. “Ma, look in that bag between you two.”

There she found two bottles of The Prisoner wine, a delicious California Zinfandel that traveled in his luggage, and four glasses. “I thought maybe we could have a little something to sip on while we drive,” Paul said. “How are you all feeling?”

“Maybe that's what I needed—a good laugh—to feel better because I sure do,” Madeline said.

“I can at least sip on a little,” Brenda said.

“Here, let me open it,” Ginger said.

“Paul, you're driving, so…” Ginger said.

“I know. I'll get some when we get to the park,” he said. “But don't think I forgot: Somebody has to tell an embarrassing story.”

“If we finish these two bottles of wine, I'll be glad to tell a couple of stories,” Madeline said.

“OK, I'll tell one now,” Ginger said. “It won't be as long as Paul's but I never told this to anyone.”

“Oh, really,” Paul said. “OK, I'm ready for this.”

“All right, so I get a promotion on my job to senior marketing analyst,” Ginger began, “and the men in the office are livid. You know how men are—well, you might not, Paul, but I'm sure our parents do. They think women are inferior and should advance only so much.

“Well, I earned the promotion and my boss was courageous enough to give it to me knowing how the men in the office would react. So, anyway, I have a week to make this big presentation in front of my boss, his boss and the men who were angry I got the job.

“I prepared my butt off to make this presentation awesome. I needed to impress everyone. So, I go to the salon and get my hair done. I bought a beautiful new suit. I'm ready.

“I start my day as I usually do: with a light breakfast of juice and yogurt and a cup of coffee. I'm totally prepared. We get into a boardroom and I'm looking great and feeling great. I'm about to nail it, and make those guys look silly.

“So I get introduced and I get up to the head of the table where I have my stuff set up on an easel. I start great, talking about our competitor's approach to this particular project, and I can see in my boss' face how proud he is that he promoted me. But then it happened: I turned to point out something on the easel and as soon as I turned my back totally to them, I let out the loudest fart you could imagine.”

Paul, Madeline and Brenda screamed in laughter. “Are you serious?” Brenda asked.

“Totally,” she said.

“Wow,” Madeline said. “You never told me that.”

“What did you do?” Paul said.

“Well, first of all, it wasn't merely loud, but it was stinky,” Ginger said, and the laughing began again.

“So I'm standing up there, afraid to even turn around to see their faces. But when I do turn around, it's like the funk rushed up my nose. And it was so strong that it jolted me; I couldn't hide on my face that it stunk to high hell.”

More laughter.

“So I'm standing there, gagging on my own fart, and they are looking at me and trying to pretend they didn't hear it or smell it.”

More laughter.

“So what did you do?” Paul said, finally.

“I looked at them with a straight face and said, ‘That's what I think of the competition.' ”

Paul, Brenda and Madeline laughed loudly, just as the men in the boardroom had.

“I can't even tell you how embarrassed I was,” Ginger said. “The funny thing is that after that, I was even more loose and the guys even loosened up and somehow, my fart at the wrong time helped me and those guys have a better relationship. Don't get me wrong; I don't trust them. But from that moment on they stopped being so rude and distant with me. So it's made for a better working environment.”

“Wow,” Brenda said. “It takes passing gas to get men to respect you. How crazy is that?”

They settled down and the attention turned to wine.

“This is some good wine, Vino,” Brenda added. “I'm feeling much better.”

“Look at that,” Paul said, pointing to the Golden Gate Bridge.

“Beautiful,” Madeline said.

Paul drove across the bridge, slowly, and the magnificence of the view quieted the car. No one said a word. They snapped photos and admired the prodigious bridge and skyline of San Francisco off in the distance.

“Just beautiful,” Ginger said.

Paul took the first exit over the bridge and worked his way back and crossed the bridge again, headed toward Napa. Dozens and dozens of people walked across the bridge.

“Look, Brenda,” Madeline said. “That's gonna be us.”

“But, Paul,” Brenda said, “we're not walking back across, so you're going to have to come pick us up on the other side.”

The traffic was heavy going back across the bridge, which was fine to the ladies; they got to take more photos and enjoy the cloudless day even more. Once they parked at Golden Gate Park, they stood outside the car and enjoyed the wine.

“I'm gonna need to walk off this wine,” Brenda said. “I'm feeling it.”

“Let's do it,” Madeline said. “You walking with us, Ginger?”

“I think I'm going to pass,” she answered. “I want to admire this view, enjoy this wine and relax. That's what a vacation is to me.”

So off the seniors went, leaving Paul and Ginger in the park. She did not wait long to address her concerns. All that laughing in the car made her feel good, but it did not eliminate the angst she had about how Paul lost his job and that he did not tell her.

“I don't understand; how am I supposed to feel?” Ginger said. “You told me you got laid off, but you got fired. And you got fired because of sexual harassment. How can I believe anything you say?”

“Oh, so it's the ‘Boy Who Cried Wolf' thing, huh?” Paul said. “Nothing I say is the truth? I've lied so much that you can't believe
anything that comes out of my mouth? Well, if you truly believe that, then what I have to say about it won't matter. If you don't believe that—which I hope you don't—then maybe we can get past this.

“Gin, it is very simple: I sent the woman an inappropriate text message with the video. That was it. I told her repeatedly that I'm a married man. I have tried to figure out why she would turn on me like she did and I'm guessing it was because I never bit on her advances. They were subtle, but they were also obvious. And I stuck to: ‘I'm going home to the wife.' ”

“Do you understand that even if what you said is true,” Ginger said, “the violation and the dishonoring of our marriage is in you having these private jokes and text messages; you were building a relationship with her. And if she didn't get offended by the video, you'd still have this secret relationship with her. That's the violation and the disrespect.

“If you felt compelled to never mention her to me—not even say her name—then it shows there was something to hide, or something you thought you'd want to hide in the future. And that's hard to swallow.

“I can think you asked me for a divorce because you were going to run away with whatever her name is. I could believe that you decided to try to stay in the marriage because she broke up with you. I could believe that you could still have something going with her. I could start thinking about those times you said you worked late—were you really working or working with Sophia?