Chapter 28 "Carrot Shaped and Colored Ear Plugs...dedicated to McCaine

Earlier that morning, May awoke from her sleep prematurely. It was time to put the “bathroom game plan” into action. Three hours prior to this moment the bathroom game plan had become essential, in her mind at least. One might find the “bathroom game plan” humorous, but they obviously have never slept in ant covered sand, 50 yards away from the six inch hole toilet seat in the middle of the bush of Africa. That person might never had taken the perfect dose of Tylenol pm, one and one-third tablets worth, promptly at 11pm that night and surely that person would be better versed in chemistry then May. (the previous“then” was intentionally spelled incorrectly by the author with hopes it might make Cappy smile, should he still read silly little story blogs). In order to understand the current game plan one must recognize the past failures…

At approximately 2:00am, standard time, May’s bladder awoke her. Her carrot shaped and colored earplugs, an essential part of her evening attire, had fallen out. Actually, just one ear plug fell out, the one that found residence in her left ear remained. This was a small detail that later would be of vast importance. She lifted her eye mask up. It fit loosely around her forehead and the back of her neck. She reached around in search of the clock-flashlight, as she thought, surely my clock would win a competition for ingenuity as it was a clock, alarm, and flashlight all in one. She began to wonder who gave her this clever little gift, but could not recall the day she received it. Presently, her hand made a sweeping movement across the tent floor but came up empty. May thought, maybe I can make it to the bathroom without a light. Later she would find that to be the most unintelligent decision of all of the unintelligent moves she made that night.

May stretched her extremely bug bitten legs out of her sleeping bag, stood up and walked to the tent door. Her walk was a wobbly one and almost resulted in her tripping over Red’s head, which rest peacefully two feet away from the zipper. May partially stepped and partially tripped out of the tent. Her barefoot landed in the thousand-wide ant army that seemed to be attacking something on the other side of the tent. She bent down in search for her flip-flops. Where on earth are they, she thought as she brushed the ants off her feet. She reached her hand slightly under the tent, her head, ear-length away from the battle line.

Are these little creatures laughing at me, she wondered. To her surprise, in a quiet and groggy voice, May whispered such phrases as, “just wait until next time”, “you can’t handle this”, and “rematch”. As any winning competitor does, the ants laughed at her, rather weak, attempt of “talking smack”. She could have sworn she heard them saying something but, between the Tylenol pm and the carrot shaped and colored plug embedded in her left ear, all she could make out was a muffled, “all, jant, all”. Later May would realize the ants battle chant was, “fall, giant, fall”, but at this particular moment, she was more concerned about slipping her flip-flops on and getting out of their territory.

Unknowingly, May stepped two feet into the climax of this game. She realized the Tylenol PM made her senses a little dim, what she did not realize was the carrot colored and shaped ear plug stuck in her left ear caused her equilibrium to be off balance. As a result, her third step landed her sprawled out on the dirt ground. Her light blue trimmed eye mask fell back over her eyes and she awkwardly lifted herself back up only to stumble blindly into the wall of Mr. Chard’s stick room. She removed the eye mask, took two more steps forward and finally realized she must remove the carrot colored and shaped ear plug from her left ear. She made it to the bathroom, half seeing and half guessing where the hole was, and made it back to the tent...alive.

May found her missing ear plug and her clock-flashlight thanks to Red’s headlamp. She lay down in her bed thinking of what she would do the next time she needed to use the bathroom. Little did she know, “the next time” was just three hours away. She made a “bathroom game plan” even though she was still unaware of her opposing team. She fell asleep thinking of all the restaurants she would eat at her first day back in America. She awoke three hours later to her bladder’s urgent beckoning.

May put the plan into action. She wrapped the cotton eye-mask around the foam ear-plugs and stuck them in her pillow case. After the successful completion of what May called, “pillow case protection”, she pulled her clock-flashlight out from under her mat where she devised its perfect position to be easily grasped when needed. She stepped gently over Red’s, auburn hair and the yellow blanket that covered her face, and made it successfully to the door of the tent. She slipped her feet into the flip-flops she had lain to the right of the door, facing outward, on her previous bathroom attempt. The ant army retreated and was no longer an obstacle. May made it to and from the bathroom at a steady pace with no stumbling, and this time she even saw the hole.

She re-entered the tent and lay comfortably in her bed reflecting on the morning’s first attempt when it all, finally, made sense. The eye-mask, the flip flops, the Tylenol pm, the ants, and of course the captain of it all…the carrot shaped and colored ear plugs were the other team. She was sure of it. She could even remember the tiny arms on the little bodies of those ants, they were dancing and clapping and cheering the team on. The eye mask was the silent player, but nevertheless just as important as each of the other team players. The flip flops had the most pressure on them and thus, hid, or was that just a trick in the game plot? And, the carrot shaped and colored earplugs, they were the captain of this inanimate object team? Wait, the clock, was the clock in on it, did it disappear in those moments when she needed its’ flashlight eyes the most…oh she could not bare the thought.

She remembered her sweet sister, McCaine, had given those earplugs to her…could she be the coach of all this, the master mind behind all this game? Was she out to defeat her? First thing in the morning she would have a “coach’s meeting” with McCaine to discuss the previous nights performance. After all, the best defense is a good offense. She fell back asleep with thoughts of how she had become “strange” and with wonders of whether or not she would ever “fit in” the American culture again.