Back When I Saved a Life

Beware of practicing your righteousness before other people in order to be seen by them, for then you will have no reward from your Father who is in heaven.

Matthew 6:1 ESV

I’ve read this scripture over and over again, wondering if what I’m about to share will forfeit my reward in heaven. In some sense, I feel rewarded already knowing that no lives have been lost. This is my way of rationalizing the heroic story I’m about to share and why, if you run into me, you should put your hand on my shoulder and say, “I see you.”

Three weeks ago, I went into the bathroom at church and was met with a moral dilemma involving a toilet. I should back up a bit. Our church currently rents space from an event center, which often hosts parties that are apparently attended by people who have trouble aiming. I’m not judging these people. There is evidence, loads of it, that several people have trouble aiming (the amount of jokes I’m suppressing right now is causing pains in my chest). These people also leave footprints on toilets. I’m not judging. These are just facts needed in order to paint a picture.

This toilet displeases me. I’ll just say that. But I noticed something else about it. The seat was hanging on by a porcelain thread. This was a broken jaw toilet, the kind that slides and knocks around when you’re on it. Normally, I would think, “Someone’s in for a ride,” and walk away. But my ever-working imagination conjured up an image so horrible, so humiliating that I couldn’t just walk away.

It’s twenty-minutes into the sermon and Bifford has to use the bathroom…

Imagine the anguish I went through. I could either let this man die or touch the shadowy areas of a toilet.

“Make that 39,999 injuries,” I told myself (not really) as I bent down, reached around, and tightened the toilet seat lid. If you’ve never tightened a toilet seat lid, let me explain something to you: you tighten blind. You touch things you cannot see. You touch things on a public toilet that you cannot see. It’s like reaching into the drain to feel for what’s clanging in the garbage disposal, but worse.

I’m not going to lie. Once I got the seat tightened, I wanted to honk. Honking is a short scream I do when I just got done doing something annoying or nasty. It’s like a sound Michael Jackson or Prince would make. I often do it when I get off the phone. AOH!

So, Do You See Me?

Do me a favor, will ya? Next time you sit on a sturdy toilet seat, I want you to think of me. Think of my face two inches from the toilet bowl, holding my breath. You hear the bolts squeaking as they tighten. Then I wink at you. That’s all I ask that you think of this. Oh yeah, and the hand on the shoulder thing. Those are the two things I ask.