CYNTHIA VARADY

All That Glitters is Prose

Soapbox

My Dream Is To Work From Home

Tree Sitting at UC Berkeley | Work From Home
Tree Sitting at UC Berkeley

To Work From Home Is To Be Free. . .

A friend of mine tree sat for a week. For the uninitiated, tree sitting entails hunkering in an old growth tree to keep loggers from cutting it down. Activists construct a small platform on which the sitter will reside. Equipped with a sleeping bag, food, water, and a bucket and pulley system, the sitter begins their official protest.

So there’s my friend, way up in a tree. Her only task: to stay in the tree so loggers won’t cut it down. This means that if the urge to crap hit her, she’d need to squat over a bag and aim. She would then lower said shit-filled bag down in the bucket for her support team to dispose of.

My friend didn’t shit for a week. She tried, but her bowls put the kibosh on that idea.

Public Toiler | Work From HomeI can sympathize with her. If I sat perched in a tree for days on end, my sphincter would strike too.

. . . Free To Poop Whenever I Want

With the exception of the occasional fetish revolving around human excrement, there are only two categories of people who should ever have anything to do with what emerges from another person’s southbound exit. The first is family e.g. parents, significant others, and adult children. This group is tasked with cleaning up hinnies when said hinny owner is either too young or too infirm to do it themselves.

The second category is for the professionally trained e.g. doctors, nurses, and lab technicians. This group gets brought into the poop loop when we fear something may be wrong with our digestive tracts, or for the annual checkup.

This week I started working full-time after a three-year stint in graduate school, two years of job hunting, the occasional piece of part-time work, and three years as a stay-at-home parent. It’s only been three days, and I miss staying at home. I miss my freedom. The ability to remain in my PJs all day, to eat when I’m hungry, to pass gas if my tummy bubbles, scratch my crotch, adjust my bra, and to take a shit whenever the urge hits me.

S&M Toilets | Work From HomeThree days in and the inevitable hasn’t happened yet, but it will. It has to. It’s a numbers game I will lose.

One day I will need to take a crap at work.

I really, really want to work from home.

Photo Credits

Tree Sitting at UC Berkeley by Jason Creative Commons License

Public Toilet Namche Bazaar, Nepal March 2008 by SuSanA Secretariat Creative Commons License

S&M Public Toilet? by Kieran Lamb Creative Commons License

Featured Image

She Loves to Sleep by hobvias sudoneighm Creative Commons License

Cynthia Varady

Cynthia Varady is an award-winning short story writer and Pandemonium Cozy Mystery Series author. She resides in Portland, OR with her husband, son, and two kitties. Cynthia has a BA in English Literature and a Master's in Library and Information Science. In addition to writing, Cynthia loves baking on the fly, crocheting, playing video games with her family, and reading mysteries.

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