My son and I stopped at Culver’s on our way back to Chicago after visiting my dad in Iowa. I took the dog out while he went inside and ordered.
Paddy pooped, as she always does after a ride in the car, and without a bag I was left to gingerly fold her waste into a couple of napkins, carefully walking to the outdoor garbage and tossing it in.
After she was tucked back into the car, I went to scrub my hands like I was going into surgery, even though nothing had gotten on them.
Years and years ago when I lived in Minneapolis, I had a friend at the laser printer company I worked for who would sometimes ask these outlandish questions just to see if she could get a rise out of people. Nothing you haven’t heard before, but in an office setting, you were always taken a little aback.
She was hilarious.
For example: “Would you eat a shit sandwich for a million bucks?” she asked me one day.
I didn’t answer right away.
“You could put any condiments on it you wanted, as much as you wanted.”
“Would I be disqualified if I threw up? Do I have to keep the sandwich down to get the money?”
She thought for a second, and settled somewhere in-between. Like, no I wouldn’t be disqualified but yes I had to keep it down for a certain amount of time.
“A million bucks cash, not taxed, just a million for me?”
I grew up in a house where you couldn’t watch a gameshow without my dad talking about how much winning actually cost. I’d be thrilled for the people who walked away with a huge bounty and he’d be telling me: “Wait until they get the tax bill.”
I always hoped, somewhere in the back of my mind, that the game show would pick up the taxes on the prizes, like the new car a mother really needed or the boat that was probably going to sit unused because the contestant didn’t live anywhere near water.
Wishful thinking, I know.
“No, not taxed, you can just have the money.”
A million never seemed enough for that task once you really got to thinking about what’s involved. I’d always try to work out if there were enough condiments you could put on it to drown the actual shit, picturing a plate with a sandwich oozing ketchup and mustard and mayo until you’d almost be forced to eat it with a fork.
Felt like a very lose-lose situation. You either gutted through straight shit and got sick or took the chance of masking the shit but getting sick from eating a vat each of ketchup, mustard and mayo.
The one imaginary rule was that you wouldn’t die.
I’m not sure I ever bit for a million bucks. She’d raise and raise and raise until finally you thought, “yeah, maybe that’d be enough.” I don’t have a clear memory of what the exact figure was for me, but I know it probably wasn’t single digits.
My mind has always made easy connections. I can pull a thread through most anything, and often what I see or hear bounces me to something else, past or future, a bread crumb trail that when I’m in the mood or just sitting quietly I’ll follow for awhile.
Sitting in that Culver’s parking lot eating a chicken sandwich alongside my son, the recent feeling of warm dog shit separated from my hand by only a thin napkin hopscotched to Andrea’s ridiculous game before ending at the very sandwich I was enjoying quietly with one of my favorite people on Earth.
I wondered to myself: Could you eat 100 dog shit sandwiches to bring your mother back to life for a minimum of 10 more years?
I don’t know why my mind jumped to such a large number. 100? Why not give myself a break and say a half or even just a whole dog shit sandwich?
My only answer is, thinking of it now, a few days later, I must have wanted the undertaking to feel as huge as my love for my mother. Saying that now, though, feels so absurd I laugh as I imagine meeting my mom in the ether to tell her: “Hey, your life was worth 100 dog shit sandwiches!”
I think she’d laugh, too, after she casually scolded me: “Michelle!” she’d say sharply but with a smile, like she did when I’d randomly answer a question she asked me with “your butt.”
Some would say this is the bargaining stage of grief. And maybe it is, even though I’m well aware I could eat 1,000 dog shit sandwiches and my mom would still be dead.
I think I’m just navigating loss.
Loss that feels cavernous and bewildering in its breadth and depth.
Still occasionally gut-punched by knowing I’ll never see her again.