Yesterday I had a special day with Jack. I told him we could go anywhere and do anything he wanted.
He wanted to go to McDonalds, buy a new dress and get a new colouring book. All things simple and possible and I agreed. Nyoman drove us in the direction of Kuta, where Australian Tourists tended to ignore the amazing Balinese restaurants and slap back Big Macs.
The traffic was typically terrible and I started to question Nyoman about an alternative plan. He suggested we could do all 3 tasks at the nearby mega shopping centre but it had a KFC, not a McDonalds. Fine. Whatever. Let's go.
Nyoman, Jack and I sat down at KFC. I observed every Indonesian go and wash their hands before eating the KFC rice, with their hands. But only their right hand for the left is traditionally used to wipe their ass. I had two bites of a chicken burger before I declared stumps. Inedible. Gross. After lunch we went upstairs to the world's biggest shopping centre. I mean you could buy anything there. I had never seen anything like it.
Jack selected a blue floral cotton sundress, which signals to me that he may be growing out of his cross dressing phase. He has never chosen blue before! A new Barbie colouring book and some muffins and we were done. I lined up at the checkout and started to sweat.
You know the sweat you get just before explosive diarrhea?
I gave Nyoman my wallet and asked where the nearest toilet was. And of course it was at the furthest possible point from where we were standing. I grabbed Jack and did the dash. The shakes had started and oh my god I do not know how I got there but even the ankle deep water of absolutely filthy conditions did not deter me from getting down to business.
Instant relief.
Jack was expressing his disgust about the whole scenario when I reached for the toilet paper. The toilet paper that should have been hanging just there.....
Holy shit. There was no toilet paper.
Picture this. You are sitting on a toilet, so filthy, in ankle deep water suffering from the trots with a whining four year old and no toilet paper. What do you do? You start to cry. I could not see a way out of this situation. After a few minutes of yelling and screaming for assistance to no avail, I convinced Jack to go out and get Nyoman. The plan was I would get Nyoman to go and purchase some toilet paper and give it to Jack to bring back into the ladies toilet. Simple.
I leant forward and opened the cubicle. I had visions in my head of Lassie at this point. "Go on boy, go get Nyoman. There's a good boy." pat pat pat.
Jack took one step out and slipped over in the 2 inches of water, landing straight onto his ass and letting out a scream that I was sure would bring someone running. I comforted him as best I could before deciding I was sick of being a victim. I grabbed my bag and found the map from the Monkey Forest that we had visited the day before. It was not great. It acted more as a smearer. Bloody hell. There was no other option. I had to take matters into my own hands, literally. My left hand, as I observed the traditional Indonesian custom, because I am cultured you know.
And now we shall never speak of this again.
