The Last Supper, and Dropping Bombs in Moscow

48 hours from now, I should be rolling into Kansas City.

Like most birthdays I celebrate, son Tydus and I will be watching baseball.

Most years we fly, but this year, what the hey, maybe a road trip will be good for us.

Last Friday a tire on the bread mobile blew, so I figured I should get that fixed before heading out.

After arriving at Tire - World, the counter guy told me that they were going to be backed up so he placed me into a waiting room that offers you stale cookies and CNN.

I wanted neither, so instead I made a trip to the bathroom.

Being as observant as I am, I noticed that the stalls privacy walls had been lowered on the top, and heightened on the bottom.

I know its an every day occurrence for most people, but when folks need to take care of "business", Klecko wants to see as little as possible.

It seems that ever since a 1/2 a dozen - high profile "transactions" took place in some mens public toilet stalls, the rest of our gender has had to compromise our privacy while sitting in the regal position.

Another new trend in mens washrooms is to take off the stall doors all together.

The indignity that the masses must endure because a few grown men abused their bathroom privileges huh?

Anyways, I wasn't sitting today, I was trying to scrub magic marker off my hands.

I could have stayed in the waiting room, but there was an irritating 18ish year old chick calling every person she knew trying to get them to head out to Milwaukee with her to some Summer music festival which was featuring Katie Perry.

I shouldn't confess this, but I did get a morbid amount of pleasure in the fact that none of her 26 phone calls seemed too enthused to join her.

As I was scrubbing the marker stains with the same pressure as Macbeth, the guy on the piped in radio shared an interesting factoid. When ever I am in a bathroom, I do prefer news to MUZAK.

To be honest, sometimes its just to hard to focus if they are playing a cheesy R.E.M. or Prince cover.

So radio man tells us that tests have been conducted and that food portions in the famous painting the Last Supper have grown over 400% since the original version launched.

Apparently they matched loaves of bread and fish to the disciples heads and took measurements.

Also, after the Renaissance period artists also took liberties in adding fowl and other live stock animals to the feast.

It got me wondering how that whole last supper really went down.

You know that Jesus knew that he was about to die, I know he is the Son of God and all that, but don't you think he'd want a really good last meal?

From all records, we are told that his posse secured the upper room of some hotel/motel of the day.

So the one piece of info that the Bible doesn't share is if this gig was catered or pot luck.

The guys on the radio didn't offer up any explanation as to why the food portions have increased over the years, I just think they wanted us to be impressed by the fact that they noticed.

Whenever you are at a car dealership, gas station or now today Tire-World, one truth is going to remain constant.

Their staff will keep you waiting longer that the disgruntled medical workers at Urgent Care.

So Klecko's in no hurry....SCRUB-SCRUB-SCRUB-SCRUB.......

But then the door opens and and employee walks in and gives me the once over.

Yeah Gus, can you check out the guy with the tattoo's whose about to drop 300 shekels? He might be snatching our paper towels.

Well actually not, because the bathroom was one of those bathrooms that didn't trust us to use a moderate amount of paper supplies, so instead they had one of those hard blowing, blow dryers mounted to the wall.

I got to tell you one last part of public bathroom protocol.

When a public bathroom has just 1 stall and 1 urinal, you should receive a locked door option.

If I am at a stadium, I don't think twice about lining up and peeing next to a string of guys that runs as long as a ranchers fence,the process of your number oneing ends up getting deluded.

But sharing a rest room with just one other soul, lets face it, that's a little to intimate in Klecko's book.

So right when I'm about to pop out into the waiting room, the dude who had just been in previously pops his head back in.

His body doesn't even cross the threshold.

Dude doesn't have any bladder problems, he just wants to make it "that" obvious that he's watching me.

In life you pick your battles.

Today I am on vacation, this week I am on vacation, the last thing I need is bad bathroom karma.

As I slowly reeled that pointed tongue of mine back into its garage, I went back into the waiting room area.

I'm glad I went early because the place was jammed. I'll bet a dozen more people joined us during my momentary absence.

Praise be to Polish Christ, what's her head had put her phone away and sat sulking in the corner. Her sorrow meant sheer joy to the remaining populace, because now the waiting room was how it was meant to be, silent with a cloud of awkward discomfort floating in the air.

The bathroom spy was now lurking over by the young guy that we paid when we finally got permission to leave.

Mr. Macho was eating a M&M cookie, and that surprised me because they also had Peanut Butter and Sugar Cookies.

Dude was eating outside of his gender profile.

In case you didn't know....the M&M is a total chick cookie.

So now this guys presence brought me back to a memory that I might have never recalled again had I not run into this lout.

It must have been around 5 years ago, and I was on the streets on Moscow with an interpreter and I so had to drop a deuce.

Telling somebody that you have to be excused to go #2 is always a little weird and tentative, but have this discussion on an international level and it can almost become surreal.

So I tell my voice piece that I need a rest room fairly quick, and she asks me if I have any rubles on me.

I thought the timing was odd, but as we switched directions, it was brought to my attention that in Moscow you had to pay to use the public restroom.

Now my Russian friends know that I am little Danny Comrade, so when I tell you some basic differences between our countries, I'm not hating at all. Just pointing out differences.

In Russia, nothing is assumed, and even less is free.

You don't get an obligatory bag when purchasing food and drink items at the kiosk, you have to pay a quarter.

At restaurant's there is simply no seconds or free refills.

Every time you touch something..... it's gonna cost you.

Oh yeah......and trying to find ice is like trying to find honest love. It's not impossible, just highly unlikely LOL.

So now I'm running down tall concrete stairs to get into the public restroom.

The entrance had turnstiles much like a subway.

To my left is a line of stalls, a place that I really needed to be 2 minutes prior, and about 60 feet across from it is a toll both. Just like the ones that take your change from you every 2 miles in Jersey.

A disgruntled Man is standing in this box, and to be honest, dude creepily enough resembles an erect corpse standing in an upright coffin.

I threw this cat some coin, I wasn't going to wait for change, but when I finally got into "final position" it became apparent to me that another Russian custom had eluded me.

There was no toilet paper in my stall or any of the others for that matter.

"Oh....I get it, that's what that thing is directly between my and the washroom attendant.

I swear to Polish Christ I'm not making this up. Directly between me and that guy was a roll, spool....of toilet paper that was as big as a tractor wheel.

I'm not kidding ya, the thing was laid horizontal and up on a metal pole which probably had the circumference of a mast used on an air craft carrier.

I eventually lounged over to get my required ply's, but with each step I took, as I drew closer, this booth attendant leaned over like Snoopy does on his dog house when he's imitating that vulture.

Dude's brow was all furled and I was nervous because I didn't know the public restroom rules. This guys looks radiated a vibe that dared you to take extra so he could bite your arm off, and then call the K.G.B.

"Excuse me Mr. Klecko, your vehicle is finished."

Slam....mental warehouse closed, it's time to look into the future.

It's time to think Royals baseball and Kansas City.

OK....I'll be off the grid for 4 or 5 days, but don't forget Friday July 8th is my birthday, so feel free to send me as many birthday wishes as you desire.