Cleaning the dog poop off Damien’s pants turned out to be easier than I would have expected it to be. I removed them from the bag and was nearly knocked over from the stench. Okay, maybe sealing them up into a plastic bag wasn’t the best idea, but that’s how we learn, right? I used toilet paper and paper towels to get most of the poop off and then there was nothing to be done but to get dirty. I turned on the hot water, shoved the pants into the sink and used a lot of the liquid hand soap to wash the pants by hand. With a few minutes of rinsing the soap away, the pants looked clean and after giving them the nose test, I was sure that they were clean.

Now came the really difficult part, getting the pants dry. Of course I did the obvious and tried to wring as much water out of them as I could, but twisting them and squeezing them can only do so much. So then I turned to the electric hands drier. Boy, that sure took a long time and by the time I had gotten the pants partially dry, I’d already been in the bathroom a good twenty minutes or more. Oddly enough, during that time, no one else had come in until I was nearly done. The guy that came in, looked rough and dirty, and I figured he must be a construction worker or something like that.

I decided that Damien’s pants were as dry as they were going to get with my help and picked up my things to leave.

“Hey!” the guy called after me.

I stopped and turned around. The guy was standing there looking ominous. “You make that mess in there?” he said, pointing to the inside of the toilet bowl.

“Sorry?” I said, trying to act like I didn’t know what he was talking about. But I did know. I’d been so preoccupied with getting the pants clean that I had forgotten to flush the toilet after throwing all that toilet paper and paper towels into it.

The guy shot me a mean, disgusted look and growled. Yeah, he really growled. Not wanting to stick around any longer, I slung the backpack onto my back and got the heck out of Dodge!

It took some convincing, but soon, I was able to get Sean, Mike and Damien to come in from playing.

“Here, put your pants back on.” I told Damien.

He didn’t even offer the slightest objection. Actually, I think he was surprised that I was allowing him to have them back.

“Max washed them in the bathroom for you.” Mark told him.

“They are cold!” Damien said as I pulled them onto him and tried to button them.

“Well, I couldn’t get them completely dry.” I said.

Thankfully, we got out of McDonald’s before the guy came back out of the bathroom.

“Where to now daddy?” Mike teased me as he took hold of my right hand and smiled like a goofball.

“That way!” I said.

Sean took hold of my other hand while Mark got Damien onto his back.

“Boy, you must have gained ten pounds while we were in there.” Mark groaned to Damien as he bore his weight.

“Put him down then, his legs aren’t broken.” I told Mark.

“Yeah, my legs aren’t broken!” Damien parroted.

So, that is just what Mark did.

“Hey!” Damien complained when Mark just let him fall off.

“What?” Mark chuckled.

Damien pulled back his arm like he was going to hit Mark, but he thought better of it and lowered his fist without anyone telling him to do so. Letting go of Sean’s hand, I reached out, pulled Damien close and hugged him to my hip.

Damien pulled away, “Don’t Max!” He then reached out and took Mark’s hand instead.

Gulliver’s Mountain was so cool; it doesn’t matter how many times I get to go there, I always find something new. This time, we mainly checked out all the cool camping gear and got to pet a live beaver. Gulliver’s Mountain brings in live animals at different times of the year. In November, they have live turkeys and they’ve brought in other animals such as deer, buffalo, moose and bears. There have been other animals; those are just the few that I’ve seen personally.

About the time we were getting ready to leave to head over to the Danbury Cinema, Damien tugged on the back of my coat. He didn’t have to tell me what he wanted, I could tell just by looking at him.

“Anyone else need changed?” I asked quietly.

Surprisingly, everyone raised a hand, Mark included. The humor of the situation, as I followed behind my four diapered friends while watching their waddling bottoms, was almost laugh-out-loud funny.

I had never been in the bathrooms of the Gulliver’s Mountain store before, so I was surprised to find that they didn’t have a men’s and women’s bathroom. Instead, they had one large family bathroom, and it wasn’t empty. Gulliver’s is one of the largest stores in the area, so it would seem logical that they would have an equally large bathroom, and they sure did!