Monkeying about

With Mrs Ottawacker safely in bed, I went alone to Ottawacker Jr's end-of-kindergarten picnic at school. 

And there I too started to feel the effects of the plague. While people mingled and talked, I stood alone, listening with horror as the intense rumblings of my stomach made their way through the intestines to what I was pretty sure would be a chronic case of the runs.

Having had various recent instances of rather comic events (at least for other people, superglue and toilet seats and body parts spring to mind), my sole concern was to avoid a lifetime of trauma for Ottawacker Jr. 

I could hear him talking to his psychiatrist in future years.

"My dad was always embarrassing. But the worse was when I was six years old and he crapped himself at my school picnic."

So I stood there, against the tree line, buttocks firmly clenched, neither daring to talk nor to move, hoping against hope that the stomach cramps would go away.