The Phases Of Enlightenment

When you are but a babe

Bursting forth from mother’s loins

You know nothing about the world,

Nor, in fact, about Des Moines.

But as you grow, you learn

That, for instance, Dad’s a plumber.

You grow forever wiser

While at the same time, dumber.

You learn at one, for instance

That your body must stay clean

And when you’re put in the sink

They’re not doing it to be mean.

At the age of six or seven

You move on from baths to showers,

But you take them very quickly,

Unlike teens, who go for hours.

And sometime around age 20

You maybe fall in love,

And find new uses for the shower

As well as for that rubber glove.

And maybe when you’re 40

Amidst your midlife lull

You realize the shower

Is a gender-neutral urinal.

And by the time you’re eighty

And, in the shower, you have to sit

You wonder if that urinal thing

Also goes for…

And there you are in a nursing home.

Your mind has gone for good.

Thus endeth your enlightenment,

Or so we knock on wood.