Butt Paste

I had a collection of nickels that amounted to $541 for every time someone in our group had a list of reasons, admitted, and excused themselves from not writing. I still hear it, I still say it, I still do it. Keep your butt in the chair we chant! Let the cat box go, don’t think about shirts laying in the dryer that need pressing, look at the labels…it reads Perma Press, don’t answer the door when no one knocked…glue yourself to that chair!

While visiting my niece in Illinois one summer after she had her first baby who was then over a year old, I tagged along to Super Walmart one humid afternoon with her to shop for baby things. While I held my first and only great-niece, I watched Tarah check off her list of items she dropped by armloads into the cart. She twists her mouth to the side and finally spies another item, grabs it, and drops it in the cart. I could not help but catch the phrase ‘Butt Paste’. Ja-Jing! I bought four boxes to tote back to Tucson for our group’s next writing session. Here is the problem solver right here in this bright yellow box with a warning in red letters.

Once back in the Old Pueblo and sitting at the table, I pulled out my neatly wrapped gifts in pink tissue paper. “Girls, this will take care of our woes.” We all believed in this yellow and white tube, with a bald baby and a blue blanket draped across his sweet little legs. We were ecstatically giddy. We did not hesitate nor doubt the power from this little squeezable paste. We each propped this motivational product on our desks in plain sight. This was our miracle worker for us to crank out our stories, finish our masterpieces, compile collections of poetry, and tick on like the pink rabbit all from a simple tube called Butt Paste.

Seventeen years later, my great-niece will be off to her first year of college, and this little tube in its box still sits on my desk as I write, hum-haw, and write. It reminds me of the earnest purpose behind the name. Without Butt Paste, our continual writing of stories, poems, and numerous other genres could not have formed Telling Tales and Sharing Secrets.