Girlfriend: also im bummed you havent blogged in AGES
me: sorry babe
Girlfriend: are you gonna write one?
me: not tonight
Girlfriend: why not?
me: nothing to write about
Girlfriend: what???
me: do i have something to write about?
Girlfriend: umm me leaving, us maybe moving in together
the hawks
your p90x/healthy routine
me: well writing about you will make me sad
Girlfriend: you moved your office!
youll be fine
me: baby, when i feel like writing i will, i promise
Girlfriend: you neeeeeeeeeeeeever feel like writing
So I was successfully talked into writing something. Here is what was rattling around my brain today.
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I believe that it was the Immortal Jerry Seinfeld (as he will live forever through syndication) who said that more people fear public speaking than fear death. Thus, at a funeral, one would rather be the corpse than the one delivering the eulogy. I do not know what I fear the most, but I am well aware of what causes me the most anxiety. The one thing I hate to do more than anything. I cannot say I would rather be dead than do this, because it was one thing that must be done. Everyday, around 11:30 am, I get that rumbling in my belly. Oh yes, it is time to take a shit.
I absolutely hate dropping a deuce in public.
I even know when it started (roughly). It was probably in the 3rd or 4th grade or so when I had my first bout of diarrhea (that I can recall. I am sure I had the runs as a baby in diapers and possibly even a helping of the squirts in the privacy of my own home). I was at school, and my bowels decided to unleash holy hell. As a wide-eyed student in the Blue (read Smartest) Reading Group, I thought I knew everything, that my shit didn't stink so to speak. Well this day it did, repeatedly. And as everyone knows, in elementary school, you have to go get the giant wooden beatin' stick/hall pass when excretion is necessary. Getting that stick a couple times in a hour might be excusable, but when your asshole is a slow moving and selective St. Peter, it seems like only a little bit wants to get out every ten minutes.
Add this to the fact that I had no clue what was going on. I felt like I was dying. Utterly embarrassed I did my best to hide my shame and hold as long as possible between bathroom breaks, but the damage was done.
With rare exceptions (hey, when you gotta go, you gotta go) I successfully avoided public restrooms when reporting for doodie for about a decade. Then came college. And more specifically, Dorm Rooms. I lived on a floor with about 15 guys sharing a pisser/shitter/shower room. And that is when it became a running joke about avoiding the bathroom after I used it. (But hey, according to this website, its healthy!) To my credit, this is when I was able to put myself on a cycle where the kids only had to be dropped off at the pool late at night.
Combine my leper poops with my already ingrained fear of public restrooms and there was but one thing left to do. I moved off campus for my sophomore year (though not entirely for a poop-related reasons of course). Sharing a bathroom with one other person, who also a friend and not a raging douchebag, made taking a shit much more comfortable. Especially cause it was college and I could shower whenever I wanted, so I just showered after pinching a loaf giving the smell time to dissipate. Life was good. And I would stay there for three years.
Then came the inevitable "Places You Will Go" moment and I had to go get a job. Had to start working the 9-5. My poop experience at work was pretty miserable. I had started drinking coffee at this point, so at times, work shits were inevitable. I am sure the architect of this building patted himself on the back several times for picking out the perfect location for the bathroom, where it was conveniently located to 100s of workers. This was not a bathroom where you could expect privacy. This would be the time when I tried to become a morning shitter, chopping a log before heading to work. Sometimes successful, sometimes not. And this may or may not have resulted in a hemorrhoid one time (now that is a learning experience. I hear. . .).
With shitting at work not working out, I decided I should go to law school. And my first year, I lived alone. For the first time ever. And it was a shitting bliss. Crapping with the door open! What a concept! The next two years, I lived in a house with people, so I went back to the shit-shower routine (you don't have to shower in law school either. Or, at least I didn't).
But as the world turns, I eventually ended up back in the working world, realizing that yeah, this is gonna be my life. Time to man up and start taking shits at work. And I did. When necessary. Assuming there was no else in the bathroom. If someone walked in, that was it, I was done, that turtle got scared.
Then, I met the woman (wonder if she wants me linking her?). And suddenly, I was in a real relationship. And wholly crap, I might spend an entire day at her place. And I am gonna have to take a crap at her place. And she is gonna dump me when she realizes what comes out of me. But eventually, I did (probably while drunk). And now, she keeps plenty of glade on hand. And through her understanding, and rare snide comments, I gained more self-confidence to crap at work. That, and in the beginning I was so scared of crapping at her place, I had to shit (sorry having trouble coming up with more euphemisms for taking a dump. Oh wait, Google exists. This looks like a good site. Back to taking care of business) at work.
Then, Revelation. A while back I had ass surgery. In order to facilitate baking a hot icicle (?!) afterwords (wait, icicle sounds too hard, lets go with making a half-melted Baby Ruth), the doc suggested Metamucil. And holy glorious duking. As if Mozart himself had composed shits. (This guy agrees!) Scrapes the colon clean of any little devils that may want to create cancer.
And by taking Metamucil everyday, I cannot avoid crapping at work. It has to be done. So I have now come full circle. I am back to shitting in public. Though I prefer not to have anyone in there with me, I can still launch a scud. And yes, I do seek out the most rarely trafficked bathroom in the building, but I am still in there baking brownies. And with the Metamucil, I am healthier (in addition to my new healthy diet). I am making waves with the logs I am dropping (I recently noticed that my preferred crapping bathroom added a new Bad Air Sponge).
But the anxiety is not completely gone. And the Metamucil is still powerful. So even though I have made great strides, I now regularly have to crap twice at work. Twice! As if the 11:30 organic depth charge is not enough, my bowels now whistle at me that they want to sing with Michael Bolton. But hey, whatever doesn't kill you . . .
One day, as I am walking out of the stall, franctically buckling my belt after composing a majestic poopmyphony, my boss will walk in and our eyes will meet, and his nose will twitch, and I will wish that I was dead (or reading this post at my alma mater's convocation).
As a post script, I want to be this dude one day.
And finally, could this post really be complete without this?:
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