August 24, 2004
The Brown Tsunami
It was inevitable. Between Geoffrey's recent confessional of britches-browning and Acidman's classic tale of waste-woe, I no longer have an excuse to hide my own sordid tale of spontaneous evacuation. I've ominously alluded to this story over the last year; it is time to come clean, as it were. Let me set the story:
I have two customers in Norfolk and one in Richmond, so it naturally makes sense to visit all in the same trip. My boss, my salesman and I therefore flew to Norfolk to see Customers A and B (the Jews and the Frogs). We then drove to Richmond to see Customer C (the Nips). After a tendentious meeting we went to Shockoe Slip for dinner at the Tobacco Company.
I like the Tobacco Company. It's Old Richmond, a restaurant in a two-story tobacco warehouse turned into a quite decent chophouse. This being Virginia, a lot of old curmudgeons dine here to smoke enormous cigars, gnaw red meat, and swill Scotch. As I said, my kind of place.
Now, my kids had just overcome one of those nasty twenty-four stomach viruses the previous weekend, and I was having trepidations about making the trip. I always come down with these things last. I cast aside my reservations and made the trip. All during dinner, however, I noticed my stomach, pyloric valve, whatever, was making some ghastly rumblings. Twice I excused myself from this three-hour repast to visit the gentleman's room. False alarms. Bear in mind we were upstairs, in a private dining room the size of a telephone booth. It was rude to keep getting up, but discretion is the better part of vapor.
As we were ordering coffee and dessert I received the third SEWER (Shit Early Warning Emergency Response) alert. I excused myself yet again, and went downstairs. Yet another false alarm, so I decided to step outside and have a cigarette (yes, I could have smoked inside, but I eschew that sort of behaviour).
And then: just as I inhaled my first puff of nicotine laxative, I experienced a sensation only to be described as Vesuvian. I flipped the smoke in the street, and bolted inside for the head. I literally shoved an old woman aside in a classic OJ Heisman stiffarm, and blasted into the men's room. This bathroom was pretty small for such a large establishment, and only had one stall. The bathroom was empty, and I slid into the stall, door a-banging, and barely, just barely, managed to clear my trou before I erupted.
Let me take a pause to inform you Intrepids that I don't travel well from a digestive point of view. Whether it is a mental block having to do with strange toilets, latent anxiety, or some other issue, I tend to be constipated when I travel. I only bring this up to inform you that I had a full three days worth of excrement residing in me. Feel better? I thought so.
And so: you have been patient; let me cut to the chase: as I say, I had barely cleared my drawers when I exploded in a manner reminescent of Genghis Khan Glamorous Glennis. A shock-wave inducing blast proceeded to spray the toilet, the stall walls, the floor in a disgusting mixture of all three states of matter, but where gas turned to liquid turned to solid I could not say with any degree of accuracy. I believe I even expunged the amorphous form of matter that quicksilver embodies, but believe me when I say I did not try to pick any up with my fingertips.
Did I say I had cleared trou? Well, not exactly. For while it is true there was a clear shot between my rectum and the toilet bowl, this detonation followed its own laws of physics, and motion. There was blowback, people, and drip, and tears in the fabric of the universe. This shit went everywhere. So not only was the stall completely destroyed, covered in a layer of filth, I looked down and saw the repugnant stuff had blasted my drawers, and caressed my pants.
Another aside: I'm a pretty savvy business traveler, but for some reason I was wearing my Jos. Bank oyster-colored slacks, with blazer. Bad choice, in retrospect.
I now had to take off my shoes, hang my blazer and trousers on the door hook, throw my underwear in the trashcan, and begin the mortifying process of cleaning myself up at the sink. This took a while, me being a thorough fellow, and about a dozen old men wandered in and out to urinate while I was at my task. They would look at me, naked from the waist down, cleaning my buttocks and splattered pants with wetted paper towels, look at the befouled stall (it had a one-foot gap at the bottom, of course), victim of a shit-grenade, and leave.
I would LOVE to say this is the end of the story, but fret not. I now had to go meet my customers and coworkers, bid my customers good evening, and drive an hour back to Norfolk. I was quite certain this episode was not over, too. So as we drove away I told my coworkers "I have Issues". Now, my salesman is a great guy, but he drives like Miss Daisy, if Miss Daisy was allowed to drive. He was doing 53 down the interstate when I told him time was most certainly of the essence. "Faster," I said. "You have to drive faster." "I can't," he said. "I have precious cargo on board." At which point I leaned over and said "Mike, if you don't put the hammer down now I'm going to drop my pants and shit some precious cargo on your neck." He sped up to 59, but it was no use. I made them pull over at the next exit, jumped out at the gas station and ran next door to the McDonald's. There I proceeded to deliver Stage Two.
This was not Krakatoa, like the first stage, but it was certainly Pelee. The miasma did not circle the earth three times, but it certainly circled that McDonald's once. In fact, after 15 minutes the Pimple Boy running the place banged on the door and said I had to leave, as they were closing up. As I was exiting the store I heard him walk into the bathroom pushing a mop pail and say "Jesus Christ!"
I made it to the gas station for a final void, then crashed on the back seat for the next forty-five minutes, with mocha-misted oyster britches on, no underwear, and a half a roll of toilet paper wedged up my ass for leakage, and accidents.
So. There. I feel better getting this off my mind. I have nothing left to hide. I also realize I have in all likelihood created the first topic of conversation for Blogtoberfest.
I also realize Geoffrey can't say no to attending now, either. A band of brothers, indeed.