Michael and the Chocolate Factory

I’ve been caught in awkward positions before: Some thirty miles from civilization while fishing when it starts to thunderstorm. In Cabrini Green on the South Side of Chicago after dark. In my dark dorm room while my roommate and his girlfriend screwed like Billy goats on speed. But never as compromising as a steak night in 1999.

My best friend and I had a ritual of Friday night steaks. Single guy stuff. Lager and asparagus and lots of butter. Real fat ass stuff. On this night during dinner we received a call from two girls we knew that often went drinking with us. We’re partying tonight. You guys want to come over?, they asked. Sure. But we have to finish dinner and take showers.

We probably ate 2 pounds of steak and baked potatoes each, and maybe 5 beers. After dinner, my roommate boldly announces he’s going to jump into the shower, which occupied our only bathroom. He was notorious for long showers. I was on the front porch smoking a cigarette waiting for him to finish up so I could shower also. Smokers know that cigarettes, particularly those after dinner, often have a laxative effect. Tonight was not an exception. On about the sixth drag, my bowels instantly filled with water, and in a stark reflex, my sphincter tightened in a nearly lame attempt at diverting a serious disaster. I was about to blow mud and grease everywhere.

I ran to the bathroom, and hammered on the door with both hands, nearly sobbing. Dude! Let me in! Fucking Emergency! My friend liked to sing and fuck around in the shower and immediately dismissed my crisis as some sort of prank. “No way dipshit!”

I ran to the kitchen, and immediately evaluated my situation. My sphincter was about to blow its O-ring. I looked at the sink. Won’t wash down. The garbage can. The fridge. The freezer? Nothing was going to cut it. I couldn’t walk. I was cross-legged, contemplating jamming a thumb up my ass to offset the gusher. I only had one choice. The backyard.

I ran out back. Thankfully we had a fence. We lived in an absolute slum, and weeds and bugs and branches were everywhere, but I navigated to a spot that could meet its purpose. I was wearing swim trunks with netting, no boxers. I dropped my shorts, and let all hell break loose. I mean bad. It was a fiery, steamy fiesta of both color, sound and relief.

I’ve never shit in the woods. I didn’t know what posture to take, and had never considered the technicalities of how one shits au natural. I didn’t care. I was squatted down with my trunks around my ankles, and renewing my thanks with my maker. I was done.

I went to pull up my shorts, and just before doing so, complete sheer fucking terror hit me like a bucket of ice water. In squatting down, I failed to realize my shorts were directly under me. You can imagine my horror when I came to the realization that I had actually shat into my shorts as opposed to onto the ground. The runny celebration of butter and beef fat did little more than accumulate in the netting of the inside of my swim trunks.

Awww fuck.

I was at a loss. To enter the house, I was going to have to enter through the front. I sized up the situation. The porch light was on. There was traffic on the street. Again, I had simply run out of options. I kicked off my shorts, and ran to the door. All my man-garbage was bouncing in the night air.

You can imagine my friend’s surprise when as he was leaving the shower in a towel and whistling to himself, I came racing through the house with no pants on, cradling a cloth package full of shit that was my shorts, and whimpering audibly. He made some sort of sound that didn’t quite match any reasonable reaction. “Wharnk? Awwwwww!” It was more a sound of disappointment and shock, beautifully melded together.

I looked at him, surely almost crying. “Had to shit….backyard…it’s bad!”

He stood there staring at the closed door of my room for a long time, until I finally emerged holding a hefty bag at arm’s length, saddened as if carrying the corpse of a dead pet to its grave. “Are you done in the shower, ass fuck?” I asked him. “Yeah, dude, it’s all yours.” I threw the bag containing my swim trunks into the dumpster out back, and got into the shower for what would be the most thorough cleaning of my life. We made it to the party, at least.