I had been roped into attending my fiancé's cousin's wedding -- a full, two-day Indian wedding. And while my fiancé is no stranger to the consumption of animals, her entire family is -- hence, this event was to be produced with a complete absence of meat. "No problem," I said, and with that my mind churned out a perfect solution. "I'll just eat three days worth of meat today to compensate". My fiancé shook her head in disbelief at my immaturity as we packed for the trip.

The shindig was going down all weekend at a grade school about a four-hour drive from my place. Our extremely early departure threw my regular shitting schedule off balance, but this early in the game, I didn't think twice. Just another overlooked event in a sequence that would have me crying on a toilet by night's end. "If only I had..." would become the theme of nearly every sentence on the long drive back.

I'd like to pre-empt the non-meat and potatoes of this story with some statements of fact. I'm a white boy. I'm Midwest corn-fed throughout. And I clock in at just under 6'4". Our arrival was marked with throngs of stares, as I easily had a foot on the tallest people there. Countless relatives of the bride came out to great me (most of them having arrived from overseas), and I began to feel a bit like a circus sideshow freak. I quickly became the spectacle of the pre-game warm up and was ushered off to the breakfast table by said relatives. They all wanted to know if I would "eat their food" -- and I was game.

They piled my plate with a some sort of breakfast, directed me where to sit, and stood there wide-eyed and smiling with that inquisitive look of "Will he eat it?" on their faces. After the first bite, I mustered a smile and told them I thought it was good. This proclamation was practically met with cheers, and before I could take another bite the small crowd dissipated.

My fiancé laughed as they brought another plate over for me to eat. "Since you like it so much, here, have some more." I wasn't about to offend anyone, so I ate it as well. My fiancé assured me it is quite normal that this dish was chock full of chili peppers. Chilies for breakfast? I should have stopped then...

Lunch passed with the same refrain. Food was given to me, and when it was obvious that I didn't mind it, more was brought out. It seemed they were determined to find something I wouldn't eat. I like hot and spicy food, but this stuff was of a different caliber. Spicy, yes, but the heat seemed to be hidden somewhere in the food -- a slow and gradual buildup the more I ate. Careful inspection revealed a common theme among all dishes: these small green chili peppers. I swear there were peppers even in the dessert -- they were in EVERYTHING.

The afternoon came and went without even a peep from the bowels. The specially flown in chefs, brazen by the lack of complaints from lunch, went absurdly heavy with the green chilies for dinner -- ten star spicy on a five star scale -- but by this point I was engaged in a battle to impress the relatives, so I acted as if I didn't even notice. The dastardly dish in question was at least 50% chilies, with some other grain of sorts.

I polished off a descent-sized portion and drowned my throat with water. As an uncle came by to see if I was enjoying the food, another relative commented that nobody wanted to eat the chili dish because it was just too damn spicy, even for the Indian people FROM India. Asked for my opinion regarding the dish, I choked back tears and let them know that I didn't think it was all that spicy. The male ego is a bastard, I tell ya! I then swallowed the remains of my pride with a big glass of water as, moments later, a second helping was brought out to me. There was plenty more, they assured me.

Dinner was over and the ceremony went on in the school's gym. As I was sitting there, the room starts spinning, and it hit me. The experience of a thousand shits before let me know this was a big one, and this one wanted out NOW. I snuck out the gym, headed for the nearest bathroom and slipped inside.

But this was no standard bathroom: this was the bathroom for the little tykes at the school. Everything seemed to be sized just right for them, but just barely big enough for the standard person. With shitty beef and friends knock-knock-knocking on Heaven's door, I had no time to search for the teachers lounge; the single tiny stall would have to do. I swooped to the shrunken throne, dropped trou, and flipped my fancy tie over my shoulder; this was going to take a while.

Hoping for the best but expecting the worst, I let loose. But the only cast member to make an appearance was Mr. Gas. Mr. Gas had a long, drawn out soliloquy that went on forever as he blatantly announced the expected arrival of his peers. The shit train, I gathered, was fully loaded with passengers and pulling into town.

Within seconds, the smell engulfed me. Most everyone can somewhat tolerate their own brand, but this one was simply beyond toxic. This was an emergency -- I looked up, hoping to see oxygen masks deploy from the ceiling, but it seemed like it wasn't going to be that kind of ride. So much for using my seat cushion as a floatation device. I swear I heard people start coughing outside the bathroom. I was forced to wrap the tie around my face to push on.

To my surprise, nothing came out. I grunted and struggled to get the ball rolling, but still no dice. I quickly realized that my intestines had become, essentially, one giant shit cannon. The meat indiscretions of the previous day, coupled with the hot chili & vegetable fiber gunpowder I shoved in hours before, was going to do me in. There was an unsanitary weapon of mass destruction inside my intestines, and it was packing some serious heat.

I braced myself against the tiny stall walls and shoved. The turtle poked and started a slow crawl towards the water. With six inches out and no end in sight, I broke off negotiations and followed with a courtesy flush. From the looks of it, I was having twins.

The second twin started out just as the first; but before I could even react, the shit cannon (the rabbit in this race) went off. Darting out past the second twin was a good half-gallon of some of the foulest goo that has ever come out of me. As if that weren't enough, the tail of this newly minted crap comet was ON FIRE! It was as if NASA decided to bring back samples of the surface of the sun and had inadvertently stored them inside my ass.

Those chilies that I had so dutifully consumed earlier were on their way out, and they wanted to unleash the fire within. These constituents of Mount Ass violently exploded with a concussive force and the hot magma spewed forth wildly. Within moments, the tide turned as liquids changed to solids and a ninth Hawaiian island was birthed right out of my ass. I couldn't believe it! I've had the spicy shits numerous times, but this was inconceivable.

People who have faced similar situations will no doubt attest to the feeling of having an impossibly long shit -- an endless shit, if you will. And that is what this felt like. Several lava flows and flushes later, the eruptions finally ceased. As I came too, I gathered my wits to look around and survey the damage. Tears were still flowing from my eyes and my tie was clenched in my mouth from the pain, but, surprisingly, a final flush revealed a sparking clean toilet bowl with no collateral damage.

Against common decency, I reached between my legs into the toilet and splashed what water I could on my burning starfish -- I had no other option to cool things down. I cleaned up quickly but carefully, as my ass was in no hurry to recover from the onslaught. After my gentle return to the gym, the rest of the evening was a haze of pain, with a few more trips to the restroom. Thankfully the additional downloads were easy in comparison, given the acclimated condition of the starfish.

The next day, after complaints from most of the guests, the chefs toned everything down to a one star spicy.

-- DJ Poo