In my college, there are two types of toilets: the public toilets, and the visitors' and staff toilets. Typically, the staff toilets are much much better than the public toilets, which, are, well, passable... apart from the disabled stall, which is, of course, fit for a king.

The day in question started off like no other. I skipped breakfast because I always get up late (I should set my alarm a bit earlier, but that seems too much like hard work) so by the time I get to campus I am starving. I went to McDonalds with my friends and I had the usual -- a super-sized Quarter Pounder meal, a Coke and two cheese burgers, and maybe a chocolate sunday, I can't remember. But what I do remember is that I hadn't had a shit in a couple of days, so I knew I was going to be needing one very soon.

I went back to campus, and to Computing, my first lesson. It was going fine until about halfway through, when I was hit with a wall of cramps. It felt like I was going to give birth -- contractions every few minutes, beads of sweat were appearing on my brow, my legs went numb, my back seized up, and I went pale. I knew I didn't have long before I would have to bring my brown baby boy into the world.

My teacher must have realized that I was going through some sort of trauma. She came right over to me and asked, "Are you alright? You look a bit pale."

I had to reply affirmatively, partly because what I was working on was two weeks overdue, and if I didn't finish it right then, I wouldn't be in college anymore; but mostly because the Computing block's toilets are the worst in the college, for three reasons: 1) there is only one stall, so anyone who needs to take a dump in this building does it there; 2) the door of the stall doesn't even close; and 3) the toilets are right outside the classroom, and I knew that everyone would hear me. I am a Shameful Shitter when it comes to noise -- smell I don't mind, but noise is different... it's personal.

So I had to wait. Luckily I had a 45-minute break until my film class, and fortunately, my teacher in that class is really understanding, and even more fortunately, that class is located near the best toilets in the college.

Somehow -- I don't know how -- I managed to last the rest of the lesson without letting go of the mother lode relentlessly trying to escape my fleshy prison. If I was French, I might have surrendered and went to the shitty little toilet, but I'm not, so I held on and waited until I could get to my salvation.

When the lesson ended, I ran -- and not so much like a girl, like the last time. This time, I kept my dignity and ran like a man to my favorite toilet. And I made it in record time.

As I entered the men's room, I noticed to my dismay that all of the stalls were taken except one: the disabled toilet.

I don't usually like to use the disabled toilet because I feel guilty that a disabled person will need the monstrous throne. But there is only one disabled person in my college, and she is a girl, so I felt that I could safely shit guilt-free.

I entered the spotlessly clean over-sized stall, locked the door with the over-sized handle, and sat down on the over-sized white seat. But now there was a new problem: the guy next to me was grunting, panting, and making such noises that I was overwhelmed with pity for him and fear of the similar experience I knew I was about to have.

So I released my muscle. And... nothing.

And nothing.

Nothing came out. I tried forcing, but succeeded only in popping a sweat. I immediately broke my "no noise" policy and grunted with all my might... but to no avail.

I tried a different approach. Grasping the bars on either side of the toilet (the ones the disabled people presumably use to get out of their chairs and onto the toilet), I pulled my feet onto the seat and balanced myself into a squatting position. Remembering a story of a squat gone wrong, in which a person, seeing no feet in a stall, walked in on a squatter, I decided to put my shoes on the floor so it looked like someone was using the toilet.

Safely in the squat position, I let 'er rip. I don't think gravity knew what to make of this beast. It was small, the size of a meatball, but it was heavy -- I could tell by the size and power of the splash it made that it was a cannon ball.

You sank my battleship.

While all of this was happening -- my failure, my maneuvering, my release of such impossibly-dense brown matter -- the guy next to me was grunting away, punctuating his guttural moans with little splooshes... and I think maybe those sounds encouraged my bowels to release, because suddenly my baby was coming out.

It was eight inches long and felt just as thick -- my ass was stretched, battered, bruised and mistreated. It was so dense that after I expelled it, it just stood there in the bowl, like a brown telephone pole, peaking a few inches above the toilet bowl.

I didn't know what to do with it. I wiped, needing only a few passes because squatting enabled the monster to pass friction-free. I tried flushing my turd tower, but the water pressure was so low that all it did was move back, sliding around and landing with the end resting perilously close to the seat.

Class was starting in a couple of minutes, so I had no choice but to leave. As I left my bomb site, the guy next to me emerged -- my film teacher! He was the guy making all the noise!

We exchanged an understanding glance. We both knew what we both just went through, and we were both proud for overcoming our beasts. It was a shared experience, and we knew we would never look at each other the same way again. I know, given the intensity of my struggle and the immensity of my product, I deserved his respect and his awe, but all he probably noticed was my shoes with no feet in them, so I doubt that's what I got.

-- Dan