To start at the beginning, you need to get a little back history. When I was 18 I was a very serious Highland Bagpiper. Bagpiper, you say? What does that have to do with a good poop story? Well the Bagpipe Band, which I was in at the time, had a yearly trip to Canada to play at a festival there. The trip consisted of a weeklong, all-expense-paid orgy of bagpipe playing, heavy drinking and, most of all unhealthy eating. We spent the whole week drinking beer and eating lobster and steak.

The important thing to remember is that what little water we drank was heavy Canadian water. The combination of the change in mineral content of the water we did drink, and the dehydration from all the alcohol, along with the late hours and shellfish and red meat, resulted in a bad case of constipation for the lot of us. I mean I didn't go for a week and neither did the rest of the guys in the band.

Now it bears mentioning that we weren't dainty guys. I myself was quite portly at the time and my band mates, while not as quite as corpulent as I, were not ballet dancers. So you had a bunch of bound-up, beer guzzling, bagpipers (say that three times fast) and not a bowel movement between them for half a fortnight. The situation was grim.

When the week was over, we had an all-night bus trip back over the border to an airport in Maine. Before reaching the airport the bus stopped for breakfast. At which we all had sobered up and by that time we were hungry. After a good greasy breakfast, washed down with plenty of strong coffee we went back in the bus and over to the airport.

And then it happened.

I don't know if it was an electrolyte imbalance that the breakfast had corrected, or if it was all the coffee. My bowels were erupting like Mount Vesuvius! What was once blocked was now looking to flow like the Amazon. I hunched over and looked for the Men's room. I looked for the bathroom signs, no luck. Bangor International Airport has one men's room and it was on the other side of the Airport. I did the "God please don't let my sphincter let go and leave a brown trail behind me" waddle as fast as I could to the bathroom.

Finally I get to the rest room. I go in and... WHHOOOSH! A gray stink cloud hits me in the face. I mean, it smelled like someone died in there. Healthy people shouldn't smell like this. This was wrong. There were various dribbling sounds emanating from the stalls, along with grunts and some bad gaseous emanations. All three stalls were taken! There was nothing to do about it except clench my cheeks and wait it out.

After a little while someone emerged from the middle stall. It was Donaghey, a member of my Bagpipe band. He came out looking relieved, sated. He saw me crouching desperately. "There were no survivors," he said with a glint in his eye. "Don't worry, I warmed the seat up for you," he said with a knowing smile.

I didn't care any more. I had no dignity left.

I scooted past him, closed the door behind me, dropped trow, and had a seat. It was one of those "God I feel like I'm giving birth... it's going to kill me, get it out of me, but it feels so good" transcendental experiences that you can only have after a long bout of constipation. I gripped the walls. I curled my toes. It felt great!!

After I came back to earth. I started to notice my surroundings again. The gurgling, porcelain slapping, and the pitiful desperate moaning going on in the stall on my right was getting worse. It sounded bad. I was concerned.

"Who's over there," I called over. "Pat" (another guy in my band) answered back. "Who's over there," I called to the other stall. "Danny" (yet another band mate) answered in a meek desperate voice. The straining and gurgling had stopped suddenly. And the silence was a little unsettling. I felt like maybe this was the time to reach out to my fellow man. You know, a little camaraderie, a little support. "Hey Pat," I said. "Are you okay over there?" The moment lingered and hung heavy in the air.

"I think my asshole melted off." His pathetic voice answered me.

I thought about that. It didn't seem biologically possible. Clearly despite my good intentions, Pat was beyond my aid. "How about you Danny?" I called over. "BLLEEEECCHHH!!!" was the only answer he ever gave.

And as he blew chunks I was reminded of the 1970's hit song by Stealer's Wheel: "Clowns to the left of me, Jokers to the right, here I am, stuck in the middle with you." Only this time it was "Vomit to the left of me, Diarrhea to the right here I am, stuck in the middle with DOO!"

There we were, reduced to the level of dumb beasts. I wiped, pulled 'em up and went over to wash my hands. Just then the door opened. A well-dressed businessman entered but was hit by the same gray wall I was. He looked startled, scared even. He gave me a look. I can only describe the look he gave me this way: if, when he entered the men's room, I had been hacking up a couple of dead Boy Scouts with a chainsaw, he would have given me the exact same look. His eyes bugged out, he involuntarily backed out the door. At the same time the look he gave me made me feel like he wanted me to explain this somehow, to make sense of it for him.

"Just turn around and walk away," was all I could tell him.

-- Shermbroker