One of the unfortunate side effects of shitting my pants as an adult was that my brain was no longer confident that it was the captain of my body. In that tragic incident, my colon pulled off a coup, and now it was in charge of my bodily functions; as a result, my colon controlled a good portion of my life. I didn't go anywhere without checking with the bowel boss downstairs first, lest I be reminded that I had strayed too far from the facilities without permission. Having once shat myself, I was ever mindful of the exact location of the nearest toilet.

In one area of my life in particular this has caused some close calls. One of my hobbies is bass fishing. I live in the Dallas area, but I will frequently travel several hours into East Texas for a day of bass fishing. A typical day starts early in the morning with a couple of hours on the road, followed by a full day of fishing and then a couple more hours driving home. It is not uncommon for a day of fishing to last 18-20 hours for me. Being the type of person who cannot generally hold a turd for twenty-four hours, this means that I am well versed in the travelshit. I usually know which gas stations, tackle shops, and marinas have the best facilities, and I will always try to drop a load before hitting the water. At lunchtime, marinas are chosen not for the quality of their food but for the quality of their plumbing and the likelihood that their toilet would be functional and unoccupied. Over the years I have been lucky enough to avoid a shoreshit and have always made it to a toilet -- though sometimes just barely.

This day would start out like any other. I picked up my fishing partner around 0430 and we headed east. We'll call my partner Paul, because that is his name (I only changed names to protect potentially humiliated -- namely, myself). It was about a two-hour drive. We listened to the fishing report on AM radio and convinced ourselves that today was the day we would land that elusive trophy bass we so desired. As a general rule, we never ate breakfast, as we were both fully aware of the possible effects of truck stop food.

A little after 0600 we launched the boat and set out to break the lake record. My guts were doing their usual routine -- making noises and cramping up as if there might be trouble -- but I held my ground and ignored the rumblings. By lunchtime my guts had settled down and we hadn't broken any records. We were ready for a break. It was summer and the temperature was well over a hundred degrees.

This particular lake didn't have a marina with decent food, so we usually pulled the boat out of the water and drove over to a nearby marina on another lake (there are three lakes connected, separated only by dams). Our routine was to eat lunch and then head over to the restrooms to tend to business. The restrooms served the campground and marina and were separate from the marina, sort of a cinderblock-and-steel outhouse complex of showers and metal toilets. These were the type of toilets that had a deep shitpit under them, and no running water or flushing. On a hot day the wasps swarmed in the shitpit below and the stench was overpowering. There were three stalls. Paul and I would each retreat to our respective stalls and proceed to discuss our post-lunch fishing strategy. Looking back, this was uncharacteristically Shameless of me, but it was the way we always handled business on this lake.

Except on this particular day I wasn't able to muster the poop troops; and after a symphony of farts and grunts I failed to make a deposit. You'd think that I would know better, but I was eager to get back on the lake and continue fishing.

Back on the lake we fished until dark and then a little while longer. When we finally left the boat ramp it was past 2200 and we were hungry. The marina was closed and we needed to get on the road, so we headed out. After sixteen hours on the lake I was feeling a little nauseous, probably from the sun and the motion of the water. I'm sure the marina cheeseburger and fries also had something to do with it.

About fifteen minutes into our two-hour drive home we saw a roadside diner and decided that another cheeseburger was just what the doctor ordered. The place, called the Pitt Grill, was sort of like a Waffle House, only not nearly as classy. (Note to self: submit the Waffle House poop story next.) We settled into a smoky booth and a leather-faced waitress took our orders. As I watched the tattooed ex-con frying up my dinner on that big slab of greasy iron, I couldn't help but ponder the fact that I hadn't shit in over twenty-four hours.

I devoured my bacon cheeseburger and cheese-covered hash browns, topped it off with a couple of Cokes, and thought about trying for a dump. I headed over to the bathrooms to check out the scene. In a word, unsuitable. The smell would knock the maggots off a shitwagon. There was stuff everywhere -- I say "stuff" because in addition to the urine, feces, and vomit, there were things that I couldn't identify by sight or smell. Needless to say, I had no urge to spend any time in there.

We left. I wasn't worried because I still wasn't feeling any pressure to pinch a loaf. We were about an hour and a half from Dallas and I figured I could hold it if the need arose. I was tired so Paul took the wheel for the drive home.

They say hindsight is 20/20. That those who fail to learn from history are doomed to repeat it. That an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. They're right. Five minutes down the road I started to feel the familiar early warning signs of an impending shitstorm. The fact that I was a passenger and not the driver made things much worse. When I'm driving I can control Bowelzebub much better than when I'm a passenger. I tried to play it off, but within ten minutes I was squirming and trying to sit just right to relieve the pressure. Paul was on the phone with his girlfriend and didn't notice my discomfort. I considered tapping a little gas off to relieve the pressure, but I wasn't confident that I could control the fart, so I decided against it.

A few more minutes and I mentioned to Paul that I needed him to stop at the next gas station. He just gave me a disgusted look and asked why I didn't use the bathroom at the diner. At the next exit I saw my salvation: the neon glow of an open gas station. As we drove past the exit, I nearly lost it. I was saying something about needing to get to a bathroom and Paul was telling me that I could hold it because it was nearly midnight and we needed to put some miles behind us. At this point, I was hurting and trying to hold my ass up off the seat. I told Paul that we were stopping at the next gas station.

In a cruel twist of fate, a roadside sign informed us that the gas station we had just passed was the last one for the next thirty miles. I considered turning back, but by now we were a couple of miles down the road and I knew I wouldn't make it.

Desperate times call for desperate measures. I said the only thing I could think of that would make Paul stop the truck. "Pull over, I think I'm gonna be sick right here and right now!"

Nobody wants to be present when someone pukes, and my words did the trick. The truck pulled over on a nondescript section of Interstate 30, somewhere between Mount Vernon and Greenville, Texas. As I bailed out of the truck I heard Paul commenting about my situation to his girlfriend on the phone.

Traffic was light. There were no buildings, no trees, nothing but a ditch and the highway. I was standing beside my boat, looking for a safe place to squat, when I realized that the clock had run out. I squatted on the shoulder of I-30 next to the trailer tire and dropped my shorts. A massive load of brown liquishit spewed onto the asphalt. I hollered at Paul to pull the truck up a few feet. I needed to squat again and I wanted to hold on to the tire for balance -- but I didn't want to hover over that putrid pile.

I finished up quickly as semis blasted past my truck and boat. I saw a car slowing as it approached us and prayed that it didn't stop. And that it wasn't a cop. Luckily for me, the car passed. A voice in my head was wondering what I was going to use to clean up this colossal mess. Paul hollered out, asking what I was doing back there, and I panicked. I quickly pulled my folding knife from my pocket and cut off my underwear. Using the underwear, I cleaned up as well as I could on the dark roadside. It wasn't perfect, but it would do.

I could see Paul straining to see what I was doing and I was in a hurry to get out of there. Feeling much better, I headed back to the truck. Paul was laughing at me but I was just relieved to be rid of that monstrous load of intestinal terrorism. I told him what had just transpired, but he was in disbelief. We pulled back onto the interstate and made it home without further incident.

From that date forward I have always carried a Ziploc freezer bag with a roll of toilet paper in the boat. I had passed a new milestone in shitting: the bare-assed-on-the-side-of-the-highway shit.

-- Duke E. Mann