Nate Curtis writes: It's been a while since I posted. But when my girlfriend decided to release this episode on her web site, I had to submit it to PoopReport -- which she graciously allowed me to do. The following is written largely by her and only slightly edited by moi. I hope it makes for some enjoyable reading.
I was a senior in college, writing my baccalaureate thesis on medieval medicine -- a topic in itself that makes for lots of funny jokes. Got piles? Sit in a tub with white-colored rocks. Hey, it supposedly worked for King Alfred the Great. Let's also not forget that during conception, if you want a boy, you need to tie a blue ribbon around your right testicle and aim it toward the right-hand side of your wife's womb after eating spicy food on a hot, dry day -- preferably a Wednesday. I could go on, but I think you'd rather I not.
For most of my life, I've had what's sometimes called a "nervous stomach." It's not anything serious, but it's not really treatable. What it amounts to is that when I'm nervous, instead of slight nausea, or headaches, or light dizziness, or cold sweaty palms, or the usual nuisances, I would have terrible stomach pains and uncontrollable diarrhea.
So now, when we consider the nervous stomach and its effects on the workload of a perfectionist, neurotic grade miser, I think you can guess some of what's in this story.
My stomach bothered me a bit on and off through all my heavy course workloads, but it was awful the year that I wrote my thesis. Terrible. So unbearable, in fact, that I was terrified to be more than a few minutes' walk from a toilet. Since I used to have a predisposition to carsickness, my stomach would also ratchet up the terror of driving anywhere. It got so bad that I couldn't drive away from campus with Nate because I just couldn't bear to be so far away from the bathroom in a motion-sick ride.
(She's not kidding. Sometimes she'd opt not to go to the grocery store -- no more than a five minute ride -- because of the thought of a liquid blurt of rancid yellow buttmustard awaiting in her pooper. I remember one time it happened in the Copley Plaza Mall in Boston. While she hid out in a bathroom and attempted to flush her ravaged undies, I had to go to Victoria's Secret on my own and buy her new panties -- it was the only place in the mall selling that essential female undergarment!)
One day in March, I decided I wanted to rent a movie. I told myself that I could drive to the video store -- I'd been feeling so much better after having completed two chapters of thesis, and it was only a few minutes away by car. What's the harm? Nate thought it was a good idea, and so we drove down New Britain Avenue to Blockbuster to find a film.
The moment we pulled into the parking lot, my stomach began to gurgle. "What were you thinking!" my innards hollered at me. "We can't take it anymore!"
"Oh dear," I said, rubbing my tum. "I don't think standing up is a good idea." Nate sighed; he was not so happy with how restroom-dependent I had become in the past few months. He was forever telling me that I could just hold it in if I concentrated hard enough.
(I was getting annoyed. The sudden need for a shitter had diverted and added significant time loads to quite a few car rides. Plus there were times when "any port in a storm" was NOT the motto under which she operated. Sometimes a sketchy roadside gas station wasn't adequate, and we'd need to hunt around for something better while she groaned and clutched her guts in the passenger seat, going, "Can't you find something nicer?!" and me wanting to holler right back, "I already FOUND something, you just didn't like it!" Bear in mind, I am a pretty easygoing fellow, but this had been going on for five months and was getting hard to put up with. Her relationship with the porcelain goddess was definitely putting the pinch on ours.)
"Fine," Nate said, and went in to select a pre-agreed-upon flick. I watched him go, and tried very hard to think about anything other than my dire need to get to a toilet.
It didn't help. A few minutes went by. My stomach gurgled again. And then, suddenly, I felt the muscles give up. I clenched my ass cheeks together very hard, but I knew it was no good.
I also knew that the video store did not have a bathroom I could use.
(FYI: Blockbuster, and most of Hartford, is owned by poop Nazis. The whole no-public-restroom-thing is HUGE in Hartford. Not like Boston, which is plentiful with places you can sneak in and pee/poo as long as one is reasonably -- i.e. not obviously homeless or suffering from a mental imbalance -- dressed.)
Panicked, keeping my butt pulled tight, I looked around the car. All I came up with was...
...a plastic bag from CVS.
Any port in a storm!
Praying that no one walking by in the lot would notice me, I carefully slid the bag under my seat, undid my pants, and just in the nick of time saved Nate's car seat a lot of mess. I don't think I've ever felt more relieved in my life.
(She did nail the seat a little; but I felt pretty bad for her, so I cleaned and Fabreeze'd my little buns off the next day without saying boo.)
But then Nate came back, movie in hand. He wanted to know what was in the bag. How could I tell him? How to say I was holding a bag of my own shit?
"Um," I began. And then he smelled it. And then, being Nate, he was only slightly mad and disgusted; he was much more amused. We weren't sure what to do with the bag, since there weren't any trash barrels in the lot. We settled on quickly opening the door, leaving the bag on the ground, and driving away very rapidly.
(That'll teach the damn poop Nazis!)
So that's it. That's my most embarrassing, humiliating moment: being spared from shitting myself only by the presence of a plastic bag. Thankfully, I never had such a terrible moment ever again. Nowadays I'm a little better about stress management, and the nervous stomach doesn't really happen anymore.
At the time, I was mortified by the incident. Three years later, though, it's pretty damn funny.
