Last summer I traveled to Taiwan to work as an English teacher. I had spent three years there before and had learned much about the upsides and downsides of living in that part of the world. The rent was cheap, the natives were friendly, and the food could be pretty good. On the other hand, the air and water pollution are horrendous, the weather sucks, and Taiwan has one of the highest population densities in the world. The summer months are the busiest for teachers and I was working nine hours a day in an effort to maximize my earnings. I had little time to eat so I got in the habit of eating breakfast in the morning while I was prepping for class. I always drank Coke with my breakfast and it nearly always gave me the urge to curl one off.

Thankfully there was one toilet downstairs that was usually clean, unoccupied, and had toilet paper. This toilet was a rarity in Taiwan; it was one of the few toilets into which I ever had the pleasure of voiding my bowels that you could actually toss in your toilet paper. Most toilets I had visited in Taiwan had a trash receptacle nearby, where all of the defiled ass gasket material was to be thrown.

One morning I picked up some McDonalds for my breakfast. I had just finished inhaling it when I felt that gut wrenching feeling that I had felt so many times after breakfast. I knew that I had to get downstairs fast because the ass goblins were already beginning to compromise my o-ring. It felt as if they had fashioned a battering ram out of molten shit and were pounding at my bung. I cursed myself for having eaten a bowl of spicy instant noodles the night before. I dropped everything I was doing, clenched my cheeks, and began the turtlehead shuffle downstairs to my safe haven.

I was thankful to see that the stall was indeed unoccupied. I quickly made my way in and locked the door. Normally I would have taken the time to lay down a protective layer of paper on the seat, but I was already riding the clutch. I made a quick scan of the seat and didn't spot any watch springs, shit spatters, or piss droplets. I dropped trou and impressed myself by not actually beginning the purge before my ass hit the seat.

After blowing some serious ass lava, I reached over to grab some toilet paper from the industrial size roll that was fixed inside a smoke grey plastic dispenser. The rolls of paper used in that stall were huge and would have probably fit perfectly into a five gallon bucket. I was still half asleep at the time and wasn't really paying attention to what I was doing. That is, I wasn't paying attention until I heard a funny skittering sound. The sound would only happen when I pulled on the toilet roll. I quickly realized that the sound was coming from inside the plastic dispenser.

I looked over and was horrified at what I saw. Inside the dispenser was a native of Taiwan that I didn't particularly care for: a cockroach. One that was easily over two inches long. The bastard was inside the dispenser and perched atop the roll of paper. Every time I would pull he would go skittering back to the top of the roll. I pulled and pulled as hard as I could without breaking the paper. He just kept scurrying back to the top. It was like I was running some kind of cockroach exercise wheel. The roach was at his own amusement park and I was the carnie in charge of his ride.

While sitting there, I recalled a Discovery Channel program I saw and remembered the narrator saying that roaches contaminate everything they touch. It was then that I became determined to get that roach out of the dispenser so that I could present my soiled ass with some uncontaminated toilet paper. I tried a few a few more snap tugs at the roll, but the roach's speed was too great.

I had to think of a new approach. All of the pulling and jerking on the roll had left a rather large pile of paper on the floor. I was getting tired of sitting there with a dirty ass and I had to get back to work.

What I did next was probably not the smartest thing I have ever done. Using my left hand, I clenched a fist and began pounding at the dispenser as hard as I could. I guess I hoped he would die from fear. But he didn't. Instead, he went to his last and least preferred defense mechanism: he took wing. The little fucker began buzzing all around the inside of the dispenser. I could hear his wings beating and slapping as his carapace slammed into the hard plastic. I immediately stopped pounding, said a few expletives, and leaned as far away as I could.

Only a couple of seconds elapsed before the roach's chaotic flight led him out the bottom of the dispenser and onto the floor. Upon hitting the floor, it made a break for the nearest cover: my pants there around my ankles.

I quickly sprang to my feet and tried to get in one good stomp before he made his destination. It was no use; my pants were acting like handcuffs and I damn near fell over after only one weak attempt. The roach was now lurking under my pants. I was terrified that he would crawl up my pants leg.

And so I made my final stand. Using all of my speed, I jerked my pants up and spotted the roach resting right between my feet. His antennae were swiveling around, as if he were trying to sense my next move. I gave the best kick I could -- and it connected. I sent the roach spinning at high velocity out of the stall via the crack under the door. My ordeal was finally over.

I watched the crack under the door for a few seconds in case he tried to return and cause me even more distress. Confident that he wouldn't come back, I stripped off a few layers from the toilet roll and threw them in the bowl. I then got some paper that the roach couldn't have possibly touched and wiped my filthy ass.

When I exited the stall the roach was nowhere to be seen. I washed my hands and splashed some water on my face. I badly needed a stiff drink.

During my first three-hour class, I could not stop thinking about my experience. In an effort to start the healing process, I finally decided to tell my boss about my twilight zone roach encounter. My boss was a real southern gentleman, but I knew from previous conversations that he wasn't above talking about turds. During my telling of the story my boss's face went pale and he looked down at his desk. He admitted to me that he had been in the stall before me and had not stood up to the roach. He instead just used the paper that the roach had treaded on.

It felt good knowing that I was a braver man -- and that among the two of us I was the only one with a dirt chute completely free of roach contaminants.

-- Devin D