It was the summer of 2001. I was a second year college student. A few months earlier, my friend (who we shall call "Tom") had told me about a summer employment program he'd joined. The job basically involved selling educational books door to door. The company, which shall remain unnamed (they are based in Tennessee), recruits college students in the spring every year to sell books for them in the summer. They really sell you on the idea of making tons of money, which I did not. I was accepted into the program, and after school ended in May, I was off to sales school in Tennessee. After a week there we were given our designated sales locations, which could be anywhere in the country. We were expected to provide our own transportation; since I had a car, that was fine with me. My group's sales territory would be far east Texas, around Tyler.

Tyler, Texas, is a small city of around 100,000 people, give or take a few thousand. Those students who didn't have vehicles were the ones who had the city of Tyler itself as their sales district, since they could walk door to door. Since I had a vehicle, I was assigned the entire neighboring county of Rusk. The biggest "city" in Rusk County was Henderson, with a population of around 11,000; the rest of the country was all rural. When working the rural areas, there might be a few miles between houses (or trailers).

This particular day started out like any other. We woke up at 5:59 in the morning and ate a breakfast of eggs, bacon, and toast at the local diner in Tyler, and then I began my forty-mile journey to Rusk County in order to be knocking on doors by eight. My morning started out just fine, and by noon I was starting to get hungry again. I went to a diner in Henderson and ordered a huge plate of nachos with and all the fixings -- ground beef, sour cream, olives, and plenty of jalapenos.

Now, we are all familiar with this scenario -- what goes in hot usually ends up coming out hot. I should know this. I've had the fiery shits before. It's not pleasant by any means, but in the safety of one's bathroom, it is manageable. My first mistake of the day was consuming this veritable catalyst for the fire-shits even though, since I was traveling around in my car, I did not have the comfort of my own private shit pit at hand. Ignoring this very important fact, I naïvely scarfed down the nachos, with the ton or so of jalapenos piled atop. I then proceeded to head out of Henderson and into the deep rural recesses of Rusk County. This was mistake number two: I was completely isolating myself from any sort of public shit sanctuary. Again, the importance of this escaped me.

For the next two or so hours, everything was fine. Though my stomach was a little restless from the nuclear assault I'd subjected it to, I didn't feel uncomfortable, and didn't put much thought to the idea that I might soon be needing to take a shit. To be frank, I was living in the here and now; and at that moment I didn't need to cleanse my colon, so it was not on my mind.

I stopped at a trailer. I was about twenty minutes outside of town, possibly more. As normal, I grabbed my sample books and headed to the front door.

As anyone who has ever done door to door sales knows, nine out of ten times you get the door slammed on you. This must have been the tenth time -- an attractive mother, who was probably around thirty, answered the door. I gave my "get in the door" spiel and, to my relief, she let me in. She had three kids, two girls and a boy. One girl and boy were under ten, the other girl was fifteen or so.

I gave my sales speech to them, and, again to my relief, the mother decided to buy some books from me. My spiel was about twenty minutes, and after filling out the order form I prepared to bid them adieu. As I got up from the couch, I felt a familiar yet frightening feeling in my gut. The jalapenos had declared war. Nuclear war. A burning sensation was scalding its way down my unsuspecting digestive tract (I should have expected it; I can't blame my poor intestines, they knew not of what I'd done). It felt like someone had lit a bonfire in my asshole. The panic alarms in my brain were beginning to sound. I needed to find a shitter, and fast! I had at most a few minutes before the gates to Hell opened and fiery lava-shit flowed from my poor sphincter.

I clenched my butt cheeks together with as much strength as I could muster. In a few seconds, I would be forced to expel some foul swamp gas from my ass, and I didn't want to alarm the locals. I had to think fast.

They had prepped us in sales school to ask people whose doors we knocked on for small favors. I know, it sounds kinda dickheaded to knock on someone's door unsolicited, try to sell them something, and then ask them for something to drink or whatnot. Believe it or not, most people were pretty kind, and I had scored all sorts of things, like water, juice, milk, even sandwiches and lunch. I had even used peoples' restrooms, though only to drain the lizard. I had never shit in someone's house... let alone a shit of this magnitude. Should I do it? Should I ask to use the restroom? I certainly couldn't tell her of my intentions to befoul her toilet... no, I would have to be sly and casual. No "lady, I really need to defile your porcelain god with my lava shit."

She interrupted my thought process. "You look a little pale... would you like a glass of water?"

I snapped back into reality. "Um, sure. And could I use the restroom also? I don't know when's the next time I'll be near one," I said with a weak smile.

She didn't hesitate. If she knew of the fecal carnage that was about to unfold, she probably would have rethought her reply. "Sure," she said. "Second door down the hall."

Great! Only problem was that the second door down the hall was only fifteen feet or so from the living room where she and her kids were sitting. I'm not a Shameful Shitter per se, but the thought of subjecting these poor strangers to the fumes from my anal holocaust was disconcerting, to say the least. I would have to pray that this was the kind of shit that had no odor... yeah, like this was gonna be one of those.

I muttered thanks or something to that effect and hurried off to the bathroom, trying not too look to eager to reach it. I scampered inside and shut the door behind me. My heart sank. The bathroom was spotless, and had a lemony scent to it. The walls were bleach white. It was a bathroom worthy of sleeping in. I felt awful about what was about to happen within its walls.

I flew to the toilet, dropped trou, and unleashed a torrent of watery, scorching-hot diarrhea, the likes of which I never knew could exist. Spurting forth the vile lava shit, my asshole must have felt that this was Armageddon because it roared and rumbled with a decibel level rivaling a Metallica concert. Sweat poured from my brow, and I hunched forward, trying to evacuate my bowels with as few casualties as possible. I knew I was creating a horrific caca-phony of shit-sounds in that bathroom, and I wanted this to be over as soon as humanly possible.

Worse yet was the smell. A room filled to the brim with rotten eggs had nothing on the death fumes my digestive system had cooked up. I was afraid the paint was going to start peeling from the walls. This was rank!

It was the fifteen-year-old who spoke up first. "Um, excuse me, but is everything alright in there?" Before I could answer, she added, "It smells horrible!"

"Um, I'm alright," I half whimpered. "I'll be out in a minute. I apologize, it must be something I ate."

"It must be!" came the reply. I was thoroughly embarrassed.

Finally, after more than fifteen minutes defiling their pristine shit-palace, I was done. I was breathing heavily from the ordeal, and needed a minute to catch my breath. Unfortunately the air I was breathing wasn't fit for human lungs. I quickly wiped, flushed, and washed my hands. When I exited the bathroom, no one was in the living room. A glass of water sat on the coffee table. I hurriedly drank it, grabbed my books, and stepped outside. The mother, and her three kids were all standing out on the deck.

"Everything okay in there?" asked the mother. I grimaced. What did she mean? Was she asking if I'd destroyed her crapper?

"Um, yeah, I'm fine now. I think I just had a bit of an upset stomach," I replied.

"I'll say!" snorted the fifteen-year-old. I looked at the two younger kids. They were holding their noses, even though we were outside, mocking me.

"Well, I better go. But I'll see you in a month with your books," I said, already starting to scamper to my vehicle.

"Make sure to come on an empty stomach!" snarled the fifteen-year-old. The mother said something to her, but I couldn't hear what. I got in my car and hauled ass out of there.

To say I was embarrassed would be an understatement.

I ended up dropping out of the program before I delivered the books they ordered. My friend had gotten kicked out for pot possession, and since he was the only person I really knew in the group, I decided to leave, too. Another member of the group ended up delivering my book orders for me. It was a relief, because I was dreading having to revisit that trailer again. With my luck, the lava shit -- or some other shit with equal ferocity -- would rear its ugly head, and I would again be stuck in a compromising shit-uation. I only hope the guy who delivered my books for me went on an empty stomach. I highly doubt that particular family will be as open to letting a door-to-door book salesman use their shitter in the future!

-- Turd Sculpter