I was in love. Love causes us to move mountains. To forge streams. To reach for the stars. To meet the parents. You know that first, fateful meeting -- the stuttering, stilted conversations, the embarrassed shuffling feet, the horrible stench of "Sooooo, you're the guy what's porking our daughter, are ya?" hanging heavy in the air. I'd made it through the initial handshake, my palms ringing with sweat, and the dinner, where I ate too much and much too fast. Her parents were pleasant enough, and I think I managed to avoid making a huge ass of myself. Toward the end of the evening I was allowed to escape to the downstairs TV room to watch a football game while my beloved and her family remained upstairs, chatting around the remnants of the meal. Obviously not sports fans.

I slumped into the overstuffed couch, contentedly watching the game. And then it hit me. The really-full-belly, gotta-make-room-for-daddy, clear-the-decks-mates-we-are-in-for-one-helacious-shitstorm-here shits. I tried at first to concentrate -- call it biorhythms, call it meditation, call it hopeless desperation -- but that shit was going to come out no matter what silly mind tricks I enlisted to put it into retreat. You know that shit where waves of sweat course over your forehead and a sharp pain appears somewhere between your shoulder blades and you become convinced you are having a heart attack? THAT's the kind of shit I was arguing with.

Luckily, there was a bathroom downstairs, so I did not have to traipse past the FAM to do my deed. I could sneak in and out downstairs, with none the wiser. It was very important to me that no one in that family suspect that I actually SHIT. Ever in my life. I was shitless. I was the perfect human. I did not shit. I was above shit.

Unfortunately, my lower intestines knew the truth. Because, as I lowered my poor, unsuspecting ass down over that bowl, my sphincter raised up with a vengeance and let loose with its unearthly cargo. This THING came on full force -- but as violently as it had approached, that is just how smoothly it exited! It came GLIDING out, and it came fast. There was no straining involved. It was actually almost a pleasant feeling, a veritable freight train of poop. No, there's something wrong with that metaphor -- this thing flowed out so smoothly from my ass it was more like an electric tram of poop.

At some point the tram stopped and I had to pinch off, reluctantly. I believe I actually managed to shift my center of gravity with this intense, immediate weight loss. I turned to glance down into the bowl, knowing it was going to be impressive. Three full wraps and a snap. That's right. I'd heard about it before, but always dismissed it as locker room talk, an urban legend even. But there it was. I had lined the circumference of that bowl a full three times before snapping off! If this thing were on a potter's wheel, it would look like a good start towards a nice shit vase. If I were a potter...

It was quite a beauty, and you can be sure had I been in possession of a camera that day, this story would have been accompanied by a sepia-toned photographic essay. (Big fan of the sepia tone; it's classy, I think.)

After admiring my poop tram for a few minutes, and taking time to burn the image into my memory banks for posterity and future bragging rights, I began the task of cleaning up. In my zest to pinch that thing off, you see, I had left a little gerbil in the tunnel. I wadded up ball after ball of toilet paper and jabbed at the offensive little rodent. He was not to be had without a fight. When I felt clean enough, and I had run out of toilet paper, I zipped up and washed my hands.

It was all over, except for the flush.

So I flushed. And said a prayer. And the water rose. And the shit rose. And the toilet paper balls rose. And flowed. Right over the tank rim and on to the indoor/outdoor downstairs bathroom carpet. As the foulness splashed around my sock-feet, I fumbled madly for a plunger, but there was none. There was no way out. I stared at the pooling, reeking stench, and I knew I was going to have to take that long walk up the stairs to where my future father-in-law sat at table, lingering over his nice dinner, completely oblivious to the all-too-natural disaster being played out in his very basement.

As I approached the stairs, dead man walking, I smelled something new. Something I had never smelled in my life. It was horrible -- not shit horrible, but horrible in and unto itself. I realized it was coming from the cellar door. There was another level of horror to this house! I opened the cellar and stopped at the top of the steps, hearing the crashing and spilling of water on concrete. Already vibrating from panic, I descended.

Did you know that some homes are built with something called a septic tank for waste removal? And that sometimes this septic tank can back up? And that the chances of a septic tank backing up greatly increase when someone dumps a full assload of shit and fifty-three balls of wadded up toilet paper into the system all at once?

Well, I DIDN'T know that. My parents always had city sewer service.

I stood on the concrete, watching in terror as wave after wave of septic poured from a pipe four feet up the wall and into the center of the basement. Septic is a strange mixture of human waste, dishwasher waste, and shower waste. It has a distinct odor and a horrifying sound: SQUORSH! SQUORSH! FLUMP! FLUMP! SQUORSH!

So, I met the parents. I ate a pleasant dinner with them. And at the end of the evening, I found myself on my hands and knees, shoulder to shoulder with my future father-in-law, digging my own shit out of a toilet and mopping his off the basement floor. And so you see, love caused me to move mountains, to forge streams, and to reach for the turds, all in the same day. I think I made quite a first impression on her parents.

This Friday marks our ten year anniversary.

-- SnapKing